CHURCH AND STATE | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 5, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 23.

CHURCH AND STATE.

We sometimes hear that the pope is not interested in politics or the governmental affairs of earth, but the following from the Catholic World Magazine for May shows that Leo XIII. is doing among other things a fair share of politics, and evidently much more than is here suggested:—

“All this work is done by a man who is daily engaged in the field of politics and diplomacy; in furthering, for instance, the submission of French Catholics to the existing form of government; of opposing Carlist pretensions in Spain; of arguing with the Russian government for the more humane treatment of Catholics in the Muscovite Empire; of seeking the reunion of dissident and schismatic Catholics of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman dominions; of writing personal letters to the potentates of Europe, and to the civilized and semi-civilized rulers of Asia and Africa; of controlling and supervising the work of the various sacred Roman Congregations; of keeping account of the state of religion in his own particular diocese—that of Rome—and of attending to myriads of other details, besides giving odd moments to the composition of encyclicals and apostolic letters, and even of Latin verses. All this, again, is performed by a man in his ninety-second year, daily receiving a multitude of visitors from all quarters of the globe, hearing their narratives and querying them, with a minuteness that involves the exercise of a prodigious memory, regarding the details of religion and the progress of civilization in their various districts.”