• Some curious statistics of the CEcumenical Council have been
published, from which it would appear that of the 754 prelates in the Council, no less than 276 are Italian Bishops, though Italy represents little more than the tenth part of the populations of the Catholic world, while France has only 84 Bishops, with a Catholic population one-third AEI large again as Italy. The British Bishops again are :35, though representing a Catholic population not much more -than a fifth of that of France. The purport of these statistics appears to be to discredit the Council as a representative body. But who ever dreamt that such an episcopal assembly could ever be in -our sense of the word representative ? It is the idea of the Roman Episcopate that the Bishops should teach the Church, not gather .up and advocate the opinions of the flocks over which they rule. 'Grace is immanent,—such is the theory,—in the sacerdotal order of the Church, and most of all, of course, in those who are set over the other priests. The supernatural element is derived from the laying-on of hands, not from the extent of the constituency. There is no more that is ' representative ' in the true Roman theory of the episcopal order, than there is that is hierarchical in the notion of the House of Commons.
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