Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11.djvu/796

 PERTINAX

732

PERU

November, 1810, he studied medicine, but later joined the priesthood and went out with Dom Serra in 1849. He laboureil strenuously in buikling U]) the diocese, and was a man of wondt-ilul asceticism; after his death a wooden cross twelve inches long was found attached to his shoulders, fastene<l pennancntly into his flesh by five iron spikes. Dr. Mattluwt libney, who had been ai)poLnted Bishop of Scythopulis and Coad- jutor of Perth cum Jure successionis, was consecrated a( Perth, 2;i January, 1887. Under his guidance the diocese made rapid progress, as in his earlier days, so during liis episcopate, he was an ardent apostle of re- Ugious education for children. He introduced all the religious congregations mentioned below, except the Sistersof Mercy and the Sisters of St. Joseph. In 1889, with two Vincentians, he gave a mission throughout the whole of his diocese. In 1890 he set out for Beagle Bay, where he established a successful native mission, under the care of the Trappists, who were later replaced by the Fallot ine Fathers and the Sisters of St. John of God from Subiaco, Perth. Owing to advanced years, Dr. Gibney resigned his see and has been succeeded by Most Reverend P. J. Clune, C.SS.R. (1911). Dr. Clune, born in Clare, Ireland, 1863, was ordained for the Diocese of Goulbourn (q. v.) 24 June, 1886. In 1892 he returned to Ireland, and became a Redemptorist. After being stationed at Dundalk and Limerick, he was sent to Wellington, New Zealand, as rector of the Redemptorist monastery; after which he was superior at North Perth till his election as bishop. From the original Diocese of Perth, three additional ecclesiastical districts have been formed: New Norcia (1847); the Vicariate Apostolic of Kmberley (1887); and the Diocese of Geraldton (1898).

Statistics of religious congregations. — Men: Oblates of Mary Immaculate (1894), 2 houses, 11 members; Redeniptorists (1894), 1 monastery, 8 members; Irish Christian Brothers (1894), 4 houses, 18 members. ■Women: Sisters of Mercy (1846), 12 houses, 15.3 nuns; Sisters of St. Joseph of the Apparition (18.5.5), 6 houses, 46 nuns; Sisters of St. John of God (1885), 4 houses, 43 nuns; Sisters of Notre-Dame des Missions (1887), 4 houses, 22 nuns; Presentation Sisters (1900), 3 houses, 12 nuns; Sisters of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart (1890), 5 hou.ses, 16 nuns; Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or Loreto Nuns (1897), 2 houses, 26 professed sisters. There are 22 high schools (3 boys', 19 girls'), with 1238 pupils; 43 primary schools with .5230 pupils; teachers engaged, 408; 1 boys' oqjhanage; 1 girls' orphanage; 1 boys' industrial school; 1 girls' reformatory; 1 Magdalene Asylum; 2 hospitals (these charitable institutes contain 413 inmates); 26 ecclesiastical districts; 51 churches; 44 secular and 13 regular priests ; 27 brothers ; 366 nuns; 54 lay teachers and a Catholic population of 45,000.

MoKAN. Hist, of the Catholic. Church in Australasia (Sydney, 8. d.). 553-91; 969-79; Australasian Catholic Directory (Sydney,

1910). A. A. MacErlean.

Pertinas, PtrsLins Helvius, Roman Emperor (31 Dec, 192), b. at Alba Pompeia, in Liguria, 1 Au- gust, 126; d. at Rome 28 March, 193. A freedraan's son, he taught grammar at Rome before entering the army. Because of his military ability and his com- petence in civil positions, he was made prajtor and consul. His services in the campaign against Avidius Cassius led Marcus ,\urelius to give Pertinax the chief command of the army alf)ng the Danube, a position he filled with such distinction that Marcus Aurelius made him successively governor of Moesia, Dacia, and Svria.

" Commodus first made him commander-in-chief of the troops in Britain, then appointed him governor in Africa, and finally made him prefect of the city of Rome. On accoimt of a conspiracy against Com- modus manv innocent persons, including Pertinax, were banished. After the strangling of Commodus,

Pertinax was proclaimed emperor by the soldiers at the suggestion of La>tus, prefect of the pra'torian guard. Pertinax had himself elected as head of the State once more by the senators and revived the title "Princeps Senatus"; on the first day of his reign he restore order in the administration of the State. By selling at auction the costly furniture and plate of Commodus and by a frugal administration, before three months he was able to make gifts of money to the people and give to the pra'torian guard the promised largess. He also was able to resume public works. He separated pubhc lands from those belong- ing to the emperor, endeavoured to bring about the resettling of deserted estates, to recall those arbitrarily banished, and to bring informers to trial. He refused the title of Augusta for his wife, or that of Ca>sar for his son until he had earned the honour. When the praetorians saw that the emperor meant to restore the ancient discipline and when the prefect La^tus noticed that he strove to limit his own influence, he aroused the soldiers of the guard against the emperor. After suppressing the revolt of the consul, Sossius Falco, Pertinax declined to put him to death, though the Senate had decreed his execution. Several praetorians were suspected of being members of the conspiracy; La;tus had these put to death without any trial and made the soldiers believe that it was done by imperial command. The praetorians now resolved to depose Pertinax. One evening a mob of about two hundred soldiers went to the palace to murder the emperor. The latter came out to them without arms in the hope of quieting them by his personal influence. His words impressed the mutineers and they put their swords back in the scabbards, when suddenly a Tongrian cavalryman fell upon Pertinax and stabbed him in the breast. This incited the others who fell upon Per- tinax; the emperor's head was put on a lance and carried through the streets of the city to the camp. Severus, the second successor of Pertinax, deified him.
 * issumed the title "Pater Patria;". Pertinax strove to

Schiller. Gesch. der rom. Kaiseneit, I, pt. 11 (Gotha, 1883); VON DoMASZEWSKi, Cicsck. dcT roTTi. Kaiser (Leipzig, 1909).

Karl Hoeber.

Peru, a republic on the west coast of South Amer- ica, founded in 1821 after the war of independence, having been a Spanish colony. It is difficult to ascer- tain the true origin of the word "Peru", as the opin- ions advanced thereon are vague, numerous, and con- flicting. Almost all, however, derive it from the terms "Bern", "Pelu", and "Biru", which were, respec- tively, the names of an Indian tribe, a river, and a region. Prescott asserts that "Peru" was unknown to the Indians, and that the name was given by the Spaniards. Peru's territory lies between 1° 29' N. and 19° 12' 30" S. lat., and 61° 54' 45" and 81° 18' 39" W. long. Bounded by Ecuador on the north, Brazil and Bolivia on the east, Chile on the south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west, its area extends over 679,000 sq. miles. The Andean range runs through Peru from S. E. to N. W., describing a curve parallel to the coast.

History. — However true the fact may be that gold was the object uppermost in the minds of the Spanish conquerors of the New World, it is a matter of historj' that in that conquest, from the northernmost confines of Mexico to the extreme south of Chile, religion always played a most important part, and the trium- phant march of Castile's banner was also the glorious advance of the sign of the Saviour. That religion was the key-note of the American Crusades is evident from the history of their origin; the sanction given them by the Supreme Pontiff; the throng of self-devoted missionaries who followed in the wake of the con- qiKTors to save thi' souls of the conquered ones; th(' reiterated instructions of the Crown, the great pur- pose of which was the conversion of the natives; and from the acts of the soldiers themselves (Prescott,