Catholics at Carthage

St. Augustine, one of the Roman Catholic Church's Fathers, died at Hippo near Carthage, where he had done mighty work suppressing heresies, 1,500 years ago this year. So the Eucharistic Congress Committee chose Carthage, now the forlorn site of a Cathedral (dedicated to St. Louis), a museum, some ruins and 200 Arab houses, as the scene of the 30th Eucharistic Congress, begun last week.

About 25,000 communicants attended, traveling by ship from all quarters. Neither Carthage nor much larger Tunis, ten miles away, could house them all. Most lived on their ships in Tunis harbor. Several thousand lived in tents on a large plot of ground provided gratis by a rich Tunisian Jew, and surrounded by gewgaws, food and drink stands. A couple of thousand found quarters with thrifty Tunisians, Moslems and Jews, who scraped and cooed to these profitable "infidels." The visiting "infidels" sharply eyed the resident "infidels," for white burnous-clad Mohammedans had cruelly murdered Christians and destroyed great Christian Carthage in 698 A.D. Nonetheless, the visitors, including 1,000 from the U. S., swarmed over the countryside to see the sights. Silently vexed were Moslems when the visitors trooped through nearby Qairwan, a Moslem pilgrimage centre almost as sacred as Mecca and Medina, buying nicknacks and souvenirs. But Tunisian wine merchants, beer dispensers, restaurateurs and shopkeepers stayed open for business 24 hours a day.*

Traffic congestion at Tunis and Carthage and in between was snarled. Senegalese troops, big, black upstanding men, assisted frantic local police in trying to direct the streams of vehicles and pedestrians. The Senegalese method was simple. They would club sufficient people to earth so that others could trample through the path. Even Alexis Henry Cardinal Lepicier, Papal legate to the Congress, conspicuous in red robes, had difficulty in getting about. The Senegalese would not let him proceed to the ruins of Carthage's amphitheatre, where centuries ago the Romans after they had rebuilt Carthage fed communistic Christians to lions had them ripped by angry bulls, had them fight barefisted against armored gladiators.

The pageantry was as magnificent as only Eucharistic Congresses can be-- French soldiers, Zouave bands shrilling and drumming native marches, cardinals, archbishops, bishops (100), priests (4,000), natives in burnouses, 5,000 little singing children in white (many of them recent converts from Mohammedanism), Orientals, Europeans, 400 altars, 200 tons of wax candles, the Papal colors white and yellow everywhere, visits to the plaques and monuments of some 30 martyrs, the Papal Bull opening the Congress read in Latin and French then broadcast in Italian into radio microphones, Papal Legate Cardinal Lepicier speaking formally in Latin, informally in French, English, German, Italian, Spanish.

The polyglot nature of the Congress seemed to annoy many of the U. S. delegates. They confessed they were disappointed by the confusion of what went on. They had no one leader, no formal place in the Congress program. With their nicknacks and souvenirs some of them cleared out of Carthage and Tunis until the grand summation of the whole Eucharistic Congress, the solemn benediction of the Blessed Sacrament before 10,000 witnesses (including infidels). Those who had poor places will have opportunity to see and hear the whole thing again. So too many a stay-at-home U. S. Catholic. For, three U. S. newsreel operators posted themselves at the very altar after Cardinal Lepicier had tactfully overcome the objections of the Bishop of Carthage and others unused to progressive ways.

Anciently Libyan tribes occupied the neighborhood of Carthage. They traded with Phoenicians from Tyre. About 850 B.C. Elissa, daughter of King Mutton 1 of Tyre, fled from her brother's tyranny and founded Carthage ("New City"). Hence she was called Dido ("The Fugitive"). She entertained Aeneas, runaway from Greek-destroyed Troy, before he went to Italy where his descendants founded the Roman Empire.

Three hundred years before Christ, Carthage was richer--because its fleet dominated the Mediterranean--than Rome. Rome made three wars against Carthage, the first two between 264-241 B.C. and 218-201 B.C. When Rome threatened a third war, Carthage asked for an embassy to consider future peace. Marcus Porcius Cato the Elder (234-149 B.C.), Roman Censor, was one of the deputies. Carthage's wealth and splendor made him fear for Rome's preeminence. He developed a mortal hate and fear of Carthage, much like the mania U. S. Senator James Thomas ("Tom-Tom") Heflin of Alabama now has against the Roman Catholic Church. Senator Cato drove his point home by concluding all his speeches with the phrase: Delenda est Carthago! ("Carthage must be destroyed!") The year Cato died, Rome started her third Punic War (149-146 B.C.) and Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus the Younger literally did destroy Carthage. He killed all the inhabitants, razed every building, sprinkled salt on the ground to prevent husbandry, dedicated the place to the gods of the infernal regions.

Close to the hill where the shrine of St. Louis now stands, ancient Carthaginians had their temple to Moloch, into the fire-blazing pit of whose brazen stomach they dumped children as sacrifices. Julius Caesar planned to rebuild the city. Augustus did so. It grew to have 500,000 population almost as many as before destruction. The Roman massacres of Christians occurred mostly in the 3rd Century A.D. Most famous of the Carthaginian martyr saints were Cyprian, a bishop, and Perpetua, a rich lady who modestly pulled her torn clothes about her sabre-ripped body before she died. The Arabs destroyed Carthage, a waning community, in 698 A.D.

*Patron of brewers is St. Augustine.

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