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THE MEN AROUND THE POPE

BY SAMUEL J. BARROWS

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HE American visitor at Rome finds on the Alban Hills two objects of interest, one the Papal Villa, the Castel Gondalfo, where the Holy Father spends his summers, and the other the villa of the American College. On these historic hills eighteen college boys are engaged in an athletic game. From the way they get under the ball," from the way they drive it at the bat, take a high fly or a low grounder, it is perfectly evident that they are American boys. No others can handle a ball like that. How much better this than to be fighting beasts in the Coliseum! Among the spectators are some from the Papal Villa, one of them wearing the Cardinal's hat. He watches the game with intense interThe players, too, watch this tall, spare man when their eyes are not on the ball; they are proud of his applause. He knows all the points of the game. He might serve as umpire.

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But this alert, keen man has another and a vaster field. He is, if not the umpire, one of the principal actors in an international contest which the whole world has watched with eager interest. The "diamond" stretches from the Alban Hills to the Seine. It is not a conflict of arms, but a conflict of diplomacy.

Next to the Pope no one stands out so conspicuously to-day on the Roman side of the political arena as this man, Cardinal Raphael Merry del Val, the Papal Secretary of State. The official documents which have gone to the French Government. and to all the Governments with which the Holy See has official relations, bear his signature. To borrow a phrase from the game he admires. it was he who set the ball in motion from the Roman side by sending a missive to the courts of Europe. This

letter was written April 2, 1904, from the chambers of the Vatican. It stated that "the coming to Rome in an official form of M. Loubet, President of the French Republic, to pay a visit to Victor Emanuel III. was an event of such exceptional gravity that the Holy See could not permit it to pass without calling to it the most serious attention of the Government which your Excellency represents." It pointed out in courteous but positive language the offensive character of the visit rendered to the Italian Government. intentionally brought about by that Government to enfeeble the rights and to wound the dignity of the Holy See. It stated that if the other Catholic powers had done the same thing, the recall of the Papal Nuncio would have immediately followed.

The result of this letter was the recall of the French Ambassador at the Vatican. The open war between France and the Vatican began.

Who is this man called to such unexpected prominence? But a few years ago he would not have dreamed of occupying the place he holds. His early ambition was to be a simple Jesuit father; but his education and his ability deflected him from the work of a humble missionary and led to his unusual elevation.

Raphael Merry del Val was born in London, October 10, 1865. His father was Secretary of the Spanish Embassy to Great Britain, his mother an English woman of Spanish origin. His name Merry is an indication of the Irish blood in his veins, for he gets it from a grandparent coming from Dublin. His father, having aided Alfonso when that Prince was sojourning in England, was gratefully remembered when Alfonso cended the throne; he advanced him to the position of Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Belgium.

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The education of the son, beginning at his father's home in London, was continued at St. Michael's College at Brus

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Secretary of State under Leo XIII.; still one of the most influential counselors at the Vatican

to this office. At that time Leo was at the point of death, and Volpini apparently in the best of health. Without warning, the Secretary suddenly passed away. Leo was never told of his death, and it fell to Cardinal Oreglia, the dean of the College of Cardinals, who is the head of the Church in an interregnum, to appoint a successor. Merry del Val became thus the Secretary of the Conclave which elected Pius X. Within a few weeks

trasted in age and training. Joseph Sarto, the Pope, was born in Treviso in Italy, in 1835, and is consequently thirty years older than his Secretary of State. The Holy Father passed through every ecclesiastical grade of the Church to the very highest; he was a young seminarian, a sub-deacon, deacon, priest, curate, professor of seminary, rector of seminary, vicar-general of diocese, bishop, archbishop, patriarch, cardinal, and Pope,

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Nothing has been left out of his training except diplomacy, and the knowledge of languages and politics that goes along with it. Merry del Val, on the contrary, has never had actual parochial work, but has had that cosmopolitan life which is so good a training for diplomatic service. English is his native tongue; he speaks it with a broad English accent, with a smooth and apt diction. He has a perfect command of Italian and French, and can preach in any of these languages. Spanish he naturally learned from his parents; and has, too, the thorough command of Latin which is a part of the traditional education of Rome. With all his cosmopolitan training and his experience of life on two hemispheres, he has, however, the instincts of the priest and the educator. A hard and brilliant student, he takes a great interest in boys' clubs in Rome and brings them out to the Papal Villa for recreation and

games. A Catholic friend who has stood very close to him describes him as "an intense and pious believer, with supreme faith in the supernatural, in the Church, in the divinity of Christ, and in the absolute unshakableness of his commission to the Church." sion to the Church." Here, too, these men of different mold and make and training come into close accord; for Pius X., though not a man of scientific education, has that same intense faith in the Church and the supernatural and in Christ that makes him defy the world. "No one, for instance, would order his bishops in France to take an attitude which turns them out of church and house and home-no one would do that who was not a believer."

In his capacity as Secretary of State, Cardinal Merry del Val carries on diplomatic relations with countries having representatives at Rome. The main European countries represented are

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