The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-08-20

| thus started that report which pursued | him ever after-that he was liable to | faintins fits, which was quite untrue as that was the only occasion on which he suffered in that way, and it was entirely due to the heat and the vitiated air of | the chapel.
 l That was the first opportunity for the officials of the Vatican to step in and on the pretext of protecting the popes health. attempt gradually to isolate him from the world. However they were not always successful. One of the yearly American pilgrimages had left the United States at the be- ginning of July, 1903. On their way to Europe Leo XIII, who should have re- ceiyed them, died so that they were in Rome during the conclave and the day on which Plus X was elected and descended into St. Peters to give his first benediction they were in the Basilica with two American flags way ing above the immense crowd assembled there and joining hurrahs to the cheer ing which greeted the venerable figure Some days after the same American pilgrimage was in the Vatican gar dens when suddenly the work of the officials having already begun they were ordered away as the pope was seen approaching. With true Ameri- can determination they objected that they did not want to leave. Plus X, who understood something of what was going on, inquired and Cardinal Gib- bons, who was among those who ac- companied them explained that 1t was a pilgrimage of his eountrymen who desired to pay homage to the holy father They had asked for an au- dience and were waiting for the ap- pointed day. The pontiff immediately said there was no necessity to wait and he would receive the Americans at once in the adjoining Museum Lapidarium. Thus Plus X received the first pill grimage of his pontificate, held in his hands and blessed the two American flags which are still preserved, one in Rome and one in New York.
 Loses Bitterness
 | Plus K did not intend to change the | substance of the policy which his two | predecessors had followed toward Italy. His protests against the loss of the temporal power, however lost the vehemence and bitterness which for
 merly characterized them.
 I The strongest of his protests on this l subject was when President Loubet
 disregarding the prohibition to all
 Catholic rulers and heads of states to visit the King of United Italy in his capital, was the first. with the ex-
 ception of Prince Ferdinand of Bull garia, since 1870, to go as guest to the quirinal
 This however, was not only caused
 by the feeling toward Italy but much
 more by the state of religious war with | France which was the most remark able event in the last pontificate and lof which many have attributed the re-
 sponsibilty to Plus X, while the hos
 tilities had already begun under Leo l XIII
 France found imitators in Spain,
 which passed in Parliament bills against the religious congregations and | the clergy, leading to the recall of the Spanish ambassador accredited to the Holy See; and in Portugal where the | republic proclaimed on October 5, 1910, brought about a complete separation
 between church and state, the expul- :, sion of the religious congregation and the confiscation of their properties. While such serious crises were talk ling place between the Vatican and some lof the Latin countries, which had been known in history as the most faithful to the Holy See, the relations with tItaly, while maintaining in the outside
 form the usual character of hostility were in substance much more cordial. | It would take long to enumerate all the reforms of religious character in- Iitiated by Plus K, such as that of re- storing the Gregorian chants, of lpreaching every Sunday from a text
 
 example by having as long as his strength allowed him, the faithful of the different parishes of Rome in the Icourtyard of San Damaso to hear him explain the gospel story and carryin g
 out one after the other as pope the same ideas and principles which he had confessed and advocated as bishop and lpatriarch One of his undertakings will leave an important mark in the his tory of the papacy--the qualification Of ecclesiastic law. He entrusted the work to an illustrious scholar in canon law, Mgr. Pietro Gasparri, or whom he conferred the red hat in De cember 1907 Another epoch making 'ltask was that of the revision of the lvulgate which he confided to Father
 Francis Aidan Gasquet, abbot-presf- ldent of the English Benedictine con gregation, so well known as learned historian.
 Plus x was determined to restore th'
 most iron discipline among the clergy and this led to an unreleuting campaign ' against that section of ,cclesiastics wht
 professed unorthodox opinions and wer' } called modernists. The cncyclical pro mulgated on September s, .9T condemned , the modernists and their doctrines.
 Displays Great Energy Following this several leaders of tn modernist movement were ex-communi cated h Italy, England and Germany The pope displayed even greater energ, [ on Nov ember IS. 1907, when he reaffirme' the necessity of combating by ever possible means the spirit of rebellion. an' td the bishops to watch and if neces