Realizing the serious difficulties which environed the Papal See in 1945, the Catholic states of the southern tier of the United States of the Americas, known as South America, made an urgent appeal that the Court of Rome might be removed into their midst. Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Venezuela, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, [The South to the Rescue.] Paraguay and Patagonia levied contributions among the faithful and between them the munificient sum of $500,000,000 was raised, to be placed at the disposal of the Pope. Accompanying this gift offering was sent an earnest petition and prayer that the Pope would consent to abide in the new world, where a splendid reservation consisting of 17,000 square miles of choice lands had been placed at his disposal in the neighborhood of Rio Janeiro. In the petition of the South American States praying His Holiness to acquiesce in this important project, it was pointed out that the Pope would be domiciled upon the only continent which was catholic in its entirety, with no creed to oppose, and, in removing the throne of St. Peter to Rio Janeiro, the Pope would occupy the position of a patriarch surrounded by his faithful children. The invisible, but none the less galling fetters, that had enslaved the Pope since 1870, making him virtually a prisoner in the Vatican, would be entirely removed. In the State of Brazil he might rule a principality of no mean proportions, far larger and immeasurably more wealthy than the Papal kingdom of 1870 when Pius IX was yet King of Rome. The catholic citizens of South America represented fully the many advantages of removing the Papal Court from the old into the new world. It will be recollected that in 1999 the total population of the United States of the Americas amounted to 531,000,000. Of this vast population at least 175,000,000 citizens residing in South America were adherents of the church of Rome. The liberal offer that came from the South American States received the utmost [The Pope Accepts the Offer.] attention from the Papal authorities. To withdraw from that ancient city seemed like the uprooting of all traditions. The irreligious were prone to make merry over the proposition, predicting with strange irreverence, that in Rio Janeiro the Pope would feel like a cat in a strange garret. But with such innuendoes we have nothing in common. Let history proceed undisturbed in its course. It required a heroic sacrifice to give up Rome, filled with the most precious historic memories, a city in which lies enshrined the dust of St. Peter's successors. This step meant the abandonment of that magnificent cathedral, which in 1999 still formed an aureole of glory about the Eternal City. But Rome in 1945 was no longer a safe tabernacle for the Papacy. Its mobs were unbridled in their license. The person of the Pontiff was no longer safe within the walls of the Vatican. The Italian government proved to be an abettor, if not an instigator, of these outrages.