p. 152 | The Papacy

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 8, 1877

The Papacy.

If the latest intelligence from Rome be true, Pius IX. has but few days to live. He has fallen into that drowsy habit which in dropsical patients at his age usually very shortly precedes softening of the brain and death. The iron constitution and the indomitable will that recalled the Romans of “that elder day, when to be a Roman was greater than to be a king,” are giving way at last, and that active mind which gave personal supervision to the smallest details of the complicated affairs of the papacy now shrinks from work like a child, and leaves to the bureaus and their clerks the direction of the church of which he is the infallible head. It is a sad reductio ad absurdum of that same dogma.

A few weeks ago there were three prominent candidates for the succession: Cardinal Riario Sforza, Cardinal Pacci, and Cardinal Panebianco. The first was suddenly removed by death within the last three weeks. In three centuries from now history will perhaps insinuate other than natural causes for his convenient demise, as history at present attributes such causes to the deaths of the enemies of his family of three centuries ago. Cardinal Pacci, who was bishop of Perugia, was kept away from Rome by the jealousy of Antonelli as long as the latter lived, was brought thither by Simeoni, Antonelli’s successor, and by his great abilities immediately sprang into prominence as a candidate for the succession. He has been disposed of, however, by being made Cardinal Camerlengo, an office which makes its occupant a sort of pope ad interim after the pontiff’s death, and which, by the custom of several centuries, excludes him from candidacy.

The road is thus left open to Panebianco. The newspapers have much to say about the latter’s character and talents, but the cardinals live in such privacy that little is really known of their true character. That he is at present the most prominent candidate by no means secures him the succession. Cardinal Mastai was scarcely heard of until he was proclaimed Pope Pius IX., and the dark horse, if such an expression be not sacrilege, may again be successful.—Detroit Evening News.