Papal Borrowing

Of Sovereigns, temporal or spiritual, the Pope is the least frequent borrower of money. His finances, like his spiritual power, are immeasurable,occult--defying the statistical art. They are also ancient. Aaron of Lincoln, twelfth Century genius of Jewish finance in England, is credited with the initiation of large scale Church financial policy. It was Blount & Cie., French bankers, who issued the last Vatican bond offering, in 1886, when Paris was the money-lending centre of the world. Last week it was the Protestant house of Halsey, Stuart/- & Co., of Chicago and New York, who announced a forthcoming issue of $1,500,000 of 5% Vatican bonds whose proceeds of sale will build new buildings for the College of the Propaganda of the Faith on a site of three acres on the Giancialo in Rome. His Holiness Pope Pius XI has shown his particular interest in this novel piece of financing by summoning Cardinal Mundelein and the Right Rev. Mgr. B. J. Shell, both of Chicago, to Rome to conclude arrangements for the issue. They were to sail during the week.

Unusual features of Church financing concern identity of owner of the physical property against which bonds are issued and the value of the property pledged to secure the mortgage. In this case the bonds will be issued under the name of the Catholic Bishop of Chicago and they will be guaranteed by $80,000,000 worth of Church property in Chicago. The Vatican Treasury will receive the proceeds of sale of the issue, and His Eminence Cardinal Mundelein will receive from the Vatican the sums necessary to pay annual interest and meet the sinking fund which will retire the bonds within 20 years. It is thought that the College buildings will be completed in time for Pope Pius's golden jubilee of ordination to priesthood, in December, 1929.

Church bond issues are fairly common. Wall Street knows well the 1st mortgage issue of the Holy Sisters of the Precious Blood. The New York market has recently distributed a Roman Catholic Church in Bavaria loan ($5,000,000), a Roman Catholic Welfare Institution in Germany issue ($3,000,000), and a Protestant Church in Germany Welfare Institutions issue ($2,500,000). The two last named bond issues were offered to the public within a few days of each other, both by Protestant bankers. The house selling the Catholic bonds published in its formal advertisement that 36% of the inhabitants of the German Reich were Roman Catholics. The house offering the Protestant bonds asserted in its newspaper reproduction of the bond circular that "more than two-thirds" of the German population was Protestant. A prominent Jewish banker who is widely known as one of the first wits of Wall Street calculated the total and remarked at a Bankers Club luncheon: "The problem of German Jewry is solved. We represent minus 3% of the population of the Fatherland."

/-Last week Pope Pius XI cabled Harold Leonard Stuart, through George Cardinal Mundelein, the decoration of Commander of the Order of Pope Pius IX. The banker, who is a Protestant, is the only living U. S. citizen possessing this order, the one decoration that the Pope bestows on non-Catholics. Usually it is given only to heads of governments or to outstanding public men. The late General Leonard Wood received it.