The Irish standard., 1890-07-05
AF TEGIRl ING GEN RES.

lsSl t6l6EI b \ Y VAIN HI
J, AFT E / IN G K EEL Z RES,
The Council Of Carthage Re-Estab-
fishes Catholicism II Africa II
The Progress Of the Church In Regainina
! the Ground Lost to mu.selmen-Ths
Reconstructionsof Africa : Part OF the
Ecclesiastical Unfit. as
Nearly twelve hundred years ago, II
bin-en-Noman, celebrated the overthrow
of Christianity in North Africa, by
riding his war-horse into the great ba-
silica Of Carthage and taking posses
sion of it in the name Of Che Prophet.
The triumph Of Islam was complete,
and within few generations all vesti-
gos Of the ancient faith were oblitera-
ted from the southern shore Of tho
Mediterranean This, according to
Gibbon, is the only land in which tho
light of the gospel after long and COM
plete establishment, has been totally
extinguished. Within 80 years of the
conquest, Abdurrahman, Governor Of
Africa, was able to write to the Kaliph
that the tribute of tho infdels was
abolished by their conversion, and .
mission of Eve bishops. sent from Alex
andria to Kairewan by the Jaeobite
Patriarch in A D.. 837, to revive the
dying embers of the faith, presup-
poses the decay of the African hier-
archy and the extinct ion of Latin
Christianity.
In the eleventh century, A. D. 1919,
the unfortunate priest who was seated
on the ruins Of Carthage implored the
protection of the Vatican, and he bit
terly complains that his naked body
had been scourged by the Saracens.
Two Epistles Of Gregory VII. are des-
tined to soothe tho distress of the
Christians and the pride Of Moorish
prince; but the complaint that three
crate brother, announces the speedy
and inevitable ruin of the episcopal
order. About the middle of the twelfth
century the worship of Christ and the
succession of pastors were abolished
along the whole coast of Barbary.
Punic soil seems to have given an abid-
ing foothold neither to empire nor re-
ligion, and the dust of Carthage is
compounded of the wreck of conquests
and Of creeds. Strangest change of all
is the last scene in her history, which
shows her once more virtually, if not
nominally, under the sway Of Chris
tian power, and with Catholicism rein
stalled in authority to the salvoes of
Mussulman artillery. The elevation Of
Mgr. Layigerie, Archbishop of Algiers,
to the Cardinalate marked in decisive
manner the progress of the Church to-
wards regaining the ground here lost to
her. The frst African prelate to wear
the purple for more than six centuries,
he pointed out in his address on the oc-
casion, that the event had more than
personal Significance. 1t marked at
once the reconstruction of Africa az a
component unit of the ecclesiastical
body polite, and the completion of the
cosmopolitan character conferred upon
the Sacred College by the admission of
the representatives of Asia and America
in the persons of the Cardinal Patri-
arch of Armenia and Of the Cardinal
Archbishops of Quebec and New York.
The spot chosen for the ceremony
which thus symbolized the reconquest
of the lapsed continent, was the little
Church Of st. Louis Of Carthage, mark
ing the spot venerated alike by Mussul-
men and Christians, where the sainted
crusading monarch breathed his last.
Attached to it is missionary college,
and near the site of both, the chance
excavation Of an Arab in digging his
garden has brought to light relics
which seem to identify the spot as one
of the earliest consecrated to Christian
ity in Africa. Fragments of inscrip-
tions and of marble columns leave little
doubt that the area was once occupied
by Christian cemetery, while the dis
covery of mosaic pavement in almost
perfect preservation, representing fe-
male figure with various sym bolical ad-
juncts, seems to point to it as the site
of the ancient Basilica of St. Perpetua,
martyred in 2O3 with her companions,
Felicitas, Saturninus, and others. Near
this spot, trampled and profaned by
the hoofs Of tho Saracen in the seventh |
century, now rises the new Cathedral
Of Carthage, as q monument Of the i'm
Of the faith which can thus
reassert itself, after well-nigh twelve
centuries of extinction. It's consecra-
ton was celebrated with extraordinary
pomp and splendor. The hill on which
it stands, commanding superb view
over the Gulf of Tunis and vast plain
TO the mountain background beyond,
was crowded with a motley assemblage,
In which Jews and Arabs, French,
Italians, and Maltese, brought the cos
tunes and religions Of Europe and Asia
into close juxtaposition on the soil Of
Africa.
Or. Horstmann's Jubilee.
Rev. Ignatius Horstmann, D. D.,
Chancellor Of the Archdiocese Of Phila-
delphia, has bsen twenty-five years