M. de Sartiges, French Ambassador at Rome, has formally recommended
the Pope to raise an army. The Pope has, as for- mally, refused, declaring that the Italian Convention is a nullity, and that he trusts in Providence. He has also issued an invita- tion to the jubilee in which he asserts that the Pope "has authority to speak to the whole Church, and the man who listens not is declared by himself no longer to belong to the Church, no longer to be a member of the fold of Christ, and as a consequence no longer to have a right to the eternal inheritance of Heaven." We hear on authority not often mistaken that the Pope wishes to summon to a Council all the Bishops of the Catholic world solemnly to confirm the Encyclical. The Papacy has survived a good deal, and perhaps may even survive silliness, but we doubt if a new Alexander Borgia would be -so formidable to it as this Hildebrand in slippers.
Previous page
