THE VATICAN BESIEGED.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 6, 7 November 1890, Page 3

THE VATICAN BESIEGED.

The official Ossmrvatore Romano, in a leader entitled " The Vatican Besieged," and which has produced great impression in liberal political circles, declares the Vatican placed in a true state of siege, and exposed to surveillance such as to deny the Pope tbe privacy eveo of his private dwelling. His Holiness is spied upon in all his acta gesta, as are also all those around him, and likewise all those who go to the Vatican, whether on duty or on business. Besides tbis indecent system of espionage, regularly carried on by ways and means beneath contempt, the Vatican oalace is surrounded by buildines carried up to enormous height, sufficient to overlook all that goes on within the enclosure of the Vatican, so that the Pope himself can no longer, as formerly, walk freely, even in the most remote corner of the gardens, but to escape inimical eyes is constrained to confine his promenades to tbe galleries and museums of the palace. Furthermore, does he deviate in tbe slightest degree from his daily habits, or select one portion rather than another of the Vatican Palace gardens, myriads of fantastic comments and malevolent insinuations fill the columns of the liberal and official Press, and the most ridiculous and shameless falsehoods are sent forth on tbe wings of the telegraph to the four corners of the world. Thus, tbe sovereign of the rulers of the earth is denied the freedom of his private abode, and is not only deprived of bis rights as king in his own capital, but even of bis domestic privacy in bis very dwelling. Tbe leader conolndes in calling the attention of the Catholic and civiliied|world at large to the truly insufferable conditions now imposed upon the august and venerated head of three hundred millioms of the faithful scattered over the face of tbe two hemispheres, and demands if, in the name of humanity and of justice, a Pope, an Italian, and a citizen, is to be thus placed beyond all natural, civil and human law.