The great Civil War, that assured by an ap palling sacrifice of wealth and lives the faltering unity of this nation, and shattered for a time the seeming unity of many religious denomina tions, did but bring into clearer evidence the hierarchial unity of the Catholic Church. Its members, it is true, divided off on political grounds; it was their right and, as they sup posed, their duty; but there was not any division in organization, discipline and faith. To both sides of the conflict the Church sent her heroes of charity, and oftentimes, indeed, the same heroes to both sides; detailed her priests from the parish and the college, her nuns from the orphan asylum and the schoolroom, to the camp, the hospital, the prison and the bloody battlefield. Meanwhile her sacred edifices resounded with earnest peti tions to heaven for peace, with solemn requiems for the fallen on the field ; and not infrequently they were turned into hospitals for the wounded and the dying brought in from the battle raging near by.
The chief formative forces of the Church's interior life were her legislative assemblies. Coun cils are ecumenical, plenary or national, and pro vincial. An assembly of all the Catholic bishops of the world, convoked by the authority of the Pope, or at least with his consent, and presided over by him or his legates, is an ecumenical council. An assembly of all the bishops of a country—say the United States—convoked by the primate or other dignitary commissioned thereto by the Pope, is a national or plenary council. An assembly of all the bishops within the territory known as a province, convoked and presided over i by the metropolitan or archbishop, is a provincial diocese, convoked and presided over by the council. An assembly of all the priests of a bishop, is a diocesan synod.
Ecumenical councils define doctrine and deal with matters of discipline concerning the Church in the whole world. Plenary and provincial coun cils do not define, but at most only repeat the doctrine defined by the ecumenical councils; their chief purpose is to apply by explicit statutes to each country or province the universal discipline determined iry the ecumenical councils and the Holy See, or to initiate such discipline as the peculiar circumstances of the nation or province demand- Diocesan synods promulgate and apply more intimately to each diocese the disciplinary enactments of the Holy See, the ecumenical, plenary and provincial councils, emphasizing those enactments which the specific conditions or abuses in each diocese render most necessary.
Numerous diocesan synods have been held in the United States, and not a few provincial coun cils, at least in the elder provinces • and three plenary councils have been held within this first century of the organized hierarchy. The col lection of the acts of those various assemblies is an important source of our Church history.
The most remarkable Catholic event in the last decade was the establishment of the Apostolic Delegation in Washington. The Pope has the right to be present in the Church of each country through a representative, if he deem it expedient. Legates represent the person of the sovereign pontiff. They are sent to exercise his authority so far as it is communicated to them. They are not sent to seize or lessen or absorb the authority of the local bishops, no more than the papacy itself seizes or lessens or destroys the local epis copate. They are not aliens, like ambassadors to a foreign country ; they are, wherever they may be, within the household of the supreme father who sent them, for they are within the Church directly subject to him ; they are in the ecclesias tical territory of their sovereign. To the Catho lic, wherever he may be, considered from the re ligious point of view as a Catholic, the Pope is not a foreigner, and his representative is not a foreigner.
Not only is the right to send delegates to the churches of the world inherent in the papacy, but it has been exercised by the Holy See from the earliest times of Christianity, as might be abun dantly proved if that question were the specific subject matter of these pages. It is well to know that the establishment of the Apostolic Delega tion in the United States is not due, as many suppose, to accidental and transitory causes, though such may have furnished the occasion ; but that it is the natural consequence of the first principles of our Church Constitution. and is in perfect accord with traditional practice of past ages. It is hardly necessary to add that the dele gation to the United States is strictly ecclesias tical and not at all diplomatic. The American delegate is accredited to the Church, not to the government of the United States. T. O'G.