infallibility. Before the Council could finish its labors it was obliged to suspend its sittings because of the war which, in 1870, broke out between France and Germany. The Italian army took possession of Rome, and the Pope was unjustly deprived of the temporal power and sovereignty enjoyed by his predecessors for ages, and necessary to the complete independence of the Holy See. Pius IX. lived eight years longer, as a prisoner in the Vatican Palace, protesting against the iniquitous spoliation of the Church. The next pope, Leo XIII., passed his long pontificate in the same way. Yet from his prison walls his power reached to the ends of the earth. The enemies of the Church had predicted that the fall of the temporal power would prove the end of the Papacy. But never has the moral and spiritual authority of the Holy See been more powerful throughout the world than it is to-day. The German government, at the instigation of Bismarck, instituted a campaign of legislative persecution against the Church. But the fidelity of German Catholics proved victorious.
In 1903, Leo XIII. died and was succeeded by His Holiness, Pius X. His reign was marked in France by the culmination of a violent anti-Christian movement which began during the reign of his predecessor. Laws were enacted to suppress all religious orders. Catholic schools, and religious instruction in the government schools. The Concordat established with the Holy See was most unjustly abolished, and the Church was robbed of all her property throughout the country.
Shortly after the outbreak of the World War in 1914 Pius X. died and was followed by Benedict XV. whose heroic efforts to promote peace among the nations became fully known only after his death. The present Pontiff, His Holiness Pius XI., elected in the year 1922, is the two hundred and sixty-sixth Pope, including St. Peter. He is regarded as a highly gifted ruler, well informed on the problems of the day.
