The question whether the French Bishops were overruled by the
Pope or not is still being vigorously discussed in the
French and Italian Press. The Rome correspondent of the Times recently transmitted an official communiqmi clearing the Pope of the charge of ignoring the Bishops, and explaining that a proposed " law of public worship" was sprung on the Assembly at the last moment by the Archbishop of Besancon, which, after careful consideration by the Pope, was condemned as imprac- ticable. The Paris correspondent of the Times, after com- menting on the inconsistencies of this dementi, now asserts that this scheme, contained id a printed Report of forty-nine pages which has come into his possession, so far from having been " sprung on the Assembly of Bishops at the last moment," had been considered at the sittings of the Preparatory Com- mission, composed of four Cardinals, two Archbishops, and two Bishops, all of whom approved of it, and that it was subse- quently approved—subject to the acceptance of the Pope—by a majority of the Bishops in the first Episcopal Assembly in May, 1906. The authority for what took place at the Pre- paratory Commission and at the Assembly is " a well-known Roman Catholic ecclesiastic," who considers it "extremely impolitic on the part of the Holy See to persist in these unfounded denials, as they challenge the French Government to publish the actual minutes of these proceedings, which they are certain to have found amongst Mgr. Montagninfs papers."
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