AN ADDRESS FROM THE ARCHBISHOP OF TORONTO AND CANADIAN BISHOPS TO THE GERMAN PRELATES.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 117, 23 July 1875, Page 8

AN ADDRESS FROM THE ARCHBISHOP OF TORONTO AND CANADIAN BISHOPS TO THE GERMAN PRELATES.

St. Michael's Palace, Toronto, Canada, April 23, 1875. To his Eminence Cardinal Ledochowski and to the Archbishops and Bishops of Germany. Most Reverend Lords and Venerable Brothers in Christ. — We, the Archbishop and Bishops of the Province of Toronto, in Canada, taking occasion of our reunion at the consecration of our venerable brother, the Bishop of Kingston, beg te address you in the language of the Holy Scripture, " Conforta~ mini et esto teviri." We admire your apostolic courage, we reverence the prisons and chains that witness your sufferings for Christ. You have chosen rather to obey G-od than man, and for the fulfilment of your sacred ministry you rely upon powers and gracea given you by our Lord Jesus Christ, the Eternal Pastor of souls, who governs His kingdom on earth, the " Church, through your ministry and not through the ministry of the princes of this world. The Holy Spirit of God has placed over His Church bishops and not princes. Bishops are the jxtdges of true and false doctrine, and judges of what is right in the discipline of the Church. It ia the office of the bishops to watch over the education of youth, and especially of candidates for the sacred ministry, to admit the worthy and reject the unworthy, to appoint pastors of souls. It is to the bishops alone that the priests are amenable for all things relating to their sacerdotal functions. It is the duty of bishops to uphold the good pastors of souls, and to sustain them in their struggle with the world ; to reprove, exhort, and even to remove from, the sacred ministry, independently of any civil government, priests who become unworthy of their position. Your Lordships have before your eyes what has unhappily befallen the Church of England, where persecutions caused first schism and then heresy and the I degradation of the clergy and profanation of sacred things. Your j faithful people, thank G-od, are not prepared to receive an order of things totally at variance with the institutions of Christ. We deeply sympathise with them, deprived as they are, by the iniquity | of a tyrannical government, of their true and legitimate pastors, but we glory in the firmness and faith with which they condemn the enactments of their despotic rulers, which, having no binding I power (because not founded on justice and truth), refuse even sacred things from sacrileges and polluted hands. We admire your devoted clergy, who, though their chief pastors are struck in your sacred persons and vast numbers of themselves thrown into prison for duty and conscience' sake, are still neither overcome nor even dispersed, but glory in their sufferings for Christ's sake. We are delighted to learn that our Holy father, to mark his apprecition of your heroic sufferings for the faith, has been pleased to raise to the most eminent dignity of Cardinal one of your venerable body, the illustrious Archbishop of Poson, still in chains. Courage, then, most reverend brothers and confessors of the faith, the Catholic world beholds you with admiration, and glories in your firmness. Embracing you with brotherly affection and profound veneration, we are your devoted brothers in Christ, f John Joseph Lynch, Archbishop of Toronto, •j- John, Bishop of London. f John Francis, Bishop of Tarepta, Vie. Apos. of N. Canada, f Peter Francis, Bishop of Hamilton, f John O'Brien, Bishop of Kingston.