Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1899 American Edition.djvu/1083

 RELIGION 72T

monasteiies were temporarily set aside for such monks, friars, or nuns as might wish to continue their conventual life, the inmates, when come down to a certain number, to be drafted off to another house, and so again, until all finally died out. All collegiate chapters were likewise dissolved. The lands and goods of these suppressed bodies were appropriated by thp State.

See and Church of Rome.

The ' Statuto fondamentale del Regno ' enacts, in its first article, that * the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion is the sole religion of the State.' By the Royal decree of Oct. 9, 1870, which declared that ' Rome and the Roman Provinces shall constitute an integral part of the Kingdom of Italy,' the Pope or Roman Pontiff was acknowledged supreme head of the Church, preserving his former rank and dignity as a sovereign prince. Furthermore, by a bill that became law May 13, 1871, there was guaranteed to His Holiness and his successors for ever, besides possession of the Vatican and Lateran palaces and the villa of Castel Gandolfo, a yearly income of 3,225,000 lire or 129,000^., which allowance (whose arrears would in 1899 amount to 93,525,000 lire, or 3,741,000^.) still remains unclaimed and unpaid.

Supixme Pontiff. — Leone XIII. (Gioacchino Pecci), born at Carpineto in the diocese of Anagni, March 2, 1810, son of Count Luigi Pecci ; conse- crated Archbishop of Damiata 1843 ; Apostolic Nuncio to Belgium 1843-46 ; Bishop of Perugia 1846 ; proclaimed Cardinal December 19, 1853 ; elected Supreme Pontiff", as successor of Pio IX., February 20, 1878 ; crowned March 3 following. He is, therefore, now 88 years old, and has filled the Pontifical throne for 20 years.

The election of a Pope ordinarily is hy scrutiny. Each Cardinal in conclave writes on a ticket his own name with that of the Cardinal whom he chooses, These tickets, folded and sealed, are laid in a chalice which stands on the altar of the conclave chapel ; and each elector approaching the altar repeats a prescribed form of oath. Thereupon the tickets are taken from the chalice by scrutators appointed from tJie electing body ; the tickets are compared with the number of Cardinals present, and when it is found that any Cardinal has two-thirds of the votes in his favour he is declared elected. Should none have received the needful number of votes, another process is gone through, viz., access — so called because any Cardinal may accede to the choice of another by filling up another ticket made for that purpose. The present Pontiff, Leone XIII., was chosen almost unanimously. He is regarded as the 263rd Pope (or thereabouts) from St. Peter.

The rise of the Roman Pontificate, as an avowed temporal sovereignty, dates from the year 755, when Pippin, King of the Franks, gave to Pope Stefano III. the Exarchate and Pentapolis (or Romagna), conquered from the Lombards, to which Charles the Great added part of Tuscany and Sabina ; and three centuries later Countess Matilda of Tuscany bei|ueathed to the Holy See her ample territories. Rome, however, with the Roman duchy, came practi- cally under the Pope's civil dominion in the days of Gregorio the Great (590-604). In 1860 the whole Pontifical State comprised an area of about 16,000 square miles, with a population of 3,125,000 souls ; thenceforth, until 1870, about 5,000 square miles and 692,000 souls.