POSSIBILITY OF A CRUSADE FOR RESTORING THE TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume I, Issue 21, 20 September 1873, Page 5

POSSIBILITY OF A CRUSADE FOR RESTORING THE TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPE.

We subjoin a few extracts from a letter written from Eome by the special correspondent of the London * Times.' This writer appears to have been sent to Rome for the special purpose of keeping watch in anticipation of the Pope's death. Thie is an event very earnestly desited by His Holiness' enemies. Count Ratazzi, who died a short time ago, is said to have declared he would give 600 Roman crowns to the first messenger who would announce to him the Pope's death. He has, however, like so many others of his principles, passed away for ever ; and, alas ! as far as we can see, unprepared for the Great Account. But to return to the ' Times ' correspondent. He is evidently rot sanguine that the death of tie present Pope would, as so many hope and expect, put an end to the Papacy; he is rather of the other way of thinking. He writes thus : — " That the Catholic world would lon# acquiesce in the absence of the Vicar of Christ from the spot hallowed by the tombs of the Apostles does not appear natural, but it seems at the same time difficult to point out the State or the coalition of States willing or able to seek a quarrel with Italy for the purpose of forcing the Pope down the throat of the It Jians." *' But tlxe Court of the Vatican relies not on powers but nations." .... "A proof of unbounded devotion of the Catholics to the Holy see is to be found in the enormous sums which, as mere Peter s Pence, enabled the Vatican to spurn the gifts of the Italian Government and to bear all the expenses of the personnel of the Papal household, of the Sacred College, and of a large portion of the Italian Episcopate, and which actually makes the Pope at this moment a richer man than ever he was when he disposed <.f a revenue of a State of three millions of inhabitants. The sinews of war are evidently at hand to an unlimited extent, and as to the legions, there are Papal Zouaves and other volunteers enough throughout Europe, and even in Rome, whose impatience can hardly be controlled by the Pope himself." " The year after next, 1875, we shall have the Jubilee,and those who remember 1825 and 1850 are awa>e of the madness which seized the Catholic masses in similar times and brings them in long processions to every imaginable sanctuary, and especially to those which hallow almost every square foot of the soil of the Papal city." " They will multiply throughout the whole of this and the next year with a fearful crescendo, till in 1875 famticism will nave reached its fever heat. Whit the Italian Govera-

ment will do when hundreds of thousands come down upon them across the Alps in long excursion trains ; when they throng every street in Rome, and treat her people with that arrogance of which the present visitors at the Vatican" give frequent examples, it is somewhat alarming to anticipate. Collisions along the highway and at every station will be almost inevitable. The Palmers will raise loud complaints that they are hindered or molested in the discharge of their religious duties ; and we know how easily a pilgrimage may supply the pretext for a crusade. Let only a Peter the Hermit, says a Dupanloup, raise the old cry "Dieu li veult," and pentup political animosities will be mixed up with religious rancours, and we shall have improvised armies for the deliverance of Rome." Foreign correspondents of the * Times' give their correspondence a color borrowed from the tendency of public opinion in England, It is evident, therefore, that thought in England has abandoned all hope of the overthrow of the Papacy, and come round, though tardily and universally, to the conviction that the restoration of the Pope's temporal power is inevitable. That this restoration will soon-take place no reasonable, wellinformed man, free from the mists of bigotry and fanaticism, entertains a doubt. But all will not be prepared to accept the prophecy of the * Times ' correspondent as to the time and manner. The pilgrimages of the Jubilee Year will be conducted with the same decorum and respect for law and order that have characterised the many and multitudinous pilgrimages of the last two or three years. But the ' Times,' in sounding the note of alarm, has given expression to the general fear and expectation, and done so, probably, with the view of inducing European Governments to unite in preventing these pilgrimages.