YOU will readily understand that the admission of the Absolute to the bosom of the Church afforded, under the given circumstances, a great surprise. It was carried out by virtue of the Papal Brief alone, and the College of Cardinals, being faced with the accomplished fact, merely deliberated whether the sacrament of baptism should be conferred upon the Absolute. It was decided to dispense with this. There was certainly well-known ecclesiastical precedent for the baptism of a God (vide John the Baptist); but even in such a case the candidate for baptism must be present in person. Besides, it was a very delicate political question to decide which reigning potentate was to be godfather to the Absolute. The Sacred Congregation therefore recommended that at the next Pontifical Mass the Holy Father should pray for the new member of the Church, and this was duly carried out in very solemn form. It was also made part of the body of Church doctrine that in addition to the sacrament of baptism and baptism by blood the Church also recognized baptism through works of meritoriousness, and virtue.

It must also be recorded that three days before the publication of the Papal Brief the Pope gave a lengthy audience to G. H. Bondy, who was afterwards in conference with the Papal Secretary, Monsignor Cullatti, for twenty-four hours.

Almost simultaneously the summary beatification of the Absolute was enacted under the rule super cultu immemorabili in recognition of the virtuous life of the Absolute, now declared Blessed, and a regular but expedited process of canonization was arranged for. There was, however, one highly important innovation: the Absolute was to be declared, not a Saint, but a God. A Deification Commission was immediately appointed from among the best of the Church’s scholars and pastors. Varesi, the Cardinal Archbishop of Venice, was appointed Procurator Dei, while Monsignor Cullatti was to act as Advocatus Diaboli.

Cardinal Varesi presented seventeen thousand testimonies to miracles performed, signed by nearly all the cardinals, patriarchs, primates, metropolitans, princes of the Church, archbishops, principals of Orders, and abbots. To each testimonial were appended expert reports by medical authorities and members of faculties, opinions from professors of natural sciences, technicians, and economists, as well as the signatures of eye-witnesses and legal authentications. These seventeen thousand documents, Monsignor Varesi stated, represented but an insignificant fraction of the miracles actually performed by the Absolute, their number having already at a conservative estimate exceeded thirty millions.