England and the Pope

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 28, 9 July 1903, Page 18

England and the Pope

The closing lines of Justin McCarthy's biography of Leo XIII. run as follow : ' As a great leader of men, endowed with unrivalled influence, he made it his task to maintain peace among his neighbors. Better praise no man could have earned ; a better life no man could have lived ' France, Belgium, Germany, Spain, owe much to his peace-giving intei ventions in gravo and critical emergencies, and the nations recognise and reverence his work as a statesman and philanthropist. It is a hopeful sign of the times when such a paper as the London 'Saturday Re\ iew ' could take occasion, from the recent visit of King Edward to the Pope, to suggest a permanent British Legation to the Holy See. ' Prussia,' says the ' Saturday Review,' 'not a Roman Catholic country, has an Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary ; Russia a Minister resident ; England and the United States alone among the Great Powers remain without an accredited representative to the Holy See. The Vatican is a school of the subtlest, the most intellectual of all the diplomacies, and contact with it could not fail to bo of service to our secretaries. That, however, is less important than the fact that the Holy See is the finest source of information In the world, and it would be absurd that we should cut ourselves off from that source for fear of tho prejudices of a few extremists. The Roman question is as acute as ever ; it is a question of worlds-wide importance ; our present embassy in Rome is not in a position to, keep us fully posted in all its phases. It is to tho interest of every country to see this question solved ; and how can we make our influence felt at the Vatican if we have no accredited representative to the Pope ? The presence of England and tho United States at tho Holy See might, in course of time, do much to modify a situation which is impossible to both Pope and King.'