THE POPE AROUSED. HE MAKES A STRONG SPEECH BEFORE THE SACRED COLLEGE.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 341, 9 February 1889, Page 3

THE POPE AROUSED. HE MAKES A STRONG SPEECH BEFORE THE SACRED COLLEGE.

The Pope, addressing the Sacred College on December 24, gave thanks to God for tteh c blessings which his jubilee had brought him. He affirmed with much feeling his former utteranceson thequesbionof temporal power, and indignantly lejected the accusation that ho was an enemy of Italy. He urged Catholics everywhere to agitato in a legal manner for the icstoration of papal supremacy, and spoke in deprecation of the recent liberal enactments in Italy. His address throughout was unusually violent and bitter. It referred exclusively to the Vatican and Italy. His Holiness said that the whole world saw in what a painful situation lie was placed. One could only ask, " How far will they go ?" At the present time a systematic war is being waged. Even the peison of the .Pope is exposed to the threats of the mob. The enemies of the Holy See had weapons enough already to injure the Papacy, and if these did not suffice they were prepaied to mauufactnre fresh weapons. It was persistently asserted that the Pope was the enemy of Italy. This assertion was simply made to mask the real object of the perfidious war against the Church, and that object was to render Italians hostile to the Papacy. To vindicate the rights of the Pontiff was in reality to advance the prosperity of Italy. To demand that the greatest moral power in the world should possess real sovereignty in Italy, where Providence .laced the Church centuries ago, was uob an act of hostility to the country. The fact that the Bishops in foreign lands were labouring for the restoration of the Pope's temporal rights proved that the interests of the whole Catholic Church were bound up in the cause. The Pope has given $2,400 to the Rome poor and &600 to poor priests as Christmas gifts.