The Congregation of the Inquisition has taken the extreme step
of pronouncing sentence of greater excommunication against the Abbe Loisy. This measure has been taken at the express command of the Pope, who is stated to have deferred action in the hope that the Abbe Loisy would repent of the errors for which his works were placed on the Index, and he himself deprived of the right of celebrating Mass, about a year ago. The sentence of greater excommunication not only excludes the offender from the Sacraments, but cuts him off from all the privileges attached to Church membership and from all recognition by the faithful. The Paris correspondent of the Times, commenting on the announcement, states that the action of the Pope will probably stimulate the French Modernists to fresh activity, as they were only waiting for the Abbe Loisy's latest works before adopting an attitude of frank antagonism to the Vatican. We may add that the Abbe's new book is reviewed in to-day's Spectator in our corre- spondence columns by a Roman Catholic.
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