CARDINAL BIZZARRI.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume V, Issue 237, 16 November 1877, Page 7

CARDINAL BIZZARRI.

The cable telegram has, during the last week, announced the death of His Eminence Cardinal Bizzarri. We have as yet received no authentic announcement of the event, and we, therefore, give it with all due reserve.

Cardinal Giuseppe Andrea Bizzarri was born at Paliano, Diocese of Palestrina, Pontifical States, on May 11, 1802 ; was created and published Cardinal by His Holiness Pope Pius IX, in the Consistory of March 16. 1863, with the title of S. Balbina, from which he opted on July 5, 1875, to the title of San Girolamo degli Schiavoni. He was Prefect of the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars ; Prefect of the Congregation of Discipline and Regulars, etc. Springing from a very poor family of a village in the Roman Campagna, Giuseppe-Andrea Bizzarri made his studies in the Seminary of his Diocese, at Palestrina, where he displayed remarkable talent for the sciences of philosophy, theology, and law; a talent, too which, strange to say, was united with the gift of imagination. He went to Rome to perfect himself, and obtained in a competition a position in the Apostolic Penitenciaria. ' Cardinal Castiglioni, the Grand-Penitentiary, afterwards Pius VIII., made him his Secretary and on becoming Pope, conferred upon him, first, a benefice at Santa Mana Magglore, and later a Canonry at Santa Maria in Via Lata In 1830, Cardinal Sala, Prefect of the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, offered Mm the position of sub- Secretary. It was here that he displayed those talents that were to pave his way to the purple and to the Prefecture of the Congregation. In 1856, Pius IX., who had a great regard for him, sent him on an extraordinary mission to Naples, near Ferdinand 11., to regulate some important ecclesiastical matters, and particularly to do away with the Tribunal of the Monarchy of Sicily, the source of privileges and disorders of another age. ° Cardinal Bizzarri has largely contributed to the multitude of the various religious Congregations and Communities, which, for the last fifty years, have existed in eveiy country. For this be is said to have found disfavour in the eyes of the great Religious Orders. But he did no more than his duties, first, as Sub- Secretary, then as Secretary, and finally as Prefect of Bishops and Regulars, required him to do, namely : To examine the progress of Congregations and Communities ; to obtain for them, if the result of the examination proved favourable, a Decree of approbation ; and then to receive their Rules and Statutes, revise and modify them according to Canonical principles, and submit them to the approval of the Holy Father. Of late it would have been difficult, on seeing Cardinal Bizzarri to discover the smallest trace of the physical and intellectual force of his younger days. Hard work had exhausted his strength. He was almost blind. A stroke of apoplexy had bent and paralyzed his hmbs. Ihere was nothing left of him but a good counsellor, who had still treasured up in his memory some of those precious recollections, like tho fruit left upon a tree, after it has been despoiled by Winter and storm. He has fought the good fight, he has ended his course, may he now rest in peace. — Exchange.