Some Sharp Guesses

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 37, 10 September 1903, Page 1

Some Sharp Guesses

The last illness and death of Leo XIII. set newspaperdom probing the future for his successor. But all the world knows how wide their guesses went of the mark. Every Cardinal whom they sent into the Conclave a Pope came out of it a Cardinal. In this, as in most such cases, the popular voice and the predictions of the newspaper prophets turned out to be alike at fault. Cardinal Sarto's name was mentioned, so far as we are aware, by only two newspapers. One of these was the * New York Herald ' ; the other an American Catholic exchange. Both, previous to the death of Leo

XIII., recalled a remark made by the late Pope in April 19 of last year to Father Lorenzo Perosi, the renowned composer, when making kindly inquiries regarding the latter's distinguished friend and prelate, Cardinal Sarto, Patriarch of Venice. ' Hold him very dear, Perosi,' said Leo, 'as in the future he will be able to do much for you. We firmly believe he will be our successor.' A curious instance of the unconscious prescience of childhood, or the instinctive attraction that the little ones find in a kindly face, was recorded in the Victorian secular papers. While the Holy See was vacant, our valued friend, the Rev. G. Doyle, pastor of St. Arnaud (Victoria), placed the published portraits of all the leading Cardinals before the children of his parish school and asked them to pick from among them the one that was to be the next occupant of the Chair of St. Peter. The children selected Cardinal Sarto. Another happy guess in this connection was mad© by our valued contemporary, the Milwaukee ' Catholic Citizen,' in an issue recently to hand. After having detailed the expeditious elections to the Papal See that had taken place during the nineteenth century, it deduced therefrom the following conclusion : ' By August 5 (next Monday) we should know the name of his (Leo's) successor.' And so it came about. Edmund Burke declared somewhere that one can never plan the future by the past. But the rule is clearly not of universal application.