Kategoria:

Today, Most Holy Father, I therefore request Your Holiness, as I already had the honour of speaking to you about it, to please remove this obstacle by doing for the great desert what you did for Zanguebar (sic), in erecting it as a Vicariate Apostolic that would be provisionally entrusted to the Archdiocese of Algiers.

The Missions of Algiers have taken the name for their missions only from the name of the River Congo and not at all from the name of the kingdom of Congo. As the Sacred congregation for the Propaganda can easily see from the memorandum presented to it concerning their demarcation, these two missions have their centres, the first at the northern boundary of the River Congo.

This is only a plan, and nothing will be decided before the month of September, after the retreat, which I wish to direct myself. All the Sisters without exception, apart from those who are necessary for the functioning of the hospital of the Attafs, must attend.

I am growing old. My feeble voice is hardly able to reach the end of the church. I am already a long way on the road to eternity. This is perhaps the last time that I shall speak to you. Yet today when my dear children, sons of the Catholic Belgium, who are leaving for the far-away Congo, come to offer to their father, who has become old, a final farewell while imploring his blessing, I cannot fail to satisfy their desire in this sanctuary of the African Virgin.