A Presbyterian Tribute to Pope Benedict XV

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLIX, Issue 39, 5 October 1922, Page 33

A Presbyterian Tribute to Pope Benedict XV

It would doubtless fill many columns to print all the eloquent tributes paid the world over to the memory of Benedict XV. by the non-Catholic press (says America.) The note of bigotry was but seldom and faintly heard in the secular papers of the United States, while the appreciation for the services rendered, by the great Pope . of the World War was deep and genuine. From the pulpit of the Throop Avenue Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn, Dr. William Carter preached a formal sermon upon the subject: “A.Protestant Estimate of Pope Benedict XV.” “No wonder that the world is mourning so deeply now,” he said. “No wonder that the chariots of the Church of God are dragging heavily.” Praising the dead Pontiff as a great executive, a great friend of man, and above all “a great churchman, a great Christian,” he continued. “Three hundred million Catholics mourn his loss to-day because of the close and tender relationship they had with him, through the faith he so faithfully and consistently exemplified, and three hundred million Protestants send their sympathy, as from heart to heart, and join their sorrow with their Christian brethern. 1 trust, therefore, that it will not be deemed presumptuous for a fellowChristian, though of the Protestant faith, in genuine sympathy and sorrow to give, in this public way, a Protestant estimate and eulogy of Pope Benedict XV. “Benedict XW. had the gentle sanctity of Pius X. mixed with the keen executive ability and brilliant statesmanship of Leo XIII. No smirch, or spot, or stain ever rested on his life, either public or private. No bar sinister can ever be placed on his escutcheon „ even by the most malignant of his enemies. In him was combined the manhood of the Master and the culture of the Cross. He lived in the quiet of the cloister but his ear was ever ■attuned to the cries of a needy and a suffering world. He knew his Lord and Master, but he also knew men and ever insisted that he should know them better that' he might the better minister to their needs. With one hand he grasped the hand of God, as he walked with. Him day by day, with the other lie reached out to needy men that he might lift them up to higher and to nobler things. “Enumerating the long list of the Pontiff’s accomplishments in the cause of peace Dr. Carter thus silences all the criticisms that were made against him in the past: “The best answer to all these criticisms is the fact that Benedict, throughout the war, won the confidence of the world at large enough to join eleven more nations in formal recognition of the Vatican and representation there than it had had before. The nations represented by formal diplomatic relations with the Vatican at the beginning of the war numbered twenty, at the end of the war the number had increased to thiry-one. Let this be the answer to all his critics.” Against those in fine who censured the Pope for his fight against Protestant propaganda in Rome, Dr. Carter nobly replies: “Is there anything derogatory in a man fighting back for his faith?” - V '/