Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/333



CATHOLICITY IN THE UNITED STATES. 327

tolic authority the decrees of the prelates assembled at Baltimore. In truth the event has proven, and still proves, that the decrees of Baltimore were salutary and timely in the extreme. Experience has demonstrated their power for the maintenance of discipline; for stim- ulating the intelligence and zeal of the clergy; for de- fending and developing the Catholic education of youth. Wherefore, Venerable Brethren, if We make acknowl- edgment of your activity in these matters, if We laud your firmness tempered with prudence, We but pay tribute due to your merit; for We are fully sensible that so great a harv^est of blessings could by no means have so swiftly ripened to maturity, had you not exerted yourselves, each to the utmost of his abihty, sedulously and faith- fully to carry into effect the statutes you had wisely framed at Baltimore.

But when the Council of Baltimore had concluded its labors, the duty still remained of putting, so to speak, a proper and becoming crown upon the work. This, We perceived, could scarcely be done in a more fitting manner than through the due estabhshment by the ApostoUc See of an American Legation. Accordingly, as you are well aware. We have done this. By this action, as We have elsewhere intimated. We have wished, first of all, to certify that, in Our judgment and affection, America occupies the same place and rights as other States, be they ever so mighty and imperial. In addition to this We had in mind to draw more closely the bonds of duty and friendship which connect you and so many thousands of Catholics with the Apostolic See. In fact, the mass of the CathoHcs understood how salutary Our action was destined to be; they saw, moreover, that it accorded with the usage and poUcy of the ApostoHc See. For it has been, from earliest antiquity, the custom of the Roman Pontiffs in the exercise of the divinely bestowed gift of the primacy in the administration of the Church of Christ to send forth legates to Christian nations and peoples.