Crises in the History of the Papacy / A study of twenty famous popes whose careers and whose influence were important in the development of the church and in the history of the world

[358] In a letter to his brother Charles, July 3, 1837, he remarks that he has entered the clergy "in order to carry out the wishes of his father." Catholic lives of Leo XIII., which abound, must be read with discretion. They are even more tendentious than lives of Pius IX., and the best of them—by Mgr. de T'Serclacs (2 vols., 1894), L.K. Goetz (1899), J. de Narfon (1899), Mgr. B. O'Reilly (1903), and P.J. O'Byrne (1903)—are very unreliable. Mr. Justin McCarthy's short Pope Leo XIII. (1896) is a summary of these, and shares their defects. With them should be read Joachim Pecci (1900) by Henri des Houx, for the period before his election, and Le Conclave de Léon XIII. (1887) by Raphael de Cesare: both Catholic writers, but more candid and discriminating. See also Boyer d'Agen, La Jeunesse de Léon XIII. (1896) and Monsignor Joachim Pecci (1910) and works to be mentioned hereafter.

[359] These are chiefly reproduced in the works of Boyer d'Agen.

[360] See the documents in Henri des Houx, pp. 166-7, and Mgr. de T'Serclaes, vol. i., pp. 127-132. Most biographers grossly misrepresent his "promotion." Rome plainly decided that he was not suitable for a nunciature.

[361] His episcopal pronouncements are given in Scelta di Atti episcopali del Cardinale G. Pecci (1879).

[362] He was made cardinal on December 19, 1853.

[363] Mgr. Cataldi, whom he afterwards made his master of ceremonies. H. des Houx (p. 329) observes that, when Cataldi died, his papers were put under seal by Leo's orders and his letters have never been published.

[364] See de Cesare, pp. 138-144.

[365] The losses of the Church are analyzed by the author, and Catholic authority is quoted in most cases, in The Decay of the Church of Rome (2d ed. 1910). In France alone the loss was about 25,000,000. His Papal pronouncements are collected in Leonis XIII. P.M. Acta (17 vols., 1881-1898), SS. D.N. Leonis XIII. allocutiones, etc. (8 vols., 1887-1910), and Discorsi del Summo Pontefice Leone XIII. (1882).

[366] Article "Leo XIII."

[367] Contemporary Review, 1891 (vol. lx., 161).

[368] See the documents relating to the episode in T'Serclaes, i., 425.

[369] On the relations of Rome and the Centre compare Count von Hoensbroech's Rom und das Zentrum (1910). There are also curious details in the same writer's Fourteen Years a Jesuit (Engl. trans. 1911).

[370] See E. Barbier, Le Progrès du libéralisme Catholique en France sous le Pape Léon XIII. (1907) and A. Houtin, Histoire du Modernisme Catholique (1913).

[371] See M. Tirado y Rojas, Leon XIII. y España (1903), for details in regard to Spain.

[372] We have on earlier pages seen that parts of the archives are still reserved, even from ecclesiastics. On the general question see G. Buschdell, Das Vatikanische Archiv und die Bedeutung seiner Erschliessung durch Papst Leo XIII. (1903).

[373] An English translation of the chief Encyclicals has been issued by Wynne in America (1902). For other work see Poems, Charades, Inscriptions of Leo XIII. (1902, ed. Henry).

[374] The injunction was not, of course, literally obeyed. At Louvain University, where Leo believed that he had established Thomism in its purest form, Mgr. (now Cardinal) Mercier gave us little of St. Thomas, and not one priest in a thousand ever opens the pages of Aquinas. At Rome Leo set up a Thomist Academy at a cost of £12,000 to himself.

[375] See Mgr. de T'Serclaes, ii., 107-111.

[376] I speak from personal recollection, being a professor in a seminary at the time. Leo went on to form a Biblical Commission, of which my liberal professor, Fr. David Fleming, became secretary. The first decision it was his duty to sign was that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch! For the later doubts and despair of Leo see the very interesting details in A. Houtin's La Question Biblique au XIX. siècle (2d ed., 1902) and La Question Biblique au XX. siècle (2d ed., 1906).

[377] In the Encyclopædia Britannica ("Leo XIII.") it is said that the Pope in 1902 advises the workers to turn aside from social zeal and concentrate on the interests of the Papacy. This seems to be inaccurate. His pronouncements of that year are of the same tenor as the Encyclical Graves de communi. See Sanctissimi D.N. Leonis XIII. Allocutiones, etc., vol. viii., pp. 65-78 and 181-2. The Americans have issued an English translation of the chief Encyclicals.

[378] I include Peter, as is usual, though it must be recalled that no writer calls him "bishop" of Rome until the third century, and it cannot be regarded as proved that he ever visited Rome. The date of his death, and the succeeding dates until the third century, and many later, are conjectural and disputed.

[379] On account of some confusion in mediæval chronicles, a spurious "John XV." was inserted in the list of Popes. Hence John XXI. was really John XX., but the names of the later Popes are so fixed that it seems better, as is usually the case, to skip from John XIX. to John XX.