DEATH OF THE POPE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18464, 27 January 1922, Page 5

DEATH OF THE POPE

LARGE CROWDS VIEW BODY. FUNERAL TO BE A SIMPLE ■ ceremony. Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright, ROME, January 24. The Pope is lying in State in the chapel of the Sacrament, the second'apartment to the right when entering St. Peter’s. Immense crowds are paying homage, including many peasants, and affecting scenes are yitneased. Thousands are kneeling on the pavement of the church praying for the soul of the departed. The public is not allowed in the chapel, but the features of the dead Pope are plainly seen through a grating. The Pope is dressed in his pontifical robes and a white mitre. The body is guarded by members of the Pope’s noble guards; The body late in the dav was carried to the crypt, where it will be buried. Extreme simplicity will characterise the funeral,—A. and N.Z. Cable. TRIBUTE BY DR LISTON. Reference to the death of Pope Benedict XV was made in all the Roman Catholic Churches in Auckland on Sunday evening. In a sermon at St. Benedict's Church, Dr J. M. Liston, Roman Catholic Coadjutor Bishop of Auckland, said: “Benedict XV will leave dps mark upon the work!, for he was a man of true Christian charity and a statesman of large vision and high courage. He pontifictoa was an unbroken record of good doing. He proclaimed time and time again, and with fearlessness, the eternal principles at justice and charity that must reign between nations as well as individuals if civilisation is to be saved; he stated the true principles of peace between warring nations from which President Wilson afterwards drew his 14 points, and he preached the doctrine of disarmament long before tile Washington Conference. “One’s only regret is that a statesman of such calibre and a man of God was npt -called in at the 6nd of the war to deal with the problems of peace. None would have laboured more wisely than ho, more justly, and more unselfishly for the happiness of the world. None better than he could have laid down the secure foundations of a permanent temple of peace. ‘Unless _ the Lord build the house, they labour in vain who build it.’ Amid the strife of nations ho stood out as a’splendid figure of charity, for ho spent many millions in. roJkoving distkesa in Belgium. France, Germany, Austria, and Russia; he brought relief to thousands upon thousands, hundreds of thousands, of anxious parents of all countries distracted at receiving no news of their soldier-boys by organising a bureau of information; ho arranged for the transference to Switzerland of many thousands of wounded and invalid soldiers, again of all countries, for the better treatment of prisoners of war, and for the exchange of prisoners between enemy countries. A noble record of charity, given freely, given gladly to Catholic®, Protestants, Jews, and pagans alike.” In conclusion, Dr Liston 1 ' said: “In this the hour of her sorrow, the Ohurch may well lift up her heart in gratitude to God for having given her so great and so good a Pontiff in the hour of her need, and pray that such another, in God’s mercy, may bo vouchsafed to her to guide, with equally sure and steady hand, the barque of Pewß. in the years which lie liefcro n