THE POPE'S DRIVE AND THE PRESS MYTHS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVIII, Issue 21, 19 September 1890, Page 20

THE POPE'S DRIVE AND THE PRESS MYTHS.

(Liverpool Catholic Times, July 25.) Thboughotjt the foreign Press of Europe, misled by the Liberal Press here and the usual unreliable Boman correspondents, there have appeared the most extraordinary myths, with their various and ridiculous constructions, about the Pope driving out of the Vatican through Italian territory, and receiving royal honours from the Italian guards, some Baying that he went out of Borne and drove off to a seaside place— without mentioning the name— and others that he went outßide the city to the studio of the sculptor Aureli, to view the splendid work just finished, the statue of St. Thomas of Again ; others, again, draw the long-bow less vigorously, and say he only went some 300 yards along the road aa a protest against the intransigeant party of the Sacred College of Cardinals, by whom he was until now kept a prisoner in tbe Vatican ; while the so-called Liberal Press here express their feigned surprise that nothing is remarked about the matter by the clerical organs. Now, the fact of the matter is that tbe Holy Father has done nothing extraordinary, and did not by any means go outside the limits of the Vatican. Having inspected tbe statue of St. Thomas of Aquin, in the studio of the sculptor, Signor Chevalier Aureli, in going out the Holy Father simply gave orders to drive to the Vatican gardens. As the carriage was a conple of steps only from the gate which leads by the shortest way, it thus passed in front of the gate, so-called, of the Mint. This does not mean in the least that the Papal carriage went outßide the limits of the Vatican territory for an instant, as it is easy to see from the fact that this gate, reithxn the precincts of which it passed, is closed every night and opened again in the morning by the Swiss guards, and the

Italian sentinel is obliged to gain access to tbe Mint by a small staircase outside the above-mentioned gate. It will be easily seen then that the trifling incident which has caused such an explosion in the world of journalism had no greater importance than when the Pope passes from one put of the Vatican to the other, and not even as much as when, with closed doors, he went down into the Basilica of St. Peter and celebrated the Holy Sacrifice for Italians and foreigners several times. Moreover, the tales about the Pope receiving military hononrs from the Italian guards and his blessing them, and such-like stories, are completely unfounded and erroneous. The only guard who had a chance of seeing the Holy Father was the sentinel who treads his weary and monotonous way on the top of the wall outside tbe Mmt — and he neither presented arms nor did he call out the grand muster of the guard — composed, by the way, of one corporal and three mem— as ho did not realise tbe fact that he had seen the Papal carriage until after it had passed along inside the gate. From the above simple facts of the case your readers will easily be able to see that the whole affair has been solely and purely one more addition to the oft-repeated rases manufactured by the wily sons of the powers that be in this benighted peninsula, put forth to try if possible and dissipate the again and again denied fact of the vile durance in which has been kept and still continues to be kept the bead of the Catholic Church and the Vicar of Christ upon earth. But as before so again have their evil machinations failed to bear fruit, and have told against themselves, furnishing yet another conclusive proof of the truth of what they have bo often vainly attempted to deny and to disprove. In conclusion we may here remark that even after 1870 and the occupation of Home by the Italians, Pius IX., of happy memory, more than once traversed this same portion of the Via delle Fondamenta on foot accompanied by tbe members of his noble court, and both tbe Swiss and noble guard, a circumstance which did not even give rise to a remark in the Press, Liberal or otherwise, and even to this day the circumstances remain unchanged, as the Italian guards are not allowed to pass along that portion of the road, which would be queer in tbe extreme were it really Italian territory. It will be rather curiouß to see what will be their next canard I