GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 79, 31 October 1874, Page 11

GENERAL NEWS.

-The following items are from the ' Tablet's ' weekly summary of •August 15 : — The Italian Government has arrested Rimini Signor Aureh'a Saffi, the former Triumvir, who was long resident in this country, and twenty-six other republicans who had held a political meeting. Eight ■leaders of the International have been arrested in Koine, two more at Bologna, and others at Florence and other places ; and at Imola an armed band, which had cut the telegraphs between the capital and the Romagna, disarmed the watchmen, and Beized a station master in •order to stop the mail-train, has been pursued, and nearly all — about •ixty— arrested between Imola and Castei San Pietro. Seven chests of rifles and ammunition have been seized by the police, and all the revolutionary tocieties in Imola dissolved. It would seem as though this time a republican outbreak had been seriously concerted, and sooner or later there will be one, though we very much doubt its being successful, while the mass of the army is as well in hand as it still is. On Saturday, in spite of the protest of all the procurators of the foreign Bishops, the property of the Propnganda was put up for sale. We have thought it best to wait for further and more exact particulars of this outrage and injury to the Catholic Church throughout the world before dealing with it in detail, as we intend to do. But this much we must say at once. The promises made by the Italian ■Government at the time of its invasion of Rome, and repeated by Signor Visconti-Venosta on more than one occasion in repy to the representations of foreign diplomatists, were calculated and intended to make the world believe, that the seizure of the temporal sovereignty of the Holy See would not involve any interference with the machinery through which the spiritual administration and work of the Church is carried on at home and abroad. The blow now struck at the Propaganda strikes at Catholic Missions throughout the world — not only in heathen lands, but in countries like our own, together with all colenies and dependencies, and the United States as well. The solemn assurances of King Victor Emmanuel and his Government are perfidiously broken, and we have another and a tremendous proof of the fact, that the campaign in Italy against the Holy Bee, of which the crime of 1870 was the principal achievement, is being waged, not only against the temporal power, but against the spiritual liberty and efficiency of the Church throughout the world. The split between M. Loyson and those who intruded him into the parish of Geneva has widened into a linal breach. He has found out that what we have been saying all along is true — that the persons wno call themselves Liberal Catholics are neither Liberals nor Catholics, but tyrants and infidels. For some time past there has been open war between M Loyson mad the person calling himself cure of Chene, and covert war between the apostate priest, who wished to retain some semblance of Catholicism, and the " Superior Council," who desire to inaugurate undisguised Rationalism. M. Loyson therefore throws up his appointment and writes the following letter to his friends of the Conseil d'Etat :— " Attached from the very depths of my heart to the Church in which I was baptised, whose reform I wished for, but not its overthrow ; convicted, besides, by experience, now sufficiently lengthened, that the Liberal Catholicism of Geneva is neither Liberal in politics nor Catholic in religion ; I have the honor to tender my resignation of my functions as cure of this city." There is nothing *o be said except to express a hope that this unfortunate man may discover that in seeking a Catholic Communion outside the Catholic Church, he has been pursuing an impossible chimera, and may yet further retrace his steps. The place of repentance is still open to him, though he has himself, by the deed which he perpetrated in this country, laised a terrible obstacle on the road which leads to it. The effect which his present step lias produced on the more old-fashioned Protestants at Geneva will appear from the following despondent aud somewhat oracular remarks of the ' Journal de Geneve.' "We fear," says that paper, " that the retirement of this illustrious jjersonage will administer a fatal shock to the still young edifice of the Liberal Catholic Church ; we fear that the extreme party will find in it an encouragement to pursue its mad enterprise to the end. The future appears before us in colors anything but gay. In any case, the responsibility for this grave event falls entirely on those pretended statesmen who •do not know liow to wait' ; and whe, in their childish impatience, themselves, without the lease serious consideration, destroy the work ■which they flattered themselves would be for ever connected with their name." While the Brazilian Bishops are condemned to imprisonment and hard labor — the Bishop of Para is just added to the list of Confessors — for saving that Freemasons are not good Catholics, the action of the Austrian Government, which cannot certainly be accused of " clericalism," is rather remarkable. It has prohibited the opening of a Masonic Lodge at Vienna on the ground, says the official decree, that the " very principles of Freemasonry, which exact absolute silence and secret action, are sufficient reason for the State's refusing to recognise the legal existence of a Lodge." The Bishops then of Brazil are condemned to hard labor for doing much less than the Austrian Government has done ; they, in obedience to the Church, have inflicted on IVeemasonry spiritual disabilities ; the Liberal Austrian Government visits it with temporal disabilities, and precisely on the same grouuda. The Catholic journal, ' Les Missons Catholiques,' gives the following statistics for Japan :—": — " The Japanese Christians iv actual connection with Roman missionaries number from 13,000 to 14,000. {They are nearly all the descendants of the early Christians in that country. In the course of the persecutions from 1867 to 1573, 3,404 Ch> istians were exiled and imprisoned C6O died in prison, and 1,98 i ■were released ia 1873. A RussiaK Sister op Cuahitx.— Mademoiselle Natalie Narichkin, who was of a family allied to the blood Imperial — die mother of Teter the Great had the same name— has just died at Paris in the humble habit of a Sister of Saint Vincent de Paul. She was an angel of piety and charity; those virtues were reflected in her countenance. A few years ago, when the cholera was raging violently in this city

she petitioned the Empress, as a fnvour, to be allowed to come hither and nurse her country-women who were smitten by the pestilence. JLhe request, was met by a dry official refusal. Russians who become catholics are constantly reproached with want of patriotism, and yet when they are ready to give proof of the most earnest, devotion to their country, even at the risk of their lives, they are stopped by the police-. -Lac fact is they are treated like noxious reptiles ; every career is closed against them, and they are compelled to seek shelter on a foreign soil, where they at least enjoy the liberty of worshipping God according to their conscieuce ; while here in Russia the gendarmes regulate the prayer-books, only permitting you to purchase such as are edited by Count Sievers, and have the name of God in small type and the nameot the Royal family— some of whom are not quite saints— iv bi» capitals ! One must bo on the spot and see these things fully to believe them. It is the old Paganism revived, without its poetry, and with its dungeons. ~ Nine-tenths of Ireland is afc present ruled by the Coercion Acfc. -tfrom a Parliamentary Report just issued in answer to a demand of Mr Butt, it appears that 25 out of the 32 counties are " proclaimed." The names of the unhappy counties are as follows :— The entire of the counties of Antrim, Armagh, Carlow, Cavan, Clare, Cork, Dublin, faralway Kerry Kilkenny, King's Oour.i <, Leitrim, Limerick, Loath, Mayo, Meath, Monaghan, Queen's Couucy, Roscommon, Sligo, Tipperary Waterford, Westmeath, Wexford and Wicklow, The list also includes Dublin, Cork, Belfast. Galway, and most of the principal cities and towns in the island. The ' Dublin Freeman ' says :-At a period when the county is profoundly peaceful, tranquil, calm, tending to lethargy rather than to excitement, our rulers confess that they cannot carry on the government of the country without • maintainingm Ireland n coercion code more absurdly severe than the Second .Umpire ever deemed of enforcing. By such a fact let English Government m Ireland bo judged and condemned. In this country in a timeot absolute peace, the " state of siege "is maintained— the most brutal form of government in the world. A man buried in Luzerne county (U.S.), six yeara ago, was diainterred recently, and the body was found to be completely petrified.