According to a leading Catholic periodical published in the United States, "the most interesting story to come out of Rome in many a long day" concerns an audience which the Pope granted to eighty newspaper reporters who have been cabling dispatches to many parts of the world concerning the Holy Year of the Catholic faith.
This same Catholic periodical, America, declares: "It seems that the Pope was convinced that the tremendous success of his Holy Year was due in large measure to the generous publicity given to it during the past twelve months by the secular press all over the world, . . . and he felt indebted to the hard-working -foreign correspondents" for the hundreds of columns of information they sent to the newspapers.
This estimate of the value of newspaper publicity on the part of the head of the Roman Catholic Church,—who laid aside the etiquette of the Vatican and did not require the reporters to kiss his ring when they appeared before him, certainly ought to awaken in the minds of God's heralds of the advent message everywhere a determination to make use of the columns of the newspapers in every possible way to inform the multitudes of the solemn, saving message of truth God has commissioned us to give. It should spur us on to fresh endeavors when we realize that the great apostate church is constantly securing hundreds of columns of free space to proclaim its work to the world, while we have committed to us a message affecting the eternal welfare of every man, woman, and child. It is a fearful responsibility, and God wants us to make free use of this powerful agency which He has provided in these last days to aid His servants in the accomplishment of their task.
Washington. D. C.
