ROME LETTER

New Zealand Tablet, 1 April 1915, Page 53

ROME LETTER

(From our own correspondent.) February 7, 1915. THE COLLEGE OF CARDINALS. It. is of interest to look into the status, numerical and national, of the Sacred College at the present time. Facts relating to the most learned and most revered group of men in Christendom are always interesting to every Catholic. At the moment, one can hardly say when at any previous time, the numerical power of Italian and non-Italian cardinals came exactly equal; but at present each class numbers thirty, the entire body being made up of sixty Princes of the Church. Of this number twenty-one Italians and four nonItalians live in the Eternal City, aiding the Supreme Pontiff in the ruling of the Catholic Church as prefects of the Sacred Congregations, or presidents of the different commissions. Great Britain may be said to be represented at the Pontifical Court by two cardinals namely, Cardinal Gasquet and Cardinal Merry del Yal. Though the latter is a Spaniard, he is English by birth, education, and sympathy. It has been computed that the bishops and archbishops of the world are renewed by death about every fourteen years. While leaving it to readers, who have a turn for statistics, to reckon how often the College of Cardinals is renewed, one can say death has been rather busy among its members of late years. In the year 1914 eight Cardinals died. And during the pontificate of his Holiness Pius X., -whose reign was a brief one in comparison with the lengthy terms during which Pius IX. and Leo XIII. ruled, forty-eight Cardinals passed away. It would almost seem that Leo XIII. chose as cardinals men -whose physical powers "would weather time as easily as their intellects have overcome difficulties. Cardinal Yaszary is eighty-three years old; Cardinal Gibbons, Cardinal Gotti, and Cardinal Serafino Yannutelli are each in their eigthy-first year, and of these, only the last seems to mind the hand of time. THE CONGREGATION OF THE MISSION. If war circumstances permit their touching at Italy, it is expected that Very Rev. Paul Cullen, C.M., and Very Rev. Michael Flynn, C.M., who left Dublin last week for Australia, will visit the Eternal City. When referring to these distinguished Vincentians, it is worthy of notice that the Holy Father has nominated as Consultor to the Propaganda Very Rev. M. Fon- . taine, who has for some years been Superior of their international novitiate in Rome.