738 



ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 



shall further have full liberty to produce, yet within 

 a'period of time to be determined by the Council, 

 whatever else may help his defense. 



VIII Should it happen that the missionary rec- 

 tor who is on trial refuse to appear before the Coun- 

 cil let him be summoned once more by letter, and a 

 suitable space of time be fixed for his appearance. 

 Should lie fail to appear on the day appointed, unless 

 he can plead legitimate excuse, let him be accounted 

 contumacious. 



IX. When all this has been duly done, let the 

 members take counsel together, and if the greater 

 number think the facts sufficiently proven, let each 

 councilor state in writing his opinion, with the rea- 

 sons on which it is grounded, arid let these opinions 

 be collected. An account of the proceedings shall be 

 drawn up by the Bishop's official, and signed by the 

 chairman on behalf of the Council, which, together 

 with the opinions of each in full, shall be laid before 

 the Bishop. 



X. Should further investigation be deemed becom- 

 ing or necessary, on the same day or another day of 

 meeting to be appointed by the Council, let such wit- 

 nesses as the Council. think fit be called, the mission- 

 ary rector having been allowed a hearing as to the 

 witnesses he may wish to have summoned. 



XI. Each witness for the prosecution shall be care- 

 fully examined, apart from the rest, by the chairman 

 and by the other councilors through the chairman, 

 in the absence of the missionary rector. No oath 

 shall be required, but if the witnesses do not refuse 

 it, and declare themselves ready, if need be, to con- 

 firm by oath their testimony, let a note of such dispo- 

 sition or declaration be made in the report. 



XII. Should there be no discrepancy in the testi- 

 mony, and the Council in its prudence think fit, the 

 testimony shall be repeated in presence of the mis- 

 sionary rector, who shall have the right of question- 

 ing, if he choose, the witnesses through the chair- 

 man. 



XIII. Witnesses for the defense shall be questioned 

 in the same way as witnesses for the prosecution. 



XIV. After mutual deliberation, they shall proceed 

 as above (No. IX.). 



XV. Should the witnesses be unwilling or unable 

 to appear before the Council, or their testimony not 

 be sufficient to throw light on the case, let two coun- 

 cilors at least be deputed, who, by conversing with 

 the witnesses, visiting the localities, or endeavoring 

 in any other way to enlighten their doubts, shall 

 hand in to the Council a report of their investiga- 

 tion, so that nothing be left untried to discover with 

 moral certainty the truth, before a decision shall be 

 given. 



XVI. A record of all that has been said and done 

 during the trial shall be carefully kept in the (ar- 

 chives of the) Episcopal Court, so that it may be 

 produced without difficulty in case of appeal. 



XVII. Should it happen that an appeal be taken 

 from the judgment, pronounced in the Episcopal 

 Court to that of the Archbishop, thg Metropolitan 

 shall proceed in the same way to the trial and deci- 

 sion of the case. 



Given at Rome, from the House of the aforesaid 

 Sacred Congregation, the twentieth day of July, in 

 the year 1878. 



JOHN CARDIN. SIMEONI, Prefect. 



JOHN BAPTIST AGNOZZI, Secretary. 



Thio important act of the Holy See excited 

 great differences of opinion as to its meaning 

 and effect. The archbishops and bishops in 

 the United States proceeded to appoint in 

 their respective dioceses Judices Causarum, 

 who like a grand jury examine the charge, 

 and the testimony for and against the accused, 

 and submit their opinions and record of pro- 

 ceedings to the Bishop for judgment. 



During the ravages of the yellow fever, the 

 Catholic clergy, from New Orleans to Mem- 

 phis, zealously devoted themselves to the sick, 

 thirty-three priests and nearly fifty Sisters of 

 various communities and other religious dying 

 at their posts by yellow fever. 



In the United States of Colombia, where 

 laws had been passed for a supervision of 

 worships and the confiscation of church prop- 

 erty, and several bishops had been banished 

 for protesting against them, great excitement 

 followed. The Government finally entered into 

 a convention with the banished Bishops of Me- 

 dellin and Antioquia, and abandoned the prose- 

 cution instituted against the clergy. The Bish- 

 op of Panama, in an address to the Congress, 

 March 25th, explained and justified the attitude 

 of the bishops and clergy. General Trujillo, the 

 new President, in a special message to Congress, 

 asked them to repeal the obnoxious laws; but 

 that assembly on May 13th refused. 



The Assembly in Bolivia having introduced 

 a law suppressing the jurisdiction of the Pope, 

 and making the clergy and bishops state offi- 

 cials, Bishop Juan de Dios Bosque protested. 



In Corea a persecution against the Catholics 

 began early in the year, several Christian vil- 

 lages were depopulated and plundered, and 

 numbers of the faithful imprisoned. Bishop 

 Ridel, Vicar Apostolic of Corea, was impris- 

 oned January 28th, and menaced with death, 

 but was finally exiled. 



Dr. Johann Alzog, one of the most widely 

 known ecclesiastical historians of the time, 

 died of apoplexy at Freiburg, Baden, Febru- 

 ary 28th. He was born at Ohlau, Silesia, in 

 1808, and was ordained in 1834. He was made 

 ^Professor of Exegesis and Church History the 

 next year at Posen, and filled the chair of His- 

 tory at Freiburg from 1853 to his death. His 

 "Lehrbuch der Universal Kirchengeschicte" 

 appeared in 1840, and has gone through many- 

 editions. It was translated into French, Ital- 

 ian, and Polish, and recently into English 

 (Cincinnati, 1878). The Abbe" J. E. Darras, 

 author of a "Church History," also translated 

 into English in this country, died November 

 8th. 



The Jesuit Father Peter Angelo Secchi, a 

 distinguished astronomer, mathematician, and 

 physicist, died at Rome, February 26th. He 

 was born at Reggio in 1818, and entered the 

 Society of Jesus in 1833. After teaching nat- 

 ural philosophy in Italy, he began his theo- 

 logical course, which he completed at George- 

 town, D. C. In 1850 he was made Director of 

 the Observatory of the Roman College. He 

 invented a new system of meteorological ob- 

 servation and a meteorograph. He was ap- 

 pointed superintendent of the trigonometrical 

 survey of the Papal States, was engineer of 

 the works introducing water into Rome from 

 Frosinone, and attained great success in spec- 

 troscopic analysis and in solar and stellar phys- 

 ics. His most important work on the sun was 

 published at Paris in 1870. His researches 



