Catholic World (Volume 99) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE POWERS AND ALBANIA. BY ELIZABETH CHRISTITCH. HANGES and upheavals consequent on the Balkan wars have led to a result as unanticipated as unde- sired by the victors, namely, the confirmation of Mohammedan supremacy in the West of the Peninsula, under the name of independent Albania. In vain do the sponsors of the new State point out that a Protestant Prince is at the head of government, the fact remains that his Cabinets, like the first, formed after the evacuation of Scutari by the Montenegrins, under the premiership of Ismail Kemal, must be composed of Mohammedans in order to enjoy respect or exercise authority. The Christian minority will be subject, as heretofore, to the rule of an element that has never in any land accepted the principle of religious equality. Ismail Kemal propitiated the Powers that presided at the birth of Albania, by including two Christians in his first Cabinet of nine Ministers. Their position was, however, so subordinate to that of their colleagues, that only on rare occasions were they admitted to the deliberations. Soon they vanished altogether, having accomplished nothing for the good of their coreligionists, and thankful to relapse unmolested into obscurity. It is doubtful that Prince Wilhelm of Wied will risk his throne in an attempt to put the Christian tribes on a par with the Mohammedan tribes, who reluctantly accept his sovereignty, and who would never profess open allegiance, but that they were assured he was but " half a Christian," and utterly distinct from both confessions known to them: Catholic and Greek-Orthodox, alike " worshippers of a woman." Repudiation of any reverence for the Madonna of the Christians will, nevertheless, scarcely suffice to win the confidence of such thorough Islamites as the denizens of the hin...