The Prefect of the Propaganda.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 38, 18 September 1902, Page 3

The Prefect of the Propaganda.

TXK announcement that Cardinal Gotti has been appointed to mooted the late Cardinal Ledochoweki in the office of Prefect of the Propaganda has a special interest for the Catholics of this country (■ays the New York Freemarit Journal), as the Churoh in the United States is always in the closest touch with the Propaganda. The personality of Cardinal Gotti, who henceforth will hare so ■raeh to do with the affairs of the Church in this country, has therefore special claims npon our attention. The new bead of the Propaganda is in his 69th year, having been born in Genoa, Italy, March 29, 1834. His advancement to his present important place is •ne more example of the democratic spirit of the Church, who in her long history has on so many occasions given striking proofs of ker disregard of the artificial distinctions on whioh the world sets M ainoh store.

Cardinal Gotti, who may yet succeed to the Papal chair, is the sen of a Genoese dock laborer. He. therefore, owes nothing to the advantages of birth. He began life in poverty, and it is due to kin ewn personal charaoter and to the fact that the Catholic Ohuroh discriminates against no son of here who possesses the requisite moral and intellectual abilities to fill her highest offioe, that the son of the Genoese dock laborer holds his present exalted position to whioh are attaohed world -wide responsibilities. Thanks to the interest taken in young Gotti by some friends of his mother, he was enabled to prosecute his studies at Genoa and Rome. From the outset he was a hard and successful student, who devoted himself zealously to philosophical and theological studies, with the result that to-day he is one of the greatest theologians in the Church. Young Gotti's religious seal kept pace with his love of study. He was still quite young when he became a Carmelite. From the day he donned the habit of that religious order down to this hour he has been a strict observer of its rules. His promotion to the Oardinalate in no way interfered with this observance. To-day he lives the simple and, as far as he can, the ascetic life of a Carmelite. Leo XIII., who knows and thoroughly appreciates his character, created him a Cardinal in 1895. The Holy Father also sent him om a most important mission to Brazil. In all the offices he has been appointed to Cardinal Gotti has displayed abilities which give assurance that the new duties he will be oalled npon to discharge as the head of the Propaganda will be performed with a loyalty which will redound to the benefit of the Ohuroh in the many lands whose spiritual affairs are under tke direotion of the Propaganda.