Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1892-01-30
win ,ara,na, s.bbon. he popes

Will cardinal Gibbons be Popes
The series of remarkable letters that
have app cared recently in the New York
Sun concerning the papal succession take
on an added interest from the announces
ment in the editorial columns of that
journal that the author, who has signed
himself 'Innominato," is person who
speaks with the authority thst belongs
to fullness of knowledge, being thorough
ly acquainted with the views and pur-
poses of Leo KILL. and with the pur-
poses AMI feelings of the sacred college,
upon which, at no distant day, must de-
Yolve the choice of the next pontiff. Ac-
cepting this estimate of the correspond
ents auth ority 10 speak it is of the high
est interest to the religious world that
the correspondents letters have culmin-
ated in the une quivocal prediction that
the next pope will be non-Itslian, and
most likely an American. On this the
Chicago Post comments:
EThe arguments leading to this startling
conclusion have appeared in the highest
degree plausible. II has been cOntended
that the next conclave would not, ia all
prob ability, be held in Rome. and hence
the Italian cardinals would not have
numerical msjority TO enforce the pre-
cedent OF four centuries by electing one
of their own number to the pontifcate.
la such case the question OF expediencY
having superseded that of local pride and
tradition, the election must fall outside
of kingdom $50 inflsxiblY an aggres-
siyeiy hostile to the papal interests as
Italy undoubtedly is. But, of the Ro
man Catholic countries of Europe.
each is for political reasons unwilling 10
see the other intrusted with an honor so
menscing to Its own pride. French
men would protest against the choice of
German or Austrian. while all the three
powers bonded in the triple alliance
would as Vehemently oppose the designs-
ton of Frenchmsn. In neither Spain,
Portugal nor Belgium does the CORES
pendent find ANY hand qualified TO wear
the ring Of the fisherman" Cardinal
Manning dead.
There remains" says the Sun, sum-
ming up the argument, "only Cardinal
Gibbons. whom our correspondent does
not hesitate to pronounce payable, or, in
other words, possible candidate for the
papsl chair. As to the alleged fact that
the American cardinal does not speak
either French or Italian, and would
therefore be incapable of comforting with
the sacred college except in Latin, our
correspondent either has not heard OF it
or attaches to it little weight. What
he lays stress upon is the
strong drift of catholic opinion
ard sympathy in Europe toward the
representative American Catholicism. He
informs Us that very modern cardinal
said to him the other day: We are not
deceived when We see in the radiation of
American ideas throughout Europe the
source of the encyclicsl, Rerum Novar-
UNI, and Of the republican and demo-
cratic crie ltatiOn of the holy see We
ere told, finally. that Cardinal Lavigerie
has express the conviction that the
cardinal archbishop Of Baltimore would
be the future pope"
Of Card nal Gibbons, it is unnecessary
to say that not only the ten millions OF
his coreligianists in America bnt many
also Of the Protestant faith believe him
worthy of the highest honors in the gitt
of church. His election TO the chair OF
Peter wou 4 be the most significant and
pregnant event in the religious history
OF this century.