Propaganda Fide 
121 
plicable to persons in different positions. 12 The privileges granted to ecclesi¬ 
astics in America were especially great owing to the impossibility of bringing 
even cases of considerable importance across the Atlantic, and were desirable 
for the holder as well as for those he served, because of the fees attached. At 
first granted for fifteen years, an act of 1670 made the period seven: “ . . . 
perche si e poi veduto, che non si ricordano piu della Sacra Cong e , finche non 
venga la necessita di rinovarle ”. 13 
Over the Bishop of Quebec the control of the Propaganda was more direct, 
for that see was, after a struggle with the French government, attached di¬ 
rectly to the see of Rome, and not made part of the general ecclesiastical or¬ 
ganization of France. Its occupants, moreover, were ever mindful of this 
relationship, if one may judge from the constant regularity of their correspond¬ 
ence. The same was true of the bishops of the United States, although cir¬ 
cumstances had almost determined that they should become a part of the 
French system, to which the French colonial bishops had never belonged. 
Over the minor clergy and laity engaged in missionary work, whether secu¬ 
lar or regular, the system of control was fairly effective. Every worker re¬ 
quired a license. 14 This was not always given directly by the Propaganda to 
the individual, as the power to grant a certain number was sometimes dele¬ 
gated, or one license given to a body of persons ; but this was never carried to 
the point of laxity. Such workers, moreover, always needed some grade of 
facolta, 15 and this was often granted for a shorter period than in the case of a 
bishop, requiring its holder to keep in touch with Rome. Between the privi¬ 
leges of a vicar apostolic and those of a bishop there was sufficient difference 
at least to treble the number of cases which could not be settled in America; 
which fact brought not only the vicar apostolic himself, but his clergy and 
people, more directly under the eye of the Pope or rather the Propaganda. 
For cases arising in America came, in Rome, to the Propaganda, which, to 
use the common Italian expression, carried all the congregations in corpo. 
This was not true of every case, and of those that were presented to it, the 
Propaganda referred many to the appropriate congregation 10 or tribunal, but 
probably the major portion it handled itself. Most of these cases, together 
with much of its business with bishops and with others, were dealt with by 
means of procurators, whose business papers, if they exist and could be found, 
would give a more intimate view of the working of the machinery of the church 
than any source now known. 
On Nov. 1, 1908, all those portions of the United States and Canada where 
the episcopal organization is established, together with England, Holland, and 
other regions, passed from the control of the Propaganda; whose powers in 
the future will be limited to those regions where the church system is incom¬ 
plete, and whose chief activity will doubtless be in the direction of the exten¬ 
sive educational organizations which have developed under its charge. 17 
It is obvious that for the direct relationship of the church with America 
after 1622, the archives of the Propaganda are more important than all others 
12 Miscellanea di Missioni, XIII., p. 116; Missioni, Miscellanea, III., p. 49; Memoriali, 
391 , p. 293. 
13 Atti, 1670, p. 184, Sept. 15, 1670. 
u Atti, 1659, p. 16, Jan. 14, 1659. 
15 See Atti and Memoriali, passim. 
16 See Lettere, passim, particularly the letters of the secretary rather than those of the 
congregation. 
17 See Gerarchia Cattolica, 1908. Recently its famous printing establishment passed 
into other hands. 
