ROME LETTER

New Zealand Tablet, 1 July 1915, Page 49

ROME LETTER

(From our own correspondent.) . : A May I. f: THE PAGES OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. | Not even St. Peter’s itself, an edifice so accustomed" to glorious sights, has witnessed for a considerable time a more touching scene than that which took place last evening, when 3000 pages of the Blessed Sacrament were permitted to descend to the Vatican grottos to. pray at the tomb of Pius X. Every , parish in the! Eternal City sent its group of pages to swell the pilgrimage, each group being headed by its pastor for this was J the first great manifestation of the children of Rome! to the memory of the saintly Pontiff who loved to gather them round him on the day of their First Communion. It was with no small trouble the clergymen in charge of the boys and girls could get them down the narrow stairways in good order, while gendarmes kept back by force the crowd of elders who would follow the little ones. Once in the grotto, a scene of deep love and piety followed. The 3000 pages kneeling among the tombs of Popes, Emperors, Kings, and Cardinals, fervently recited the Rosary for the soul of the venerable Pontiff. THE NEW BREVIARY. Whether or not the information is too late, it is worth giving. Within a month or so a publishing house in Dublin will have 10,000 copies of the Breviary prepared by experts on sale at a figure that is stated to be little more than half the usual price. One of its advantages will "be that there will be little or no turning over. It is to be a pocket edition. DECREE ON BISHOPS’ COATS-OF-A The Sacred Consistorial Congregation has issued the following decree : I By the Apostolic Constitution “Militantis Ecclesire,” issued on the 19th December, 1644, the Sovereign Pontiff, Innocent X. ordained that: “All the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, for the sake of unity and equality in the Order, shall direct the removal from their seals and escutcheons, commonly called coats-of-arms, of crowns, signs, and all designs of a secular character, except those which they use on the family shield as belonging to the integrity and essence of the same, and shall abstain in future from their use.” With a view to the same uniformity of practice in the case of Bishops, our Most Holy Lord Pope Benedict XV. considered it opportune to extend the law mentioned above to them. Wherefore his Holiness ordered that this Consistorial decree be issued, by virtue of which Patriarchs, Archbishops, and Bishops, whether residential or titular, are forbidden to add to their seals, decorations, or coats-of-arms, titles of nobility, crowns, or other secular signs or marks that go to show nobility of family or race, and the prohibition likewise applies in the issuing of decrees, , unless there happens to be question of the Knightly Order of St. John of Jerusalem or of that of the Most Holy Sepulchre. ' All things to be contrary notwithstanding. ‘ Given at Rome, from the Secretariate of the Sacred Consistorial Congregation, on the 15th day of January, 1915. ’ >i< G. Cardinal De Lai, Bishop of Sabina, ‘ Secretary. ‘ >•£ Thomas Boggiani, Assessor.’