ROME

New Zealand Tablet, 2 March 1916, Page 55

ROME

.- THE VATICAN AND FALSE REPORTS. It'As' earnestly to be hoped (remarks a Rome correspondent) that the definite denial that, the Holy See has been attempting to induce the Entente Powers to accept what is called ‘ a German peace ’ will have the desired effect. In its issue of January 4, the Osservatore Romano, the organ of the Vatican, reiterates its denial in the most absolute manner, and it protests forcibly against the unworthy system followed by the enemies of the Church with a view to damage the humanitarian and pacific work of the Holy See. This protest is applicable in a very particular manner to statements made by anti-Catholic newspapers published in Rome. Alternately . they afford us reason for amusement and for indignation amusement when, for example, they inform their readers of a supposed meeting in Switzerland between Prince Bulow, Father Ledochowski, General of the Company of Jesus, and Mgr. Marchetti, Papal Envoy in Switzerland, in the interests of the wounded of all the belligerent countries ; indignation when they announce that Cardinal Maffi, Archbishop of Pisa, came to Rome to remonstrate with, the Holy Father regarding the Allocution he pronounced at the late Consistory. Now we have them distorting a discourse of a religious character delivered by the 1 Cardinal Vicar of Benedict XV. into a declaration of quasi-opposition ‘ to the mind and to the interests of the Vatican.’ Really, there is nowadays nothing too wild or too absurd for the anti-Catholic press to proclaim from the housetops. , ;