Page:The True Story of the Vatican Council.djvu/100

88 This detailed account is given because, with little variation, it describes all the Public Sessions which followed afterwards.

2. On the 10th of December the first General Congregation for business was held under the direction of the Cardinal Presidents. Cardinal de Luca held the first place in the stead of Cardinal de Reisach, who had before been named as the First President. He was at that time in Savoy in his last illness, which ended on Christmas-day. He was a man of great and varied learning, of a large and refined culture of mind, fitted in a special way to understand the diversities of thought which met in the Vatican Council. His loss to the Holy See, great as it would have been at any time, was still more seriously felt at the meeting of the Council, in preparing for which he had borne a chief part. Cardinal de Reisach was not only one of the foremost members of the Sacred College in the public service of the Church, but in private life he was greatly and deservedly loved for his genial and sympathetic character.

After the usual prayer at the commencement of the sitting, the list of names of the Commission of Postulates or Propositions, appointed by the Pope, was published. It was composed of cardinals who had had experience both as residents in Rome, and formerly as Nuncios in foreign courts, together with