Stormy Pontificates

Seven years ago Mr. E.E.Y. Hales, an Englishman and Catholic, gave to a grateful public a delightful study of Pio Nono who reigned from 1846 to 1878 and was the first pope to exceed the “years of Peter.” During those thirty-two years he dallied with Liberalism only to be forced into exile by its partisans; then turned conservative, lost the states of the Church to Cavour and Victor Emmanuel, and scandalized the Liberal world with his Syllabus of Errors; he summoned the last Council of the Church and defined papal infallibility. Around him, both as Pope and as prince of the Roman state, beat the most violent political storms of the last century. Mr. Hale’s new book, Revolution and Papacy, is not a sequel but a preface to Pio Nono. Its scope is the previous six pontificates of which some, by comparison, make Pio Nono’s seem almost tranquil.

Revolution and Papacy, by E. E. Y. Hales. Hanover House, $4.50

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Ross J. S. Hoffman

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Seven years ago Mr. E.E.Y. Hales, an Englishman and Catholic, gave to a grateful public a delightful study of Pio Nono who reigned from 1846 to 1878 and was the first pope to exceed the “years of Peter.” During those thirty-two years he dallied with Liberalism only to be forced into exile by its partisans; then turned conservative, lost the states of the Church to Cavour and Victor Emmanuel, and scandalized the Liberal world with his Syllabus of Errors; he summoned the last Council of the Church and defined papal infallibility. Around him, both as Pope and as prince of the Roman state, beat the most violent political storms of the last century. Mr. Hale’s new book, Revolution and Papacy, is not a sequel but a preface to Pio Nono. Its scope is the previous six pontificates of which some, by comparison, make Pio Nono’s seem almost tranquil.

Revolution and Papacy, by E. E. Y. Hales. Hanover House, $4.50