On the Spiritual Needs of Our Time

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 28, 13 July 1905, Page 27

On the Spiritual Needs of Our Time

On Sunday, May 14, in the presence of a very large gaoling) of prelates, clergy, a nd laity, AichbishSp Uignnon, of St. Louis, was invested with the pallium by his immanence Cardinal Gibbons. At the close of 'the ceremony Archbishop Ireland, of St. Paul, the golden! tongued .orator of the West, preached the occasional sermon, wiueh v>as described by the local < Reoubhc ■ as Uie iuo^t eloquent ami sehoUily discourse ever delivered in the St. Louis Cathedral. l'b c Archbishop took vu « IS^ KVn^ he (Ehseus) took up the mantle of ?h ' }^\ fell . froni hl ™- and the sons of the prophets sa*d : 'I he spirut of IEI/tas ha,th nested up,o,n Etfseus. 1 ' :' ihe symbolism visible in the Palestinian scene of long ago (said his Grace) reappears in the ceremonial of this mowing. Then it was Llias casting his mantle upon fciiseus, shedding upon him rays of his own glory and authority ; now, it is the Pontiff of Home investing with his mantle the Bishop of St. Louis, communicating thereby a part of the supreme pastoral office of which he himself is primarily the custodian and the dispefrser. * /^ Bisho l? of Rome is the Bishop of Bishops •he feeds the whole flock-not the lambs only but the sheep also, lie confirms even his own brethren, his fellowapostfles, appointed with him by the Holy Ghost to rule the Ghurcih of God. The accepted image of this^upreme magisterium is the pallium, or mantle, floating on solemn! occasions from the shoulders of the Pontiff The palhum is his 'by innate right, as is the authority which the pallium betokens. A Bishop-Metropolitan, or Archbishop, takes precedence over other Bishops in his Province and exercises within limitations authority o\er them and over their dioceses. This does not happen from any divine right inherent in the episcopate. By divine right the episcopate is equal in all Bishops, save only the episcopate of Peter, which is +he centre of unity for the whole Church and the headship of universal go's eminent What specul pri\ lieges or rights appertain to the office of a Metropolitan are appointments of the sovereign shepherJ, cri;c(K.<ioriS from the fulness of his own authority voluntarily madr by him for the better administration as understood by him, of the general interests of IJie Chircn. r :hc palhum, borne from the hands cf the sovereign shepherd to the shoulders of the Bishop-Metro-politan, figures those concessions. It is an adumbration of Rome's own pallfum— an adumbration of Rome's own power and mission : without it the prelate of St Lous i> ;10 Bishop ; with it he is the Archbishop. Before Ihn pallium was taken from the hands of the Pontiff of Rome it had reposed beneath the dome of the Basilica of St. Peter upon the tombs of SS. Peter and Paul. The pallium is a grant of authority— a grant from the Pontiff of Home. But whence the right of the Pontiff of Rome s to make the grant? The tombs from which ho lifts the pallium are his argument. The tombs are those of Peter and of Paul : they sreak forth the authority which was in Peter and n Paul— the authority ol Christ, the incarnate Cod, they speak fo'nth the anost.olate of Christ to the nations, which in Rome, and in Rome alone, survives un<o this day in unbroken succession ; they speak forth the supreme guidance over the whole flock, given by Christ to Peter, whose seat of power when he passed from earth was the City of Rome, whose successor in office and authority is the Bishop of Rome.