NEARING THE CENTURY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21979, 14 June 1933, Page 9

NEARING THE CENTURY

VENERABLE ARCHBISHOP 'Quietly, as unobtrusively as is bis wont, Archbishop Francis Redwood, the oldest prelate in the world, slipped into Sydney this week (writes “ Eriki,” in the Sydney Morning Herald of June 3) on his way to a clime a little more congenial m winjtsr than the archbishop’s own beloved Maoriland. Before proceeding to Queensland, Dr Redwood is resting for a few days in the care of the good sisters of Lewisham Hospital. The archbishop is within five years of a century. Last month he celebrated the ninty-fifth anniversary of his birth. io travel constantly the world in the enjoyment of good health and in the possession of his faculties would be considered unique in the case of a man with considerably less responsibility. At 95, Dr Redwood still administers the see to which he was appointed as far back as 1874. For nearly 80 years the venerable Metropolitan of New Zealand has been visiting Sydney. He first made the acquaintance of Sydney in 1854. A youthful student for the priesthood, he passed through Australia in that his way to Europe to further his studies. The boy of 15 had taken 11 days to cross the Tasman Sea from New Zealand, ine archbishop has lived to see it conquered in the air in a few hours, and to make the journey in less than half the time lie took as a' lad 80 years ago. . There were very few jetties in those days in Circular quay. _ The future archbishop landed from a dipghy, and first set foot in the city he was to know so w-ell in Jater years, on some rocks in the vicinity of the quay. Since the far-oti school days- in France, and later during more serious study in Ireland ana in Rome, he has travelled between Europe and the Antipodes more times than he can possibly remember. There has hardly been a gathering of outstanding impoitance in the history of the Roman Catholic Church in this country during the past half century and more at which his Grace Ims not been an honoured guest. He has been present at the consecration of the majority of the Australian bishops oi that church. With other distinguished prelates from all parts of the world. Archbishop Redwood occupied a seat in the sanctuary of St. Mary’s Cathedral, a building that holds many memories tor him, when the late Cardinal Cerretti opened the Eucharistic Congress in Sydney in 1928. Tile archbishop has lived to see a remarkable change in public opinion, a spirit of religious tolerance abroad (in New Zealand as well as in Australia) that would not have been imagined possible, half a century ago. ihe Eucharistic Congress fully demonstrated that fact. In all Archbishop Redwood lias been present at six such congresses —in Montreal, Chicago, -Lourdes, Amsterdam, Sydney, and in Dublin. At the _ last congress in Ireland in the sixty-eighth year of his religions profession, the sixtyseventh of his priesthood, and the fiftyeighth of his episcopate, he attended as the oldest living member of the Marist Order in the world. If the archbishop lives until March 17 of next year he will have been a bishop for GO years. IN SYDNEY EIGHTY YEARS AGO. Although Dr Redwood has known Australia for almost 80 years, he has known New Zealand, where lie is such a revered fur re, even longer. Francis Redwood was born i.i England on April 8, 1839. As a child of three he made the long journey with his parents to the then almost unknown New Zealand, still in a condition 'of savagery, in 1842. At Wairau, near Nelson (where the Redwood family settled), the chieftains To Rauparaha and Tc Rangihaeta showed the colonists that they were not to be trilled with. The following year Captain Arthur Wakefield, R.N., and others were killed for persisting in a land claim against these rangatiras. The redoubtable old cannibal and his lieutenant were never punished. It was realised eventually that they had acted in accordance with traditional usage in defending their laud from occupation. Yet the infant settlement of Wellington was in uproar. Places of refuge were constructed in the event of a Maori invasion. The clash of cultures, which later eventuated in warfare between the races, seemed inevitable. The George Fife, the vessel in which the Redwoods travelled, was of only SGO tons register. It says something for the extraordinary mentality of the archbishop that he can stilly recall, after an interval of all those years, incidents that took place on that lengthy voyage. It was soon realised that the young Francis Redwood would bring gifts to the

service of his ancient church of no mean ability. Though New Zealand had known a Roman Catholic bishop, the French Dr Pompallier, even earlier than this, there were no educational facilities for a lad anxious to study, for the priesthood. It was decided that he should go to France. The home tie, however, was not easily severed. Young Redwood said good-bye to his mother as she lay in bed with a broken leg, suffering no little hardship, as the colonists had, perforce, to do in those days. He grew from youth to manhood in the famous Marist college of St. diamond, near Lyons, not far from the ancient city of St. Etienne. There he returned not so long ago when more than 90 years of age; for he loves every stone in the old grey building, the nursery of some of the greatest minds the chinch has given to France. Archbishop Redwood speaks French like a native. At 93 he can still read the journal ot his old college without spectacles, 'and m French, For not a few there is something profoundly pathetic in old age. ID ' asmuch as so many contemporaries have taken the last long path. The old man is often lonely. Dr Redwood, notwithstanding his years, does not subscribe to this view. “If I cannot see my old friends,” he says, “ I meet some of their children and their grandchildren. 1 oter Dermier, a scholar and orator of whom St. diamond's is still proud, was a schoolfellow. Every 10 years there is a great fathering of old boys at the college. On one occasion Archbishop Redwood was the principal speaker. If he cannot attend these meetings each decade he sends a cablegram of greeting. All old boys, however old they may be, are expected to do th lt' does not often fall to the lot of a metropolitan to bless, as a child, his coadjutor. This is still another distinction which Archbishop Redwood has enjoyed in his long life. On one occasion he was travelling through the Taranaki portion of the archdiocese. An Irishwoman, aware, of course,- that Dr Redwood was riding in it, stopped the coach. To him she brought her small boy to bless. That child grew to be Archbishop O’Shea, for many years past the archbishop’s own coadjutor in the see of Wellington. Dr O'Shea is himself an old man now. > DIAMOND JUBILEE NEXT YEAR. Nearly 10 years ago Archbishop Redwood celebrated his golden jubilee. Prelates from all the Australian States gathered in Wellington on that notable occasion. I well recall the spirit that characterised the whole gathering, as the city the old archbishop had served so long and so faithfully sought to do him honour. There was only one fly, so to speak, in the sacerdotal ointment, It was occasioned by the presence of Archbishop Mannix. A doughty Protestant Mayor of Wellington, recalling the wartime attitude of the Melbourne archbishop, declined to give him a civic reception. Dr Mannix wisely did not press the point, and the incident, fortunately, was not permitted to mar the proceediugs. Now, almost a decade later, Archbishop Redwood is looking forward to his diamond jubilee as a bishop. It was at the hands of Cardinal Manning himself in London that he received the sacred pallium in 1874. It was not until 1887, however, that he was created archbishop by Papal brief. Accompanied by his beloved Stradivarius and an attendant priest, the nonagenarian prelate lias, time and again, crossed the turbulent ocean that divides diminutive New Zealand from her continental sister. The archbishop seldom travels without his violin. Upon it every virtuoso of that instrument who has visited New Zealand has played. Dr Redwood has already established so many records that it would not surprise his many friends if, by judicious -winterings in Queensland’s sunny clime, the senior bishop of the world became a centenarian.