Page:Petri Privilegium - Manning.djvu/19

Rh sence was borne in the hands of His Vicar, attended by half the episcopate of the Catholic Church:

Secondly, the Consistory, in which the Sovereign Pontiff announced his intention to convene an Œcumenical Council:

Thirdly, the eighteenth Centenary of S. Peter's Martyrdom, held over the tomb of the Apostle. The splendour and beauty of that solemnity was probably never equalled. It was royal and pontifical in all the fulness of majestic grandeur.

Fourthly, was the Feast of S. Paul in his Basilica out of the walls, where the relics of the Apostle of the Gentiles are enshrined. This Basilica, which for grace and beauty surpasses S. Peter's as much as it is surpassed by S. Peter's for majesty and grandeur, was once under the protection of the kings of England. Since the unhappy schism of our country, no protector has been named. S. Paul's still awaits a happier time.

Lastly, on the following day, the Holy Father gave audience to the bishops, to receive from them the Address or Response, in which they united themselves in heart and mind to their supreme Head. The gravity and moral grandeur of that act we shall endeavour to estimate hereafter. When the address had been read, and when the Holy Father was about to bestow the Apostolical benediction and bid farewell to the bishops, the Angelus of noon sounded. He rose, and began the Angelical Salutation, half the bishops of the world responding. Such a Salutation