THE ITALIAN CONFISCATION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XII, Issue 5, 23 May 1884, Page 13

THE ITALIAN CONFISCATION.

(From the Dublin Freeman), The Pope has come to a moat important decision, momentous to Ital/ and to Rome, and of vital interest to the whole Catholic and even to more than the whole Christian world. Self-defence, defence of the Catholic Church, defence of international rights, and defence of the Propagation of the Faith and civilisation itself, demanded such prompt and practical steps as ihat now announced to the Bishops of the Church in the letter from the Chiefs of the Propaganda with the sanction of Leo XIII, the text of which, received by his Eminence the Cardinal, and translated, we publish to-day. The Propaganda is the bead of the missionary globe, as also of those Northern countries in which the hierarchical organisation is inor full and formal. Its college, containing some hundreds of Levites of every nation and tongue and colour, has, since the start made by Gregory XV. two and a-half centuries a»o, become one of the wonders of the religious world, and the seed sown by its pupils ha 9 borne Christian fruit to the end of the ea'tb, watered as it has been by their martyr blood, and nurtured as it has been by their humanising teaching. Its polyglot types are one of the sights of modern Rome and a Mezzofanti amongst libraries, the printing presses alone attached to the institution being a veritable Epiphany, or manifestation of light to the Gentiles. Every nationality finds a home within its walls, and Christendom, recognising its worth, and the all-embracing grandeur of its mission?, contributes with lavish generosity to its maintenance. Generous France comes first, staunch and leal Austria next, and then of the countries, amongst which our own poor but open-handed paople do not lag in the race of munificent rivalry for its splendid maintenance, It is this splendid institution— the property of all nations— upon which the Government, endued with the brigand spirit of the dead red-shirt Garibaldi, lays robber hands. The Italian Supreme Court of Cassation has pronounced a judgment, subjecting this international property to the law under which the local ecclesiastical property is " converted " or confiscated in the Roman province. The property of the nations, amounting to between £3,000,000 and £4,000,000, it thus placed directly at the mercy of what has been lightly referred to as a " scratch majority " in the Italian Parliament of Reds. Under these cruel circumstances the Congregation of the Propaganda, with the authorisation of His Holiness, have lesolved t&at, as the Letter in the columns specifies, "the seat of the Propaganda for all donations, legacies, and offerings, by which "the piety of the faithful may wish to meet its continual and heavy expenditure, be transferred out of Italy." The funds of bankrupt Italy are not a safe investment for the property of Christendom, partieulaily as the transfer, read by the light of events, is but the next step to spoliation. Italy is, therefore, to be no longer the centre for the donations and legacies of the Empires, Kingdoms, and Republics of the world. Twenty-three centres are selected— one of which is Catholic Dublin — for the reception of the Missionary Charities of the world. In those centres they will be at the service of the Propaganda, but out of the power of alienating Italy. His Eminence the Cardinal Archbishopji* named by the Pope as one of the ecclesiastical dignitaries with whom donations are to be lodged. The act is a prudent, and, as we have said, a practical one. Kor are the nations of the earth willing to let King Humbert's Government go on in its course unchecked. From Imp enal Germany to Democratic America signs of ans^ry protest have been already given. We are certain that persecution will not •tay but will stimulate Ireland and all Christendom to sustain the Propaganda.