2(5 Bishops and Laity in Partibus Injidclium. C^ AN - 



bishop of Hermopolis, who directs a non-existent clergy, and feeds a 

 non-existent flock, on the borders of Nubia, while he resides in Paris, 

 and is known to Frenchmen as minister of public worship, and director of 

 public education. Athens, we know, notwithstanding the good will of 

 the Turks, has still a few inhabitants, and we can give no other reason 

 why it should not have a Catholic prelate than this that it has not a 

 Catholic citizen. This, however, we allow, is an absurd objection, if we 

 admit the archiepiscopal rights of Ninevah, which probably has not 

 heard of the true faith since Jonah escaped to preach it from the whale's 

 belly, and which most certainly never knew of the existence of the 

 Pope, or the Roman consistory. This latter pious prelate, having no 

 cure of souls in that extinct city, has lately undertaken the care of com- 

 merce; and has added to his title of Catholic archbishop of Babylon, 

 that of French consul at Bagdad. 



It would be interesting to see the ecclesiastical law of residence enforced 

 in some of the cases above alluded to. It would be curious, for instance, 

 to see the Bishop of Hermopolis, dressed in full canonicals, on his pro- 

 gress up the Nile to look for his diocese, rowed by a body of Copts and 

 Abyssinians, bearing aloft in the boat the mitre and the crosier, displayed 

 to profane eyes, and escorted by a guard of fanatic Mussulman soldiers 

 from the Pacha of Egypt. It would be no less amusing to attend the 

 venerable prelate of Jericho, accompanied by skilful Jewish antiquaries, 

 while he endeavoured to discover amid heaps of brick or mounds of 

 rubbish, the circuit of the walls which had been blown down by rams' 

 horns in the time of the Judges, and the vestiges of buildings which 

 composed the residence of his primitive flock. At Thebes, the newly 

 created archbishop will be able to trace the extent of his diocese by the 

 magnificent ruins of edifices, and the glorious remains of art ; but where 

 is the noble cathedral where is the archiepiscopal palace where are the 

 rich stalls and fat livings which distinguished this historical charge ? 

 The care of the metropolitans of Tyre and Sidon would be still more 

 deplorable. In addition to the difficulty of finding their diocese would 

 be the danger of receiving an unceremonious visit from the Arabs of the 

 desert, who might be disposed to pay little attention to their crosier or 

 their character, provided they had any goodly apparel on their persons, 

 or valuable coins in their scrip. 



A Greek prelate, of the name of Bassiledes, calling himself Bishop of 

 Carystos, in Eubrea, has lately published a pamphlet, in which he ex- 

 presses great indignation that the Pope who is only patriarch of the 

 west should assume the power of nominating to sees in Greece, and 

 other places within the jurisdiction of the patriarch of the east. This 

 Bishop of Carystos, in Eubcea, seems to have as much reason on his side 

 as any man can have who contends against an infallible authority. What 

 would the successor of St. Peter, for instance, say, if the Patriarch of 

 Constantinople should take it into his head to nominate this Bishop 

 of Carystos, in Eubrea, to the see of Rome, and erect the residence of our 

 Lady of Loretto into a bishoprick for one of his chaplains ? In order, 

 therefore, to avoid all such unchristian collision between the chiefs of rival 

 churches, we would humbly submit it a question for the consideration of 

 the next consistory, whether it would not be better that ecclesiastical 

 dignatories, with titular charges, should derive their designations from 

 the system of the planets, the signs of the zodiac, or the constellations of 

 the celestial chart, rather than from the debateable ground of ancient 



