LATE BISHOP CLEARY

Southland Times, Issue 21001, 6 February 1930, Page 8

LATE BISHOP CLEARY

„ YUGOSLAV APPRECIATION. I “SHEPHERD AND HIS FLOCK.” London, December 12. Miss Christitch writes in the Times the accompanying tribute to the late Bishop Cleary:— “During long years he worked to procure a national pastor for the Yugoslav settlers in New Zealand, a concession that was only to be realized after the liberation and reunion of the Southern Slavs. Bishop Cleary was quick to recognize and .appreciate the splendid work of cultivation done by the Yugoslavs in the orchards and vineyards of Gratia, at the foot of the Waitakere Ranges, and also at Avondale and Henderson. He more than once expressed his delight at the beautiful Calvary Group, a typical example of Dalmatian art, which was carved by Yugoslav immigrants and presented to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Auckland, where'* it adorns the high altar. “Anxious to meet the natural wish of this industrious, deserving element in his diocese, Bishop Cleary appealed to the hierarchy of Yugoslavia for a priest froni the homeland to minister to them in their own language. Father Milan Pavolinovitch, parish priest of Podgora, Dalmatia, volunteered for the mission, and was welcomed by the bishop in person, who escored him to the numerous Yugos&v settlements. Here the enthusiasm was boundless; for the House of Pavlinovitch is cherished for its defence of national rights in the Imeprial Parliament at Vienna. “In a letter received from Bishop Cleary some time ago he assured me that nothing could be more useful than the regular despatch of Yugoslav Catholic litratUre to New Zealand, so, that the Yugoslav settlers in acquiring English, as they rapidly and efficiently do, should not forget their own ancestral language and traditions. He was truly a shepherd to all sections of his flock.”