THE SPIRIT OF THE PAPACY.
The pope has honored the memory of St. Francis de Sales, Roman Catholic Bishop of Geneva in the latter part of the sixteenth and early part of the seventeenth century, with the title of Ecumenical Doctor, or Doctor of the Church Universal. This title is used to designate those who have been pre-eminent for their attainments in theological science, and whose authority is of universal weight. The Christian World, in a most interesting article from which we gather these statements, says: “Four such have been fixed upon in the Eastern or Greek Church; viz., St. Athanasius, St. Basil, St. Gregory Nazianzen, and St. Chrysostom. To these correspond four in the Western Church; viz., St. Augustine, St. Gregory the Great, St. Jerome, and St. Ambrose. This latter number, however, has been increased by the addition of three more names, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bonaventure, and Bernard have been proclaimed doctors by Popes Pius V., Sixtus V., and Pius VIII., respectively. And now Pius IX. adds an eighth name to the list of Western or Latin Doctors, that of St. Francis de Sales.” This honor has not been conferred without premeditation. The Fathers of the Vatican Council, seven years ago, requested it. The same request has been urged, with a unanimity which suggests some special concert, by Catholic dignitaries and authorities throughout the world, and has been reported on favorably in the Congregation of Rites to which the Pope, according to usage, referred it. The chief claim which St. Francis has upon the memory of Catholics, is not his eloquence or his learning, though he had unusual powers of persuasion, but his success in converting Protestants. Appleton’s New American Cyclopedia tells the story of his success, according to the Catholic authorities—how in the district assigned him, on the southern shore of the lake of Geneva, “nearly four years passed by without any considerable impression on the [Protestant] heresy. At last, however, conversions multiplied; new missionaries came to his aid, and in 1598 the Catholic religion was publicly restored, and the reformed faith suppressed throughout the province.” The Catholic World turns the light of history on this part of his career, and shows that the district, at that time, was under the rule of that implacable enemy of Protestantism, Emanuel Philibert, the Duke of Savoy; that Francis, unable to convert the Protestants by his preaching, applied to the Duke for aid; that the Duke came in person, in the year 1598, declaring that he “had brought his sword to aid his holy enterprise;” that all Protestant schoolmasters were banished, Viret, and other Protestant pastors, were expelled, and certain nobles and citizens who opposed his measures received three days’ notice within which they might leave his dominions. They took refuge in the city of Geneva. The district was “converted” from heresy, and about sixty years afterward, all traces of Protestantism had disappeared. For this success, among other services to the Papacy, the name of St. Francis is placed beside those of Chrysostom and Augustine as teachers of the highest authority. It is noticeable that all the decrees, encyclical letters, canonizations, and celebrations which the Papacy has thrust on the attention of the world in recent years have been such as to give emphatic prominence to every claim of despotic and arbitrary power, which many have fondly thought had been abandoned. This spirit, inexplicable except on the theory that God himself is preparing the Anti-christian system for a conflict which shall be its overthrow, has been manifested in the Vatican Decrees, the Pope’s syllabus concerning books and education, the celebration of the outrage of Canossa, and now in the elevation of the name of a successful oppressor of the consciences of men to peculiar honors.—Christian Statesman.