POPE PIUS XI.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 February 1922, Page 6

POPE PIUS XI.

fRENOH PRESS APPROVAL. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. London, Feb. 7. The French Press hails Cardinal Ratti’s election to the Papacy enthusiastically. Le Matin declares that the election is a striking victory for Christianity, scientific, social, and democratic progress. Eclair says that Cardinal Ratti, having followed with the greatest interest post-war international questions, is abreast of all modern problems. Figaro declares that Cardinal Ratti will devote all his efforts to bringing universal peace, a task in which politics have failed. Perhaps human calculations are incompetent to ensure peace, which may not come from the Chancelleries but from the human heart under Divine influence. The real universal crisis is not poverty and ruin but weakness and discouragement of soul. —Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn.

NEW DEPARTURE IMPORTANT. London, Feb. 7. The Times says that the Pope’s action in personally blessing the people from a balcony has enormous political tamportance. It is the first public appearance of the Pope since 1870, and has brought a solution of the Roman question nearer than ever before.— Times. A WORLD-WIDE BLESSING. < Rome, Feb. 7. The secretary of the conclave, in a communique, says that Pope Pius XI., while making every reservation in favor of the inviolable rights of the Church and Holy See, which rights he has sworn to defend, has given his first blessing from an exterior balcony overlooking the square of St. Peter’s in the special intention that the blessing should be addressed, not only to those present, not only to the people of Rome and Italy, but to all nations and all peoples and that it should bring to the whefle world that universal pacification we all so ardently desire.