and destined later to head the Catholic University of America, decided to make this spiritual exercise the characteristic devotion of the Roman institution. This action drew an enthusiastic response from Cardinal Manning, whom Zardetti rightly called "the apostle of our Devotion in the present generation." The great Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster wrote to Msgr. O'Connell:

You have done well in making the devotion of the Holy Ghost the devotion of the American College and the bishops of America have set us all an example in their forwardness to promote this adoration of the Sanctifier. As the Son is the Way to the Father, the Holy Ghost is the Way to the Son; for it is but by the Holy Ghost that the Father draws all men to the Son. The Apostolic preaching shows that we are under the dispensation of the Spirit. The presence and office of the Holy Ghost pervade all the Apostles wrote. The writings of the Fathers are full of the Holy Ghost. They wrote as in the light of the day of Pentecost.

20

After alluding to the fact that the Church, in the most solemn acts it performs, invokes God the Holy Ghost, the great English Cardinal explains that the content of the Pentecostal liturgy shows what the Church itself expects as devotion to the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, and declares that this devotion is something which pertains to the priestly state and to the condition of the Christian layman as well.

The feast of Pentecost, the Mass and Office of the Holy Ghost, teach by the authority of the Church the special adoration due to the Holy Ghost in His Mission, Advent and Office as Christmas and Easter the special adoration due to the Incarnation and Advent of the Son. How, then, is it that this truth, which is like the luminous ether of the Church, has been so slightly and seldom practiced by private devotion. Our Lord ordained and commissioned His Apostles, and yet commanded them to wait till they should receive the Holy Ghost coming upon them. Is not this, then, the devotion for bishops and priests? Are not

20 Ibid., p. 177.

Christians the anointed, and is it not the devotion for all Christians?21

Cardinal Manning insisted forcefully upon the remedial nature of this devotion, as well as upon its positive character for good.

Is not the peril of the day the unspirituality of men and the revival of naturalism in the world? And how can this be met by a diametrical and supreme antagonism if not met by preaching the Holy Ghost and making our priests His disciples? Lastly, it is this devotion that illuminates and infuses the light of all dogmas of the faith. All things are visible in the light of the sun, so all truths from the Holy Trinity to Extreme Unction are made manifest by devotion to the Holy Ghost.22

Concluding his letter to Msgr. O'Connell, and speaking of the Rector and the students of the American College, Cardinal Manning wrote "may the Holy Ghost make you all apostles of Jesus Christ in your great and noble land!" Ultimately, then, it was because of the apostolic vocation of these young men, and, less immediately, the apostolic vocation of all Catholics in his own time, which made the Cardinal of Westminster applaud the insistence upon devotion to the Holy Ghost as the great and central devotion of the American College.

This was the mentality which Dr. Zardetti hoped to foster by the publication of his own book. His Special Devotion to the Holy Ghost is divided into four parts. The first of these deals with the basic characteristics and the timeliness of this spiritual exercise. The second sketches the history, the constitutions, and the privileges of the Confraternity of the Servants of the Holy Ghost, the organization which the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore wished to see established in the various seminaries for American clerics. A brief outline of those portions of sacred theology which treat of God the Holy Ghost and His works constitutes the

21 Ibid.

22 Ibid., p. 178.

third part of Dr. Zardetti's book. The fourth and final part of this work includes the various prayers and hymns regularly employed in the exercises of the Confraternity.

The Confraternity of the Servants of the Holy Ghost, the organization so strongly recommended by the Fathers of the Baltimore Council, was first established in St. Mary's Church in Bayswater, England, by Fr. Rawes, Superior of Cardinal Manning's Oblates of St. Charles. On March 10, 1878, Pope Leo XIII approved the Confraternity and enriched it with indulgences. The following year the Holy Father, in answer to a petition from Cardinal Manning, who spoke of the society as "spreading much in England, and also in Philadelphia, in the United States of America,"23 raised the organization to the dignity of an Archconfraternity, with its center in St. Mary's Church at Bayswater. Cardinal Manning acknowledged that Archbishop James Frederic Wood of Philadelphia had taken the initiative in asking for the constitution of an Archconfraternity.

In 1879, with the approbation of Cardinal McCloskey, this society was established in St. Anne's Church in New York, the Church of which Msgr. Preston was pastor. Dr. Zardetti speaks of the devotion as established, not only in Philadelphia and New York, but also in St. Francis Seminary in Milwaukee, in the Benedictine Abbeys of St. Vincent, St. Meinrad, Mt. Angel, Oregon, and Newark, and in various Franciscan houses.24

Dr. Zardetti acknowledged that he had used the writings of Cardinal Manning as primary sources in writing his Special Devotion to the Holy Ghost. Cardinal Franzelin's theology was likewise employed. He also used and cited two American authors, Fr. Hecker and Msgr. Thomas Scott Preston of New York.25

Two very important and manifest conclusions impose

23 Ibid., p. 166 f.

24 Cf. ibid., p. 170 f.

25 Cf. ibid., p. 10.

themselves after even a brief examination of this magnificent effort toward devotion to God the Holy Ghost among the American churchmen during the latter portion of the nineteenth century. In the first place it is obvious that the men who urged and fostered this devotion were priests remarkable for their enlightened supernatural zeal. They pointed out three essential elements in devotion to God the Holy Ghost. The first consisted in effort toward an intellectual grasp of the revealed truth about the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity and about His function in the Church and in the individual soul. The second element comprised the internal and sincere acts of love and gratitude tendered to the Holy Ghost in recognition of His divine Being and of His beneficent activity. The third was nothing more or less than the outward manifestation of this recognition, the corporate prayer to, and adoration of, the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity within the Catholic Church.

All of these practices are such as to foster and increase within the Catholic Church, and particularly within the Catholic priesthood, a supernatural and enlightened zeal of no common order. The man who sets himself to the task of studying, in the sources of divine revelation and in the literature of Christ's Church, the God-given teachings about the Holy Ghost and about His missions among men has placed himself in a position to gain a uniquely valuable appreciation of the necessity and the dignity of the Christian dispensation. The man who strives to direct his will in conformity with these divine doctrines is automatically preparing himself for an outstanding part in the Church's apostolic activity. The man who actually gives corporate and outward expression to such supernatural charity is already taking an outstanding part in the apostolic life of the Church.

The men of the Baltimore Council loved their country with a true and profound love of charity. They willed that their country should have the most precious divine gift of Catholic faith. They realized that tremendous obstacles stood

in the way of those who would strive to impart this blessing to America.

Because of the magnitude of the task before them, and because of the seriously formidable nature of the forces in opposition to Christ, it was evident to these men that a tepid or ill-instructed priesthood could never possibly carry out the high commission God had entrusted to the clergy of America. Recognizing the fact that devotion to the Holy Ghost was an unfailing antidote for such weaknesses, the men of the Baltimore Council did all that they could to bring that devotion to their clergy.

Zeal and understanding: these are the qualities which their sponsorship of devotion to the Holy Ghost manifests among the Fathers of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore. They were men ambitious in the cause of Christ. Mediocre, self-contented men would never have attached themselves to this particular practice. Their adherence to devotion to God the Holy Ghost was the source of the greatness of soul of these apostolic men.26

There is another conclusion also manifest from these same facts. The "Americanist" controversy and a great deal of unscientific historical writing since that time involved serious attacks on several of the prelates who took part in the Baltimore Council and who were most instrumental in furthering devotion to the Holy Ghost. One of the charges leveled against these men was an accusation that they were so immersed in external activities that they had lost sight of the basic supernatural motive of Catholic life.

The man who is aware of the part these men played in encouraging devotion to God the Holy Ghost has gained a tremendously valuable historical perspective. He can see that it is worse than nonsense to hold that Bishop Keane, to cite but one example, could have encouraged anything

26 It is interesting to note that the Fathers of the Baltimore Council blessed the "various forms of combined Catholic action" in their pastoral letter. Cf. Acta et decreta, p. xcix,