THE NEW CARDINALS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XII, Issue 4408, 30 December 1875, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE NEW CARDINALS.

[FROM THE "TIMES."] Stjch a list of new Cardinals as that which the Pope iead out on .Friday must be scanned frith special interest at the present time. He himself has all the physical vigour of a wonderfully long-lived race, but there must soon be a vacancy in the Papal Chair, and on the composition, of the Sacred College will depend the kind of man chosen to guide the Church of Rome through a peculiarly critical season. A Pope can thus go far towards naming his own successor. He may jnot, indeed, be able to secure the election of a particular Cardinal, but he can usually prevent the choice of any dignitary whom he does not like by " packing " the Sacred College, if we may apply so profane a word to so august a process. Pius IX. has left no one in any doubt as to his own wishes. Were he free to name his succcessor, he would choose a man of the old Italian type, an unflinching Ultramontane, who would make no terms with the Government of Italy until it should give him back the patrimony of St, Peter. He signifies such a wish in every fresh nomination of Cardinals, and not least in the selection of this new list. One o£ them is French and five are Italians. We might naturally 'have expected the one Frenchman to be the ablest and most energetic prelate in the Catholic Church of France ; Dut Monseigneur Doupanloup is understood to have aroused angry susceptibilities which all his splendid services have not been able to efface. His opposition to the Infallibilist Party at the Council of the Vatican, and the rather vehement independence of his temper, shew, that he is not to be depended on when blind obedience is the highest ecclesiastical duty. Being a practical man and a politician, he is ready, it is said, to make some compromise with. Victor Emmanuel. We dare say that his reputation for an incurable love of fighting may also stand in the way of his promotion. But he may console himself by remembering that a yet greater Frenchman than himself, Bossuet, was excluded for much the same reasons. Meanwhile the Pope has made a choice against which there is nothing to be said on the score of safety. The Archbishop of Rennes is a Prelate who will astonish nobody, endanger nothing, and do as he is told. The addition of five Italian members to the Sacred College for one Frenchman is in accordance with the traditions of the Papacy. The belief of the Vatican is that Italian lineage and Roman training furnish the Cardinals best fitted to avoid making mistakes. Men of ruder nationalities are supposed to be rash, and too ready to assent to self-evident propositions on the spur of the moment, instead of waiting till they see whether there is any necessity to admit even that twice t-vyo are four, and of then saying the very i=ust which will suffice to settle the particular business in hand. An Italian theaiogian can, it is boasted, give a score of doctrinal or practical decisions, differing from each other by a scarcely perceptible shade, when the rough wits of Englishmen or Germans would see but one straightforward piece of exposition. The Italian Cardinals also know the ways of the Papacy with a thoroughness which has become almost instinctive, for the simple reason that they have lived all their lives near the Vatican, and in many cases belong to families which seem to have almost prescriptive rights to seats in the Sacred College. They form the finest example of a bureaucracy in the world, and they hand down the tradition of the Papacy with unbroken unity. It is the more important that they should do so because its machinery is at least as elaborate as that of any secular State. Each of the spiritual departments obeys set rules as rigidly as if a gleam of inspiration never came to the Papacy. The Pope and his permanent officials are naturally unwilling to run the risk of having the official threads of tradition snapped by rude barbarians from the Thames or the Rhine. But the chief cause of the preference given to Italians is less recondite. It is precisely the same as that which made Tory Town Councils, in the days of the unreformed Municipalities, in.variably give Tories the vacaut seats. As the Pope and most o£ the Cardinals are themselves Italians, they naturally seek to keep the management of the Church in the hands of their party. They know pretty well what will be done by men of their own race, trained under their own eye; but it is more difficult to calculate the ecclesiastical orbit of Englishmen, Frenchmen, or Germans. All the essential practices of the Papacy these foreigners might maintain as safely as the Italians themselves, and they would achieve a very slender success indeed if they did not j display as much practical wisdom as men who, in spite of the boasted Italian sagacity, ! are at least as conspicuous for blundering as ' for craft. Still they would undoubtedly be more apt to cultivate friendly relations with Governments like that of Italy, and hence the Italian party obey the instinct of seli-pre-servation in retaining the supreme control of the Sacred College, It is often asked whether the Church of Rome will be able to live on good terms with the Democracies which are rising over the whole world. It will certainly not if the present Pope be a fair specimen of coming Pontiffs. His brief dream of Liberalism has been followed by a declaration of war against '■ modern society in the Syllabus, and he now offers a further indication of his political opinions by giving'the honours of the Cardinalate to Monseigneur Simeoni, who has been distinguishing himself by a protest against religious toleration in Spain. Startling as that protest is by the crudeness of ita persecuting fervour, it is nothing more than a practical application of doctrines which the present Pope has never lost an opportunity of declaring to be divine trnth. Nor has he differed from other Pontiffs in any respect 3ave in the vehemence of his denunciations. Gregory XVI. condemned in much the same strain the plea of Lamennais, forjreligious toleration, the separation of the Church from the State, and an alliance between the Church and Democracy. Nor, in truth, can the Papacy help claiming supremacy over all the Powers and Principalities of this world when it asserts the logical result of its own principles. If it were perfectly frank, it would give the two most Democratic countries in the world—America and France —clear warning that they have no right to tolerate any religion bat that of Rome. The Church of Rome, however, knows when to keep unwelcome claims oat ef sight. On Friday the Pope invested with all the honours of the Cardinalate the first American who has ever been admitted to the Sacred College; and the mere presence of Cardinal M'Clo3kev would suffice to teach the authorities of the Roman. Church that they mußt be very cautious indeed in the practical assertion of her claims to absolute supremacy. To the United States of America they can look with some degree of comfort. There emigration from the Old World, and especially from Ireland, is raising a Catholic community which may in time be more numerous than that of some exclusively Catholic countries. The American, Catholics are building splendid churches and spreading rapidly. They have gained great political power, and they sometimes control the elections , of certain towns.; With much foresight they hare bought large strips of land by the side

o£ . the railways .. which run West- i ward, and thus their Church will soon have -

a princely endowment. They may also win many converts from rich classes eager to find some greater relief from the bareness: of Democracy than the bareness of Protestantism. But the prospects of the Catholics in America would indeed be blighted if they were to make arrogant claims of political superiority. Somehow they must accommodate the overshadowing pretensions of the Vatican to the modest part they have to play yet a while. They must not only make terms with Democracy, but speak its language, use its instruments, and try to outdo it at its own work. Nay' the Vatican itself must soon set itself to the same task, if it would avert losses in the Old World which will inoi'ii than outweigh the gains in the New. The present Pope, of course, will never so far bend to the necessities of modern society, but his successor will doubtless be more pliable, and so elastic are the doctrines of the Papacy, when manipulated skilfully, that Rome may still make a bold bid for Democratic favour. Ultimate success she will not attain, for the genius of her whole system is alien from the free life of modern society; but she may gain temporary triumphs even in places where she now excites animosity by the vehemence of her intolerance.