CARDINAL VANNUTELLI.

Otago Witness, Volume 12, Issue 2639, 12 October 1904, Page 72

CARDINAL VANNUTELLI.

— Envoy to Ireland —

Cardinal Vannutelli, who as Papal envoy *o Ireland for the opening of tfiio Armagh Catholic Cathedral made an all but royal progress through the country, is a very notable man. Cardinal Bishop of the Hcman Church (one of six of that dignity in the whole, world), Chancellor of the Treasury of the Congregation of Propaganda, Prefect of the Council, Axehpriest of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, Bishop of Palestrina, accredited Protector of Portugal at the Holy See, Cardinal Protector of the Carmelites, the Sulpicians, the Augustinians of the Assumption, and other orders, with a crowd of other titles to honour and offices of responsibility in the diplomatic and ecclesiastical service of the Holy See, he remains through all and in spite of all just Vitucenzo Vannutelli, the tallest ecclesiastic in Rome, and the younger brother of the more distinguished Cardinal Sei*afino, who was in the running for thei Popedom.

— Nature's Nobility. —

Devoid of the commanding intellect and personal ambition which often make men in the front ramk of power both fearedi and scrutinised, Cardinal Vinoemzc is fortunate in his friends, bxit still more happy in the possession, in common with his brother, of inexhaustible amiability. He is endowed •with Natuire's 1 patent of nobility — a frank and simple kindness of heart, and a knowledge of human nature and sympathy with it, "from which springs a roya) gift of unfailing tactfulness. Th* clever indirectness of astute diplomacy is out-witted and out-manosuvred by the refinement and truth of ihis cultivated good nature.

— The Cardinal and the Primate. —

What unerring instinct was that which prompted the Cardinal to drive to the Protestant Primate's, through the squalid rioters whom odium theologicum and whiskyhad roused to fury, as bofeb, are apt to do in the North of Ireland ! The incident was characteristic. The venerable Primate was deeply touched by the kindly act, and the y^elb a»d curses "of fighting sectaries were

exchanged for a burst of friendly cheer?. At tke^simple touch of. human brotherhood hatred was dissolved. ] —The Peelers' Point of View.— ! The Cardinal was the despair of officials, and especially of th>e Royal Irish Constabu- , lary. As the stalwart men of the finest gendarmerie in Ihe world kept the ways , through the crowds, the Cardinal, a head over the tallest of them, would catch bight of some old man or wots an struggling to get near hem. and would break the ranks to let them touch his land and kiss» his ring. "W,liat a fine policeman he would make, ' said the admiring R.I.C. — Fluent and Eloquent. — The sama kindliness of good, feeling was shown in the eloquent and graceful speeches he delivered, in which the vaikd turn of V>Jora»e in his beautiful Italian enabled him to -shower compliments without repetition, a feat beyond the power of the bald translations of newspapers* to repeat in their reports. I — The People's Cardinal. — ! It is easy to ttnderstand how he comes to ■' ba so pop'uiar with the Romans. When he comes into Rome from his diocese of Palestrina, a few mites Outside the city, as he frequently doe-s for thf functions ;<T> Santa Maria" Maggiore, h^ is always surrounded by crowds of his people, who love 'to exchange with him smile for smile. But i he delights to letire to his dk>cet«, where j he- was born, for the greater freedom and simpler life which he can there enjoy. i — Pius X/s, Kir.drsd Spiiit. — j Neither r.n anchorite nor a worldling, n£'lth«r a sour and immature ascetic ncr a man from whom the spiritual world has> re- .' ceded, Cardinal Vannuttiii is a kir.dly, courtly gentleman and v spiritual-minded

priest! one to whom holiness Is not incompatible with humanity, an-1 who preserres the harmony of life in bright and cheerful godliness. Notwithstanding the pomp and circumstance of an exalted position, he lives a' really simple life, and in this, as in, ether wars (in soma respects even in outward pemblance), he is a kindred spirit Lo Pius X. It is said that it wos to the influence of Cardinal Vincenzo more than to any cthei than the Pops yielded in his passionate resistance to election. ,, — The Roman Road- to Honour. —

Cardinal Vincenzo "Vannuteiii be^an Iris carter, as most of his calibre begin, by resi- ! -dence at rhe Collegio Capranico, and made ' his studies at the Collsgio' Roumno and the j Gregorian Born fn 1836. on December 5, at Gennazaino, in Palestrina, he is consequently in Iris sixty-eighth year. Ordained priest in 1360, he became Professor of Theology beiore entering the diplomatic service, in 1865, in the suite of Mgr., afterwards Cardinal. Oreglia in Holland, ' and subsequently at Brussels. Recalled byPius IX, he was made hy him Assistant Secretary of State. By Lso XIII he became Uditore di P*ot?, and for a mission as apostolic delegate to Constantinople was created titular Archbishop of Sardi. He was Knvoy Extraordinary to Moscow for the coronation of lha Tsar, and Nuncio at Lisbon from 1833 to 1891. He was created Cardinal in petto "December '30. 1890, and proclaimed June 30, 1891, -under the title of the Ensrlis-h- Church in Rome, San Silvestro m Capita. He was appointed to conduct the di-lioate mi&sion of. adjusting the Patronato Regio of Portugal in British India, which had survived th? Portuguc-:^ territorial pc-?s&s-k>r. of the southern Peniusula. Finally, he was appointed ' Prefect of the Propaganda, the cocgie nation through which the English province of the Catholic j Churok'-is governed in Rome. — M.A.P.