The Savannah morning news., 1903-02-16
To HONOR LEO XIII
CATHOLICS WILL OBSERVE SILVER
JUBILEE OF HIS ELECTION.
SPECIAL SERVICES FRIDAY.
ORDAINED IN PASTORAL LETTER
ISSUED BY BISHOP ID. j. KELLEY.

for the PrOIOnr alton of a Life SO
Precious to Them - Services to
Consist of Mass of Thanksgiving.
Benediction of the Blessed Sacra-
ment and TIE Denm-Letter Re-
views Closing Year of Plus IN
and Cites the Noticeable Work OF
Leo NH on Behalf of the Church
and of Religion.
The silver jubilee of the election of
Pope Leo XIII to the pontificate, which
will fall ON Friday. will be celebrated
throughout the Roman Catholic world
with appropriate services of thanksgiv-
ing. A letter ordering that such serv-
ices be held in all the churches of the
diocese of Savannah has been issued by
Rt. Rev. B. ]. Kelley. Bishop of Sa-
Vannah, and was read yesterday in each
church of the diocese. This pastoral
says:
ION the goth day of this month will
occur the silver jubilee of our Holy
Father Pope Leo XIII. Twenty-Five
years ago the cardinals assembled In
conclave to select d successor to Plus
LA ana their CnOlCt ltll OIi Ndi A4AAsAi
Pecci, who chose the name, Leo XIII.
On the It'll day of February of that
same year, 1878, while the myriad
bells of Rome were ringing out the
Angelus, and ere the echo had died on
the still trembling air. it pleased COD
of call to Himself the Pope who had
surpassed all his predecessors, since the
days of Peter in the length OF his
glorious pontificate, PiuX TX. 1t SEEM
ed fitting and singularly appropriate
that the vicar of Christ, who had made
the sweet privilege we enjoy OF salut-
ing Christ's Mother as Immaculate, a
defined dogma of Catholic faith, should
be called to his eternal reward as the
bells were calling his children to WITS
per the glorious privileges of the loWly
Virgin whose consent was asked ere
the incarnation was affected.
Never since the brutal tyrant Nero
crucifed the first Pope, not far from
where his two hundred and siXty-sec-
ond successor died, has the death of
any one of Peters successors called
forth such universal expression of sin
cere grief Even those who are not
of our faith honored themselves. by
publicly giving testimony to his exalt-
ed character and many virtues. In our
own republic. public meetings were
held where PrOtestants Wed with Cath
olics in deploring his death as loss
to humanity. Here in the South, special
honors We're paid to his memory, ana
grateful hearts wept over the bier of
the one ruler, who, in the darkest days
of our troubles showed the paternal
spirit of his great Christian heart in
an effort to put an end to the fratrici-
dal strife caused by the war between
the states.
Troubled Rein of Plus TX.
1.-The closing days of Plus TX were
clouded. The infamous. duplicity of the
Piedmontese government, which had
given a most solemn pledge to respect
the integrity and independence of the
papal territory and which promptly
took advantage of the opportunity af-
forded by the withdrawal of the
French troops, and invaded the states
of the church, and with shot and shell
broke down the walls of Rome: was a
cause of sorrow to Plus TX. In his own
city he heard of the daily outrages
heaped on religion and religious
Churches and converts were seized and
torn down; the vilest attacks on the
church and the papacy were overlook
ed by a government which proclaimed
that the person of the Pope was sa-
cred and inviolable, and that the Cath
ole religion was the religion of the
state. As direct consequence of the
loss of his temporal power the Pope
was deprived of free communication
with the Catholic world. The encych-
cal letter of Plus TX of November, 1870,
had to be printed in Geneva in order
that 1t might be sent to the Catholic
bishops. And when it was published
in the Italian Catholic papers, they
were promptly suppressed by the Pied
montese masters in Rome. No honest
man could fail to recognize what the
Piedmontese sought to gain by the de-
struction of the temporal sovereignty
of the Pope.
Prisoner for Eight Years.
For eight long years, from Sept. 20,
1870, no Feb Z, 1878, was Plus IN a
prisoner in the Vatican. What the vile
rabble who came as followers of the
Pfedmontese troops would have done to
the living Pope may be surmised, when
we know that they tried to take the
dead body of Plus TX from the hearse
as 1t was being carried to ST. Law
rence's Church for burial and throw IL
INTO the Tiber. In Germany he was
witness to bitter warfare
waged against the church by
the most distinguished exponent
of absolutism whom the nine
teenth century had cause to mourn.
Prince Bismarck. German sees and
parishes were vacant; bishops and
deprived of the comforts and consola-
lions of our holy religion.
Europe was an armed camn and
millions of men were torn from the
peaceful pursuits of agriculture and
commerce and forced to enter the army.
everywhere the world was a witness
10 the proclamation and exemplifica-
ton of the principle that the weak and
no rights which the strong were bound
70 respect. 1t did not please God to
put an end TO these evils during the
time OF Plus TX and he died blessing
GOO that he had been found worthy
70 suffer for his Masters name.
POntificate of Leo XIII.
The pontifcate of Leo XIII COM
menced under such circumstances, and
inheriting such legacies has now
reached its twenty-fifth completed year.
His remarkable career is worthy OF no.
tlce, though we must Of necessity only
briefly refer to his marvellous pontifi-
cate. He was always frail man and
being 6S years of age when elected, no
one imagined that his life would have
been so prolonged.
Last December he celebrated the six
ty-fifth anniversary of his ordination.
and fifteen years after his succession
10 Plus TX, the golden Jubilee of his
conservation was COMMUNICATED
throughout the Catholic world. This
month will witness the sixtieth ami
Versary Of his conservation as bishop
as well as the twenty-fifth of his cleo
ton to the chair of ST. Peter. Some
pretended TO believe that with the COM
ing of the new Pope there would be a
change in papal policy; that Leo XIII
would seek to effect some reconciliation
with the theory which demanded tho