Convocation of a General Council at Rome.
THE report which has long been floating in the newspapers concerning the convocation of all the Roman Catholic bishops of the world, to meet at Rome in the course of the year 1867, has at length been confirmed. We have before us the Pontifical letter of invitation, bearing date of December 8th, and signed by the Cardinal Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of the Council of Trent. “If the power of the Almighty,” says the invitation, “shall avert the imminent tempest which now threatens the Papal Government, the Pope has resolved to hold, in the month of June, 1867, two semi-public Consistories. After these Consistories, the Pope, ‘by the aid of God and the Virgin mother of God,’ will inscribe several persons, whose names are mentioned by a solemn decree in the catalogue of saints.” To invite the bishops to be present on this occasion is the ostensible object of the Papal circular. It must at once strike every reader of this curious document that the real object of the episcopal meeting is not at all mentioned in the call. The ceremony of the canonization of new saints is nothing but a pretext. The real object is to obtain from the assembled bishops representing the whole Church a solemn declaration concerning the temporal power, which is now on the eve of total and, it is universally expected, permanent abolition. The Pope is bound by an oath to defend the temporal power, or, as it is called in church style, the Patrimony of St. Peter, and he is known to be unflinching in his opposition to all schemes of annexation. His desire, and that of his advisers, is, in the first place, to have the opposition of the Church to the abolition of the temporal power strengthened by the voice of the whole episcopate of the Church. On the other hand, even the Pope and the most sanguine leaders of the Church party do not conceal from themselves the probability that for the present they will be unable to save the temporal power, and that thus the external relations of the Church will have to be re-arranged on an entirely new basis. In such a momentous transition it is natural that the Pope wishes to learn the opinions of the bishops.—Methodist.