700 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 



ROUMANIA. 



ment of the Court of Cassation. As the ques- 

 tion still remained in regard to other property, 

 meetings were held in various parts notably 

 in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, 

 and Ireland at which protests were made, 

 and the Episcopate in many countries appealed 

 to their governments to protect their rights 

 menaced by the Italian Government. 



On April 20 Pope Leo XIII issued an en- 

 cyclical renewing the condemnation of the 

 Freemasons made by his predecessors, which 

 was followed, May 10, by a circular of Cardi- 

 nal Monaco. Pope Leo encouraged devotion, 

 especially prayers for the prosperity of the 

 Christian religion, and the devotion of the 

 rosary, though he discountenanced an attempt 

 to celebrate a centennial of the birth of the 

 Blessed Virgin Mary. He received several 

 bodies of pilgrims at Rome, and when the 

 cholera ravaged southern Italy, exerted him- 

 self to afford temporal and spiritual relief to 

 the sufferers. On the 1st of May, by a motu 

 proprio, he established a school of paleogra- 

 phy, gave canonical erection to the American 

 College, and presided over theological and 

 philosophical debates. Decrees were issued in 

 several causes for beatification of Ven. Diego 

 de Cadiz, 0. S. F., and Ven. Gertrude Salandri, 

 O. S. D. (February 9), and Queen Maria Chris- 

 tina of Naples (July 1). Early in the year he 

 addressed an encyclical to the bishops of 

 France, on the trials of the Church in that 

 country, and sent envoys extraordinary and 

 delegates apostolic to Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, 

 and Bolivia. The matter of church music was 

 treated in a circular to the bishops of Italy. 



During 1884 the Sacred College lost Cardi- 

 nals De Luca, Bilio, Hassoun de Pietro, and 

 Falloux, and the Pope created as cardinal 

 priests Joseph Sebastian Neto, Patriarch of 

 Lisbon, and William Sanfelice de Acquarella, 

 Archbishop of Naples, on the 24th of March ; 

 Anthony Monescillo y Viso, Archbishop of Va- 

 lencia; Celestine Ganglbauer, Archbishop of 

 Vienna; Zephyrin Gonzales y Diaz Tunon, 

 Archbishop of Seville ; Peter J. M. A. Celesia, 

 Archbishop of Palermo, and William Massaia, 

 on the 10th of November : and created cardi- 

 nal deacons, Carmine Merosi-Gori, Ignatius 

 Masotto, and Isidore Verga, on the same day. 



In Prussia, though the attempts of the Catho- 

 lics to have the May laws absolutely repealed 

 failed, their severity was greatly abated. At 

 the beginning of the year the Government au- 

 thorized 119 priests in the single diocese of 

 Breslau to say mass, thus exempting from fine 

 and imprisonment ; priests that had been de- 

 barred by the law from officiating for their 

 flocks were restored to their salaries in the dio- 

 ceses of Kulm, Ermeland, and Hildesheim, but 

 in other dioceses the laws were enforced. 



In Austria a mob invaued a church where a 

 preacher was denouncing socialism, and great 

 excesses followed. 



In Belgium the Catholic spirit was revived 

 by the freedom given to education, and by the 



honors paid on March 2 to the blessed Charles 

 the Good, Count of Flanders, who had been 

 beatified Feb. 9, 1882. 



In France, Government showed an antago- 

 nism in reducing the appropriations for salaries 

 of the Catholic clergy, and in passing an act 

 allowing divorces. 



Catholic interest in the United States turned 

 on efforts in Rhode Island, Kentucky, New 

 York, and Pennsylvania, to obtain for Catholic 

 inmates of State penal and eleemosynary insti- 

 tutions the privilege of having Catholic wor- 

 ship on Sundays and exemption from compul- 

 sory attendance at Protestant services. The 

 awakening of an historical interest was shown 

 on the centenary of Father Juniper Serra in 

 California, and on the establishment of Catholic 

 Historical Societies in Philadelphia, New York, 

 and Pittsburg. The great event was the as- 

 sembling (November 9) of the third Plenary 

 Council at Baltimore, which continued its ses- 

 sions to December 7. It was presided over by 

 Archbishop Gibbons, of Baltimore, who had 

 been appointed by the Pope Apostolic Dele- 

 gate. There were present fourteen archbish- 

 ops, sixty bishops, and one prefect apostolic 

 from the United States, with five visiting bish- 

 ops from other countries, and thirty abbots or 

 superiors of religious orders. The decrees 

 were not made known, but were reported to 

 embrace the establishment of rectors irremov- 

 able except for cause, who were to have the 

 selection of candidates for the episcopal see 

 when a vacancy occurred ; the adoption of a 

 catechism for the whole country, and the erec- 

 tion of a Catholic university. 



The Catholic missions suffered in Soudan, 

 where they were broken up in consequence of 

 the fanaticism excited by El Mahdi. Seven 

 priests and four sisters died of exposure or 

 were massacred, according to reports that 

 reached Cairo. The war of the French with 

 Tonquin, which resulted in hostilities with 

 China, led to massacres of Christians in the 

 Annamite districts of Phanhoa and Ngehn. 

 Christians were also persecuted in Cochin- 

 China, and in China itself. 



ROOIAMA, a kingdom of eastern Europe, 

 formerly a province of Turkey. Absolute in- 

 dependence was proclaimed May 22, 1877, and 

 was recognized by the powers at the Congress 

 of Berlin, June 13, 1878. The principality of 

 Roumania was erected into a kingdom March 

 26. 1881. The Constitution was elaborated by 

 a Constituent Assembly in 1866, and modified 

 in 1884 by the Chambers. It delegates the 

 legislative power to the Senate, of 120 mem- 

 bers, and the Chamber of Deputies, of 183 

 members, chosen by electoral colleges in each 

 district. Every taxed citizen is a voter. 



The King, Carol I, the son of Prince Ho- 

 henzollern-Sigmaringen, was born April 20, 

 1839. He was elected Prince of Roumania in 

 1866, after the abdication of Couza, who was 

 elected Hospodar of Moldavia and Wallachia 

 in 1859, and assumed the title of Prince Alex- 





