This magnificent department of Pontifical munificence, enlightenment,
and care, at first arose in Rome, soon after the art of printing was
invented. The Vatican Printing Press which preceded it, is one of the
oldest and most prolific in Europe. By its means, Gregory XIII., who, as
we have seen, commenced the formation of the Propaganda, diffused tens
of thousands of catechisms in every known tongue throughout the world.
But it was not until the Propaganda came into full working order as a
distinct department, that the now famous Polyglot Press was established
and became, then and since, the first institution of the kind possessed
by any corporation or nation in the world.
By the zeal and ability of its officials, many of whom were priests,
type was founded in all the known characters of Europe, Asia, and
Africa. The numerous ancient liturgies of the East were printed in their
original characters for the benefit of the various rites using them; and
uncivilized tongues were provided with a literature by which Missionaries
might teach the truths of Faith, and advance their co-religionists or
neophytes in the path of the truest progress. In this way the gross
ignorance which had, by the action of schism, heresy, and the conquests
of the Mahommedans, fallen upon the ancient Christian lands and peoples
of the once great Eastern Roman Empire, was taken away, and a new light,
not only of orthodox Christianity, but of knowledge and civilization,
diffused, where superstition and darkness had for centuries prevailed.
By this means a literature was given to the unlettered tribes in North
and South America, and Missionaries were enabled, even before setting out
for these uncultivated people, to learn the languages in which they were
to preach and minister to them. By this means the literatures of China,
India, and Japan were made familiar to European scholars; and by this
means, too, Catholics condemned by penal legislation to ignorance—as were
our Catholic forefathers in these three kingdoms—were supplied with the
means of education.