ITALY.

Otago Witness, Issue 1422, 22 February 1879, Page 6

ITALY.

Rome, January 11.

The Pope's encyclical letter occupies seven columns in the Asevato Romano. The Pope inveighs against Socialist Commissioners and Nihilists, who militate no longer secretly, but openly, against the civil State,rupturing the matrimonial tie, ignoring the rights of property, claiming every thin g, however legally inherited or honestly acquired, and attempting even the lives of kings. These ministers' j agencies sprang from the Reformation, which opened the sluice gate of scepticism till godless Governments have arisen, and the Redeemer of the world is ignored. Youths are trained to believe that man's destinies are 1 bound by the present, not by any herei after. Hence the impatient and aggreaBive spirit which seeks its gratification at other's expense. This natural result of the Reformation was indicated by previous Pontiffs i from Clement XII to Pius IX, in their allocutions and encyclicals, but a Church warning is more than ever required. The equality desired by Socialists is contrary to Scripture. There are distinctions between angela in heaven, and must be distinctions between men on earth. Where tyranny prevails, the Church Bhields the oppressed, and where tyranny is too strong, she enjoins resignation. The Pope justifies marriage, and subservience of woman to man, of child to parent, and of servant to master. Such independency rightly observed in the State, as in the family, would operate on earth as it does in heaven. Poverty, of which Socialism is impatient, is corrected by the Church, which, besides her own charitie3, enjoins alms-giving on the rich, to whom she thus reconciles the poor. Such is the solution of the evils for which Socialism seeks a revolutionary remedy. Let, therefore, all principalities and princes accept the Church as the safeguard of earthly and the surety of heavenly things, and let the State regard the encyclical as an appeal to all Catholics to organise a crusade against a murderers' instition, and with that object to participate in political elections. January 17th. The Vatican intends to establish severalnew bishoprics in the United States, and institute a new hierarchy, different from the present one. The Pope has sent circulars to bishops outside Europe, with a view of extending the collection of Peter's Pence to all parts of the world.