The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1909-03-06


minute more! Less than a min
And down in the large room under
ground the pens stood motionless over
the still virgin page and the timepiece
marked the hour and the second for
them, and the clock on the wall licked
the time for nobody in the Cymmerian
darkness. The time, the precious, price
less time, the irlfinitesimal time! Hark!
The ticking has Ceased-but listen to
that faint scratching, and see how one
of the pens has begun to trace fatidic
writing on the no longer virgin page,
and now the other pen is writing. too.
Both are writing swiftly in little curves,
in little lines. in great angry curves and
violent lines, furiously, madly, until an
unseen power hurls them broken on the
ground! But they have written their
message for the men of science in thir-
ty-tWO Seconds-those terrible thirty
two seconds which changed Messina
from a beautiful, prosperous, populous
city with a history extending back 5000
years, into a shapeless heap of ruins, a
charnel house, the most horror stricken
spot in the whole round world.
Ten centuries before the Christian era
Messina already stood proudly on the
slopes of Mt. Peloro guarding the strait
between Scylla and Charybdis. dreaded
Of old by all mariners crossing from the
Mediterranean to the Tyrrhenian sea.
Twice. in 63S and 495 B. c, it received
Messenian colonies and gradually
changed its primitive name of 3ancles
for that of Messina. 1t has always been
from earliest times a Siren city, beau
tiful but fatal, for it's occupation by the
MamertineS led to the first of those
bloody Punic wars which ended with
the destruction Rome's hated rival, and
in splits of its strength and the pride
and bravery and patriotism of its citi-
zens it had to pass under a score of for
eign Nominations. Twelve thousand
French soldiers were killed in MeSsina
in the bloody Sicilian Vespers of Easter.
1882. In 1876 terrible pestilence made
havoc among the population, which suf
fered further from Spanish misgovern-
ment, and from a famine in 1911; in 1749
1T was again visited by pestileuce, and
twenty years later it was almost RACED
to the ground by a terrible earthquake.
Messina has had illustrious sons to
boast of in all ages, among them the
pagan poets, Alemagnus; Lycus and
Mamertinus, the philosophers, Aristo-
Giles and Dicearchas, the historians, PO-
lizelOS and NeOcaster. the philosopher
and poet, L. Tesla, the poetess, Nico-
letta Pascala, that miracle of intel
lect," Don Francesca Maurolico, the his
torian, Giuseppe La Farina.
And MeSsina was proud of It's an
tiquity, Christian as well as pagan,
boosted that st. Paul had preached the
gospel there, that st. Peter himself had
established its church, that it had a
line of bishops from the first century.
Perhaps in this it claimed something
oot 11Iyh a1 10 &c oil,
sake in Hellas, yet there was certainly
an "episcOpuS Messanensis" named Eu-
carpus who is mentioned in the acts of
the Council of Pope Symmachus in sos;
but there was break in the line after
the Saracens laid the place waste with
fire and sword in the ninth century, and
it lasted till the time of Bishop Robert
in 1890 who dedicated Messina's Cathe-
dral to Our Lady. Under Bishop Nicolo
in 1853 it was raised to the dignity of
an archdiocese by Pope Alexander III,
who gave il Suffragans in Cefalu Toar
nina, S. Marco, ToSa, Patti and Lipari
most of which, however, have since
been transferred to another jurisdiction.
For long time the Greek rite was
used in most of the churches of Messi-
ma. From the time of King Roger 1,
that is to say, from the eleventh CEN
fury, the Basilian Monks had an Archi-
mandrite there who exercised quasi
episcopal authority over twenty parish
es, until 1888, when Leo XIII suppressed
the privileges and placed all the
churches under the jurisdiction of the
Latin archbishop. But until the very
end the Greek language was used in the
liturgy in the famous collegiate Church
of Santa Maria del Graffeo
But the churches and palaces, and
streets and monuments, the ancient
treasures of history and art, the thriv-
ing marts of commerce were swept
away while the two pens were writing
their message of doom at the end of the
year 1908 Fuit Messina!