I had to leave you abruptly on
the 20th of August in order to fulfill my last duty toward the beloved
and venerated Pope whom we have lost, and in order to discharge an
obligation of the conscience from which I could not dispense myself, in
the election of the successor of Pius X., the Pontiff who now directs
the Church under the title, full of promise and of hope, of Benedict XV.
It was in Rome itself that I received the tidings--stroke after
stroke--of the partial destruction of the Cathedral Church of Louvain,
next of the burning of the library and of the scientific installations
of our great university and of the devastation of the city, and next of
the wholesale shooting of citizens, and tortures inflicted upon women
and children and upon unarmed and undefended men.
And, while I was still under the shock of these calamities, the
telegraph brought us news of the bombardment of our beautiful
metropolitan church, of the Church of Notre Dame au dela la Dyle, of the
episcopal palace, and of a great part of our dear City of Malines.
Afar from my diocese, without means of communication with you, I was
compelled to lock my grief within my own afflicted heart and to carry
it, with the thought of you, which never left me, to the foot of the
Crucifix.
I craved courage and light, and sought them in such thoughts as these: A
disaster has visited the world, and our beloved little Belgium, a nation
so faithful in the great mass of her population to God, so upright in
her patriotism, so noble in her King and Government, is the first
sufferer.
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