The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1900-12-22
The Pepes Of Rome.

The following beautiful tribute is
from the pen of the late Archbishop
Spalding, of Baltimore, and is con-
tanned in his brilliant introduction to
Darras' History of the Catholic
Church.:
''Take them all in all, the two hum
dred and fifty Popes and more, who
have successfully occupied the Chair
Of Peter, constitute the most respect
able and venerable body of men whose
deeds are recorded on the pages of his
tory. All of them were highly respect
able men, learned, enlightened and
pious far beyond their age; very many
of them were venerable for their per.
sonal sanctity. Seventy-nine of them,
nearly third of the entire number
were SO remarkable for their holiness
of character as to merit being in
scribed on the Calendar of Saints, and
this number includes thirty-three who
willingly laid down their lives for
Christ and His church.
"a very large proportion of the 9TH
ers were men of blameless life and Of
indefatigable zeal for the propagation
of the faith, while not a few of them
were possessed of great learning and
capacity. Such, for instance, were
Innocent ILL.,, Innocent w., Boniface
VIII. and Benedict XIV.-not to NEIL
ton a host of others in the earlier
ages of the church.
I'm this connection it is a remark
able fact, and one which shows how ef-
fectually Christ has watched over His
church in the person Of His Wears on
earth, that during the last three cen-
, turies-during the so-called reforma-
tion-not a single unworthy or I'M
moral Pope has occupied the venerable
Chair Of Peter. While wickedness has
abounded and the very foundations Of
the faith have been boldly undermined
by wicked men lying in wait to de-
ceive.' God has taken care of His own
and has spared scandals in high places
of His church.
"The Reformation has, perhaps, been
instrumental in inyoluntarily and in
directly rendering this signal service
to the cause of the church which it
so unblushingly maligned. By remov-
ing from the pale of Catholic Christcn-
dom the most turbulent and unre-
strained of it's members it has contrib
uted to purify the atmosphere breath
ed by the great body of Christians who
remained faithful, while by it's bitter
opposition it has quickened their zeal
and nourished their vigilance. Thus
Gods providence hath drawn good out
of evil.
Compare the Popes with the sover-
elgns who have contemporaneously
filled the various thrones of Europe
and the world, and mark the differ
ence, or rather the contrast. While
among the latter it is very difficult to
discover even one just man in a long
line of incumbents; in the former it is
almost as difficult to find one who is
wicked. Among the latter personal
morality, self-restraint and purity are
the exception: among the former they
are the rule Among the latter a ruler
now and then appears clad with the
virtues which mark the saint, as if to
show that sanctity is compatible with
every condition in life; among the
former so many blameless and sanity
men appear that we cease to wonder
and yield to no surprise on discovering
new Pope who is true to the tradi-
tons of his order. When we find a
solitary flower in the bleak and dreary
desert we are startled into unbounded
admiration; when we behold whole
clusters of them in a flower garden we
look with calm pleasure on the beauti-
full spectacle, and are not at all aston
tished."