The Sun.
London, England, 1850-10-24 00:00:00

ITALY.
'TILE PAPAL BULL.

APO,TOLIC LETTER OF NIA HOLINESS POPE Pius Ix.,
LsTABLIIHING AN EPISCOPAL EILFEARCEIT IN

LAND.

'SAD PERPETUAM REI MEMORIAM."

The power of governing the universal church en-
trusted by our Lard Jerus Christ to the Roman Pon-
tiff, in the person of St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles,
has maintained for centuries in the apostolic see the
admirable solicitude with which it watches over the
welfare of the Catholic religion in all the earth, and
provides with zeal for its progress. Thus has been
accomplished the design of its Divine Founder, who, by
establishieg a chief, has in his profound wisdom en-
sured the safety of the church unto the uttermost time.
The effect of this solicitude has &en felt in most na-
tions, an:l amongst these is the noble kingdom of Eng-
land. llietary proves that since the first ages of the
church, the Christian religion was carried into Great
B‘itain, where it flourished until towards the
middle of the fifth century. After the invasion
of the Angles and Saxons in that island, government
as well as religion fell into a most deplorable
state. At once our most holy predecessor Gre-
gory the Great sent the monk Augustine and his fol-
lowers ; then be created a great number of bishops,
joined to them a multitude of monks and priests,
brought. the Anglo-Saxons to religion, and succeeded
by his influence in re establishing and extending the
Catholic faith in all that country, which then began
to assume the name of England. But to recall more
recent facts, nothing seems more evident to us in the
history of the Anglican schism of the sixteenth cen-
tury than the solicitude with which the Roman pon-
tiffs, our predecessors, succoured and supported, by
all the means in their power, the Catholic religion,
then expesed in that kingdom to the greatest dangers
and reduced to the last extremities. It is with this
object, apart from other means, that so many efforts
have been made by the Sovereign Pontiffs, either by
their orders or with their approbation, to keep in
and de-voted to the support of
England men ready
Catholicism; and in order that young Catholics en-
dowed by nature might be enabled to come on to the
continent, there to receive an education, and be
formed with cars in the study of ecclesiastical science,
especially in order that, being in sacred orders, they
may on their return to their country be able to sup-
port their countrymen by the ministry of their word
and by the sacraments, and that they may defend and
propagate true faith.
But the zeal of our predecessors will perhaps be
more clearly admitted as regards what they have done
to give the Catholics of England pastors clothed in an
episcopal character at a time when a furious and im-
placable tannest had depr;ved them of the presence of
bishops and their pastoral care. First, the apostolic
letter of Gregory XV., commencing with these words,
"Ecclesia Rowena," and dated the 231 of March,
1623, shows that the Sovereign Pontiff as soon as
possible deputed to the Government of English and
Scotch Catholic bishops, William Bishop, consecrated
Bishop of Mikis, with ample faculties and powers.
After the death of Bishop, Urban VIII. renewed this
mission in his apostolic letter, dated January 4, 1625,
addressed to Richard Smith, and conferring on him
the bishopric of Chalcis, and all the posers previ-
ously resting on. Bishop. It seems subsequently, at
the commencement of the reign of James 11., that
more favourable days were about to dawn upon the
Catholic religion. Innocent XI. profited at once by
the circumstance and in 1685, he deputed John Ley-
burn, Bishop of Adrumede, as vicar apostolic for all
the kingdom of England. Subsequently, by another
aposte lic letter, dated the 30th of January, 1688, and
commencing as follows " Super cathedram," he
joined with Leyburn three other vicars apostolic,
bishops in
by the care of the apostolic nuncio in this
partibus, so that all England,
country, Ferdinand, Archbishop of Arnosia, was
divided by that Pontiff into four districts ;
that of Lendon, the west, the centre, and the north,
which at first were governed by apostolic vicars, fur-
nished with proper faculties and powers. In the ac-
complishment of so grave a charge they received
rules and succour either by the decisions of Benoit
XIV., in his Constitution of May 30, 1753, which
commences with the words " Apostolicum minis-
terium," or by those of other Pontiffs, our predeces-
sors and our congregation for the propagation of the
faith. This division of all England into four apos-
tolic vicarages lasted till the time of Gregory XVI.,
who, in his apostolic letter, " Muneris apostolici,"
dated July 3, 1840, considering the increase of the
1 Catholic religion in England, and making a new Ec-
clesiastical division .of the country, doubled the nuns-
ber of vicarages, and confided the spiriturl govern-
anent of England to the vicars apostolic in London, of
the west, the esst, the centre, of Lancaster; York, and
the north. The little we have just said proves
clearly that our predecessors applied themselves
strongly to use all the means their authority gave
them to console the Church of England for its
immense disgraces, and to work for its resurrection.
Having before its eyes, therefore, the good ex
ample of our predecessors, and desirous, by imitating
them, or fulfilling the duties of the supreme apostolate ;
pressed, besides, to follow the movements of our heart
for that portion of the Lord's vineyard, we proposed
to ourselves, from the commencement of our pontifi-
cate, to pursue a work that was so well begun, and to
apply ourselves in the most serious manner to favour
every day the development of the church in this king-
dom. For this reason, considering as a whole the
state of Catholicism in England, reflecting on the
considerable number of Catholics which keep still in-
creasing, remarking that every day the obstacles are
falling off which stood in the way of the extension of '
the Catholic religion, we have thought that the time
was come when the form of ecclesiastical government
should be resumed in England, such as it exists, freely
exists, in other nations, where no particular cause ne-
cessitates the ministry of vicars-apostolic. We have
thought that by the progress of time and things it was
no longer necessary to have the English Catholics
governed by vicars-apostolic, but, on the contrary,
thet the changes which bad already been made neces-
sitated the ordinary form of episcopal government.
We have been confirmed in these thoughts by the
desires expressed to us by the vicars-apostolic in
England, as well as by numbers of the clergy and
gveran not failed to to implorevs,eiish
ty
affair
laity distinguished by virtue and rank, and by the
and Mostsh ou l
dGracious
b be
m osGod,
and
wishes of the great majority of English Catholics.
alud
nmtahtautrhinegwthoiusldgrant us grace in this
design we have
theaid
to
resolveof th e
upon
Almightythat
which
suit-
able to augment the prosperity of the Church. We
have further besought the assistance of the blessed '
Virgin Mary, Mother of God, and of the saints,
whose virtues have made England illustrious, that
they would deign to obtain by their intercession with
God the happy success of this enterprise. We have
since commended the whole business to the grave and
serious consideretion of our venerable brothers the
Cardinals cf the holy Roman Church forming our
congretration for propagating the faith. These senti-
ments having. been found completely conformable to
our own, we have resolved to sanction them, and carry
them into execution. It is for this reason, after hav-
ing weighed the whole matter most scrupulously, that
of our own proper motion, in our certain knowledge,
and in the plenitude of cur apostolic power, we have
resolved and do hereby decree the re-establishment in
the kingdom of England, and according to the com-
mon laces of the Church, of a hierarchy of bishops
deriving their titles from their own sees, which we
constitute by the present letter in the various apt sto-
lie districts. To commence with the district of Lon-
don, it will form two sees—to wit, that of Westminster,
which we hereby elcyate to the metropolitan of archi-
episcopal dignity, and that of Southwark, which we
assign to it as suffragans together with those which we
proceed to indicate. The diocese of Westminster
will include that portion of the aforesaid district
which extends to the binks of the Thames, and com-
prehends the counties of Middlesex, Essex, and Hert-
fordshire ; that of Southwark, on the south of the
Thames, will include the counties of Beds, South-
ampton, Surrey, Sussex, and Kent, with the Isles of
Wight, Jersey, Guernsey, and others adjacent. In
the northern district there will be but one episcopal
see, which will take its name from the town of Hag-
glestown, and have for its circumscription that of the
existing district. The district of York will also be a
diocese whose capital will be the town of Beverley.
In the district of Lancashire there will be two bishops,
of whom one, the Bishop of Liverpool, will have for
his diocese the Isle of Mona, the districts of Lons-
dale, Arnounderness, and West Derby; and the other,
the Bishop cf Salford, will extend his jurisdiction
over Salford, Blackburn, and Leyland. The county
of Chester, though belonging to this district, will
le united to another diocese. In the district of
Wale s two episcopal sees will be established, that
of Salop and that of Merioneth arid Newport
united. The diocese of Salop will contain the coun-
ties of Anglesea, Carnarvon, Denbigh, Flint, Merio -
neth, and Montgomery, to which we join the county
of Cni ster, detached from the district of Lancaster,
and that of Salop from the centre. To the diocese of
the Bishop of Merieneth and Newport are assigned
the counties of Brecknock, Glamorgan, Carmarthen,
Pemleroke, and Rsdnor, also the English counties of
Hereford and Monmouth. In the western district we
create two sees, Cl:fron and Ply mouth ; the first com-
prehending the counties of Gloucester, Somerset, and
Wilts; the second those of Devon, Dorset, and Corn-
wall- The central district, from which we have de- '
tached the county of Salop, will have two episcopal
sees, Nottingham and Birmingham ; to the first we
assign the counties of Notts, Derby, Leicester, Lin-
cols, and Rutland ; to the second the counties of
Stafford, Bucks, Oxford, and Warwick. In the
eastern district there will he one see, which will take
its name from the town of Northampton, and retain
the present circumspection of the district, except the
counties of Lincoln and Rutland, which we have as-
signed to the diocese of Nottingham.
Thus, in the very flourishing kingdom cf England
there will be one single ecclesiastical province, with