NATIONAL EUCHARISTIC CONGRESS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 9 January 1940, Page 2

NATIONAL EUCHARISTIC CONGRESS

FRENCH CARDINALS MESSAGE [United Press Association] WELLINGTON, This Day. Greetings from the Catholic Church in France to the Catholic Church of New Zealand on the eve of the National Eucharistic Congress are contained in a letter received by His Grace Archbishop O’Shea from his Eminence Jean Cardinal Verdier, Archbishop of Paris, a great church figure on the Continent and a militant advocate of the Allied cause in the present war. “I learn that in February next a National Eucharistic Congress will be held in your beautiful capital city,” the Cardinal writes. “Such a ! public act of faith will be for the Catholic world a great joy, for it will give to all a proof of the intense religious spirit of your own people and { the wise goodwill of all citizens. Had | the distance not been so great, I i would have loved on that occasion to bring you the greetings of Catholic France and join in your prayers for the welfare of your lovely country in the future. I know the good work done in New Zealand by the Society of Mary and by your Excellency, and I beg to offer you my warm congratulations. May God bless your Congress, which will crown the work already done and be the herald of a future even more fruitful. With my congratulations and best wishes please accept, your Excellency, the assurance of my most sincere regard in Our Lord.” Cardinal Verdier, who was bom in 1864, was appointed Archbishop of i Paris in 1929, and in the same year ,he was created a Cardinal. In recent years he has taken a prominent part in Church affairs, and on the outbreak of war recently issued a memorable pastoral letter, firmly stressing the justice of the Allied cause from the Christian point of view.