Propaganda College.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 14, 3 April 1902, Page 3

Propaganda College.

The Very Rev. Dr. Casartelli, writing some time ago on ' The Mis sionary Organisation of the Catholic Church,' gave the following interesting particulars regarding Propaganda College :—: — Although there are many colleges for the foreign missions in Rome and elsewhere, their end is considerably different to that of the Urban College. Most of the former — such as the Seminary of Foreign Missions in the Rue dv Bac, Paris, or that of Schent, near Brussels, or Mill Hill College, London — are for the training of European ecclesiastics to go out and work at the evangelisation of the heathen in distant lands. But the object of Propaganda is chiefly to educate young men who are themselves natives of pagan or heretical countries, and to train them thoroughly in the Catholic atmosphere of Rome, so that they may later on go back to th.eir own native lands to become zealous and thoroughly well-trained apostles of their fellow-countrymen. True, there are several other colleges of a like nature in Rome, but they are destined for the natives of particular countries — Armenia, Syria, Greece, Illyria, etc. — whereas Propaganda College is absolutely international in a sense and to a degree that ia probably unequalled in any part of the globe. To give an idea of this, it may be mentioned that a short time ago the following list was published of the nationality of the students in residence : 3 Danes, 6 Syrians, 2 Germans, 2 Maronites, 14 Greeka, 2 Englishmen, 3 Swiss, 3 Belgians, 2 Melchites (Greek), 3 Africans, 2 Bulgarians, 4 lllyrians, 3 Albanians, 8 Americans, 2 Dutchmen, 3 Scots, 7 Chaldeans, 1 Australian, 3 Nova Scotians, 3 Newfoundlanders. On another occasion the prize-list contained the names of 2 Slavs, 7 Americans, 10 Irish, 2 East Indiana, 1 Dutchman, 1 Swiss, 1 Chinaman, 3 Egyptians, 1 Spaniard, 1 Greek and 1 Illyrian. Another year it was stated that the College contained 130 students, speaking among them 32 different languages— a veritable Tower of Babel. One can well understand how that most wonderful of linguists, Cardinal Mezzofanti, must have enjoyed, as his biographers tell us he did, spending his leisure hours with the Propaganda students at their recreation, and conversing fluently with each of them in turn in his native language to the manifest amazement of all, ' who heard every man his own tongue wherein he was born— Parthians and Medes and Elamites, inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphilia, Egypt and the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome,' Cretes and Arabians, besides many other strange tonguea utterly unheard of in the days of St. Luke. Once a year the Pentecostal marvel seems renewed, when there is held — not on Whit Sunday, as one would naturally expect, but on the Epiphany —the ' Polyglot Academy,' at which the students of the manifold nationalities recite, each in his own language, special compositions in prose or verse, representing sometimes as many as 50 or 60 various tongues. In the same spirit the College Chapel is dedicated to the Magi, the first of the Gentiles to come to the Faith. The direction and teaching of the College have passed through many vicissitudes. At its inception it was placed in the charge of three canons of the patriarchal basilica? of St. John Lateran, St. Peter's, and St. Mary Major's. Later on it passed into the hands of the Theatine Order, who in turn were succeeded by secular priests. In 1798 the College waß closed by the French Republican, and was not reopened till 1816, when it was once more confided to secular priests. From 1836 to 1848 it was conducted by the Jesuit Fathers, but the Revolution of the latter year drove the Society out of Rome, and from that date until the present it has again been in the hands of the secular clergy. It is governed by a rector, a vicerector, spiritual director, procurator, and prefect of studies. The staff ia divided into the faculties of Theology, with nine chairs ; Philosophy (including mathematics and natural science), with six chairg ; and Arts, embracing, besides the ordinary classical chairs, others of the Hebrew, Chaldean, Syriac, Arabic, Armenien, and Chinese languages, with 11 professors in all. The students of several other colleges, such as the Irish, Greek, North American, Ruthenian, Slavonic, Maronite, and Armenian, likewise attend the lectures of the Urban College. A very great educational work is, therefore, being done by this Propaganda College, not merely in teaching and forming excellent and learned ecclesiastics of every nationality and rite, but also in consolidating and binding together by the ties of comradeship a large body of the clergy in every part of the world and of both the Latin and the Eastern rites.