Urbi et Orbi

...Let us also recognize, that at least as much as the post of prefect of congregation, that of nuncio demands a knowledge of Vatican traditions and the Roman milieu relatively rare among foreign prelates...

...With all the defects," he writes, "that one knows or supposes in them, the Italian cardinals have ordinarily an almost innate sense of universality, an absence of rigidity in methods and in manners, impartiality and good grace...

...Outsiders have gradually grown less and less able to conceive of a system which, for 1,500 years, succeeded most thoroughly in reconciling patriotism with the ideal of a universal church...

...Hence, in the probable event of a further succession of Popes of Italian origin, it will be necessary to explain their selection upon other grounds than the national complexion of the conclave...

...There is one bishop to 342,000 in Colombia and one to 830,000 in Chile...

...The inroads made by nationalism in religion have had their effect for these last...

...What light is thrown by these figures upon the question of Italian participation in the government of the Church...

...There are 268 Italian dioceses with an average Catholic population of 144,000...

...A Dutch, a Canadian, and a Brazilian cardinal had been added to the Sacred College...

...Certainly M. Vaussard makes no mistake in discerning a considered attempt, gradually executed, on the part of the Holy See to adjust the hierarchy to the modern distribution of population...

...In France, where many sees were suppressed by the Concordat, the mean is very high—470,000, as also in Spain, where the average episcopal flock is 350,000...

...By his timely article showing the natural and reasonable basis for a system which few Catholics find fault with, M. Vaussard has done a real service to fair-minded critics outside it...

...The reference to the Catholic Church in Great Britain as "the Italian mission," less familiar now than it was twenty-five or thirty years ago, is a typical instance of the attempt to make dogmatic capital out of racial prejudice...

...Against these, Ireland has twenty-eight dioceses, averaging 115,000 faithful...

...In Scotland, the bishop of Aberdeen rules 12,000, the bishop of Argyll and the Isles, only 13,000...

...As M. Vaussard points out, anything approaching proportional representation by bishops is impossible in a world where missionary effort is building up anew so much that was destroyed...

...In 1925 the number of the former had fallen to thirty-three, that of the latter risen to thirty-four...

...Among the foreigners, the French remained constant at seven, the Germans, with Austria, had between four and six, the Spanish had increased from five to six, the English-speaking (other than Americans) from two to three...

...Of the Italian cardinals only eight—the archbishops of Milan, Bologna, Venice, Florence, Naples, Palermo, Catania and Pisa, possessed residential sees...

...Next, even assuming that all the Italian cardinals were to favor the Italian candidate for the Papacy, it is apparent that they would now be insufficiently numerous to carry his election...

...The reason why Italians will probably continue to occupy the throne of the Fisherman is the same one given by M. Vaussard for the predominance of Italians in the subordinate administrative offices of the Church, the prefectures, and nunciatures...

...March 3, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 455 URBI ET ORBI /1P HE racial and national element in the government -¦¦ of the Church, as evidenced in the composition of the various rites and congregations at Rome, and in the body of bishops who will take their seats in any forthcoming general council, is a question that, strangely enough, intrigues Catholics rather less than those outside the Church...

...An examination of the figures certainly does not suggest that the Nordic or English-speaking races suffer from the distribution of sees, according to whose vote, under the aegis of the supreme Pontiff, the Church's final judgments are given...

...Even such important cities as Genoa and Turin were not represented...

...The episcopacy, pure and simple, will always remain the element in the Church's government from which its growth and the adjustments to new conditions are to be gauged and in which the modifications inevitable from new conditions will appear...

...Australia, twenty, with 58,500...

...The charge of undue Italian preponderance in the executive government of the Church is one often heard and repeated...

...In 1906 there were thirty-five Italian cardinals as against twenty-eight "foreigners," with eleven vacancies...

...Canada, thirty-five, with 96,000 each...

...the United States, 101, with 183,500...

...The whole question is examined by the well-known Catholic writer, Maurice Vaussard, in a recent number of the Revue des Deux Mondes, and his figures are interesting, if only because they show that Rome, prudently and gradually as is her wont, is permitting the changes that have been brought about by the extension of the Church to newer worlds and the facilities that arise from the new methods of inter-communication to be reflected in the national make-up of the body that stands nearest in dignity to the steps of the papal throne...

...The average rises sharply in South America...

...In Poland, in Hungary, in Germany, a diocese may contain a million...

...In the first place, it is obvious that under normal conditions, the charge made during the first sessions of the Council of the Vatican, that the Italian episcopate controlled all decisions, is hardly likely to be repeated at any later sessions which may be held...

...The other Italian cardinals were all concerned in Church administration, as prefects of congregations...

...It is those bodies to which Rome and error appear as equivalent terms which show themselves most sensitive to the preponderance in her executive government of men of Italian race...

...there were four cardinals from the United States, and two Poles...

...At first sight the figures on Italian preponderance are very striking...