Italy’s Religious Corporations Bill
The pope must feel very savage over the passage of the Religious Corporations Bill by the Upper House of the Italian Parliament. The worst of it all is that the Parliament went a great deal farther than the government asked it to go, in circumscribing the privileges of the Jesuits. The bill confiscates, absolutely, for State uses, the real estate of the monasteries and convents, as well as of the hospitals, libraries, etc., under their care. The generals of the various orders reside at Rome, and the bill contained a clause allowing the heads of the religious institutions to retain their residences during their lifetime. After that, their residences revert, along with the other property, to the State. From the enjoyment of this exemption, however, the General of the Jesuits—the celebrated Father Beckx—was shut off. What with the Old Catholic movement and the anti-clerical legislation in Germany, and the anti-Jesuit demonstration in Rome itself, it is not surprising that the venerable pontiff feels sick most of the time.