THE PROVINCIAL COUNCIL OF ENGLAND.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume I, Issue 36, 3 January 1874, Page 8

THE PROVINCIAL COUNCIL OF ENGLAND.

(Dublin * Freeman,' Sept. 16.) Thb Catholio Arohbishops and Bishops of England hare, we need scarcely inform our readers, been during recent weeks assembled in a Provincial Council. The prelates congratulate Catholic England on the fidelity and steadfastness of its faith. They point out that at the present hour the atmosphere is charged with hostility to Q-od and his Church, to the doctrines of revelation, and even to the truths of the natural order. This hostility, thoy say, is not, as of old, coafined to a higher class of over-cultivated miads, but reaches down to the lowest strata of society. In such a condition of things, Catholio education is all important ; and the Bishops declare that in England it has wonderfully progressed, and that, to say the least, the Catholic schools of the country would not be found a whit behind any other in their Becular instruction. Having impressed on all the faithful the great necessity for supporting Catholic poor schools, the prelates point out that there is another class of education which now needs attention. A few years ago, they say, there was no Catholic mi Idle-class in Bagland. The Catholics consisted almost entirely of ancient noble or landed families, on the one havd, and, on the other, of a multitude of the poorest in the laud. A great Catholic middle -class is, however, now growing up, owing partly to conversions, partly also to the number of persons who have fought their way up from below. The Bishops fully recognise the responsibility wiiich lies on them to provide a good middle class education, and also a higher education for youths between 18 and 22. As to the latter, they declare that as parents cannot send their children to the national universities without grave sin, the Bishops fully recognise the present necessity to labor that the studies at Catholic colleges shall be bo raised and matured as to leave) nothing for the imparting of a higher education and the future necessity of erecting a Catholic university. The duty of helping to erect seininarieb for the education of priests is impressed on the people, and they are also urged to watoh carefully that impure or irreligious literature is not admitted to their homes. Among other points touched on in the letter is that of " mixed marriages." Dispensations can only be granted for those on the mutual and united promise of the two -parties that the Catholic shall have full liberty to practice the Oatholio religion, that the children shall be brought up Catholics, and that the marriage shall he celebrated only in a Catholic church. The Bishops in conclusion declare that they have no fear for the future, that at no time within the last three centuries did the people of England regard Catholicism with a more friendly eye, and that if here and there violent and disappointed men were attempting to rekindle old fires, or imitate foreign despotism, it did not move them to fear.