CATHOLIC PROGRESS IN AUCKLAND.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 69, 22 August 1874, Page 7

CATHOLIC PROGRESS IN AUCKLAND.

Thb fund for building our new cathedral is swelling rapidly. It now amounts to nearly two thousand pounds, which is lying at five per cent, interest in the Bank. In due time we shall have a cathedral worthy of the capital of the Province and our holy religion, and which, moreover, will reflect credit on ourselves. If some of the senioi-B among us do not live to see it completed, our children after us will have that satisfaction. Bishop Croke, it is expected, will bring from Europe, America, and Australia, some considerable addition to our cathedral fund, and who knows if we do not out-do even Mr Macandrew's " First Church " or Presbyterian Cathedral in Otago. Our schools were never in a more flourishing state. What we want chiefly is an increase of school room, and an increase of teachers — male and female. The Christian Doctrine Society are making increased efforts to secure the attendance of children at the Sunday schools, and to have them well instructed in their religion — or " armed to the teeth " as Dr. "Wallis expresses it, against the enemies of their faith and morals, visible or invisible. It is a pity more of the heads of families do not interest themselves in this society. Their apathy is not to their honor The Auckland branch of the Hibernian Society is flourishing, and now numbers nearly one hundred members, I. hear. This is certainly the most important lay Catholic association we have on this side of the equator, and is likely to exert a powerful and widely extended influence for good in more ways than one. It is a society which is not only profitable in a religious and moral, but in a pecuniary point of view to its members, and therefore well calculated to elevate the character of the Catholic body generally iv the estimation of their Protestant neighbors. The good it does ■will be owing to the power of the Church, from which it is an offshoot, and derives its religious and moral life.