GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 123, 3 September 1875, Page 9

GENERAL NEWS.

The folio-wing itemß are selected from our invaluable exchange the c Catholic Review ' : — The Protestants of Germany are horrified at the deeds perpetrated against the Church in the empire, and which are so much applauded by their brethren on this side of the ocean. Not many weeks ago a grand meeting was held at "Wittenberg, where Luther published his famous thesis, which was attended by the leading Protestants of the city, and in which they made their name good for once, by loudly protesting against the iniquitous persecutions of Prince Bismarck. They addressed his Excellency a letter, in which they stated in by no means mild terms, their disapproval of Ims conduct, and entreated him to change his policy for one more •Ompatible with modern views of liberty of conscience. On Wednesday last there arrived in this city no less than ninety German exiles. They are mostly ecclesiastics. Twelve are priests, sixty students in theology, and fifteen nuns of various •rdera. The only charge brought against them is, that they belong to religious orders, and have no right as such to remain in Prussia. Some belong to very aristocratic families, and others •erred in the late war, and bear wounds received in battle upon their persons. These unfortunate and innocent victims of persecution arrived in this city by the steamer Rotterdam, and were reteived by their fellow countrymen with an enthusiasm which cannot be very pleasing to Prince Bismarck. A great number cf German residents of New Tork assembled at the pier to welcome them, and to make them every possible offer of hospitality. Several prominent citizens informed the Sisters of St. Francis, in charge of the Fifth-street Hospital, and they would entertain the exiles during their stay. The ' Daily Telegraph ' says that one wealthy Jewish gentleman has undertaken to provide for forty of them. " I am a Jew," said he, " but I hate persecution. My people have -had enough of that." The crowd down by the dock on their arrival was very great. They were lustily cheered and shaken by the hands, and afterwards escorted to the Ffth-street Hospital and entertained. Thence they went to the houses of the friends who will accommodate them during their stay in the city. After a brief •ojourn in New York they will go out West and take up their risidence amongst the thousands of Germans who have settled down in that part of the country. i The subject of divorce has become quite prominent of late in tihe Italian Parliament, and Salvatore Morelli delivered recently quite an elegant speech on the subject. It is certainly a rather curious fact, that divorce is always one of the first things proposed by governments which are endeavoring to withdraw their people from the Church. Thus Henry VIII., and the early Lutheran princes approved of divorce, and in consequence embraced the tenets of the Reformation, because the Church absolutely refused to flatter their evil passions. Once Italy attacked the Papacy and permitted civil marriage, it was not to be wondered that her Bext step towards total emancipation should be divorce. Up to the present the law has not been voted, but its passage- may be looked for with a good deal of certainty. When we read a letter from Geneva now-a-days, it seems almost like reading a chapter from Fabiola. Here is a specimen of how the sacraments of the first communion and confirmation were! administeied this year in the diocese of Mgr. Mermillod, according to a writer in the 'TTnita': — " This year there was no solemnity on the occasion of the first communions as there used to be. The great church of Notre Dame was closed, and the children received their Lord in the subterranern chapel which is now used for the men, who, on account of the want of space, are separated from the women. About three hundred children communicated, and the majority were afterwards confirmed by Mgr. Mermillod. Their parents had to escort them out to Ferney, where the illustrious bishop confirmed them. Is not this a return to the age of the Church of the catacombs ?" Afc a great temperance meeting held recently in Exeter Hall, London, one of the speakers, Mr. Whitworth, M.P., a gun manufacturer, said that he employed between seven and eight thousand * -workmen, and the curse of Sunday drinking was so great, that on Mondays not enough of them came to work to make it pay for getting up steam. He was obliged to abandon work on that day at an annual loss of four per cent, on his invested capital. Cardinal Manning addressed the meeting and moved the first resolution. He said that intemperance was increasing as a political power and beginning to exercise a controlling influence over every election, And, in view of Mr. Whitworth's statement, and the amount of domestic misery which every one can see it must involve, the cardinal's remark that the so-called tyranny of temperance legislation " was not equal to the tyranny of the inebriated minority over their families and neighborhoods," reads like a truism. Notwithstanding the many impediments thrown in its way, the Jubilee has been celebrated in Italy with considerable zeal -and piety. Out-door processions have been few as in many cities the government has forbidden them. At Turin, howevei', they have been exceedingly numerous and well conducted. At Salmona, a city of Southern Italy, four enormous churches, those of St. Paul, St. Mary, St. Panfilo and St. Francis, are constantly filled with devout" throngs, even during the late hours of the night and the early ones of the morning. At Rome thousands of pilgrims arrive each week to visit the shrines 'of the Apostles, and the Italian papers announce that at Milan, Genoa, Venice and Naples the churcheß are unusually well attended. Our Roman correspondent informs us that pilgrims and Roman alike form long- processions in that city which which go from church to church singing the litanies and reciting the rosary.- These processions are usually treated with respect by the people and even the liberals allow j them to pass without insulting them. Jpropds of the terrible disaster which has befallen France in tlie shape of inundations of the most devastating character, the

New York * Herald ' makes a very proper suggestion when it reminds us of the generosity of the French for Americana at the time of the destruction of Chicago, and entreats us to help France " as she helped us to send alms and material aid to the unfortunate* victims of the flood. At the time when a similar disaster orerwhelmed portions of the German dominions, a year or two ago, the German consul in New York did not find it beneath his dignity>to solicit American alms for a country just enriched by the greatest war indemnity on record. Doubtless we shall receive no such official application in the present instance, when our generosity/ if it has any grateful existence, will . have all the merit of spontaneity. Affairs in Germany continue in ttatu quo. The persecution, far from diminishing, seems even worse than ever. Some few weeks ago the Vicar of Ludwigsdorf was arrested on account of a quotation made in one of his sermons — " If our Lord were now on earth He would also be imprisoned and exiled." For this remark he had to spend a week in solitary confinement. Wesel is fast becoming renowned as a place of ecclesiastical imprisonment, and hither half the priests in the diocese of Paderborn have air eady experienced Bismarck's hospitality. By a decree from the government of Arnsburg, the religious instruction is withdrawn from the clergy altogether. The new Bishop of Dresden is Count Bernert, a very worthy and charitable person who enjoys universal esteem, and the new Archbishop of Bamberg is Father Scheider, whose election has created great satisfaction even in the liberal camp. Meetings of Protestants to protest against the doing of Von Bismarck have become quite the fashion, and in Westphalia both the Probeßfcant and the liberal press show luoinselves utterly disgusted at the way in which matters are conducted by the Chancellor. They do not hesitate to give vent to their indignant feelings and to assure the public that they are revolted at the increasing extent of the persecution of which the Catholics are victims. The following statistics concerning the spoliations of the monastic establishments are very remarkable. Since 1825, 154,300,000 francs worth of church property has been confiscated in Piedmont alone. In the province of Genoa, 316 houses have been closed since 1858, and property to the amount of 5,250,000,000 franca sold. In Lombardy since 1859, 2900 houses were closed, and 2,275,000,000 francs worth of property "sold. In Venetia, 715 houses closed, and 930,000,000 francs worth of property sold. In the Marches, 699 houses, and 28,009,000 francs. In the Abruzzi, 2508 houses, and 19,000,000 francs. In the Puglia, 1247 houses, and 28,000,000 francs. In Calabria, 547 houses, and 95,000,000 francs. In Sardinia, 158 houses, and 4,000,000 francs. In Tuscany, 252 houses, and 142,000,000. francs Rome, 475 houses, and 63,000,000 francs worth of property sold. In all 18,453 ecclesiastical houses have been suppressed, and 220 million dollars worth of property confiscated. The ceremony of laying the foundation stone of the church of the Sacred Heart, Paris, was celebrated on June 16, with great pomp. A.t six o'clock in the morning, the roads leading to the site were full of carriages containing distinguished persons, who had been invited to the ceremony. The cardinal archbishop and his v canons arrived in the little chapel of Montmartre at nine o'clock." The music was under the direction of the Sisters of Charity, whose pup.ls sang in a very pleasing, manner some simple but touching hymns. The following prelates pere present : — The Nuncio, Mgr, Meglia, Mgr. de Margueryre, former Bisshop of Autun; Mgr. Regntiud, Bishop of Chartrea ; Mgr. Maret, Bishop ol Sura; Mgr. Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans ; Mgr. Lavigerie, Archbishop of Algiers ; Mgr. Percho, Archbishop of New Orleans ; Mgr. FreppeL. Bishop of Angers j and the Bishop of the Cape of Good Hope. These prelates wore their robes of ceremony. Several representatives of Alsace and Lorraine were also present. The Duke de Nemours and his son and over eighty deputies also attended the important ceremony, as did the Generals de Temple, Ca-helinean and Montarby and the Count de Mun. It is calculated that close upon fifteen thousand persons were assembled. The religious services were conducted by Mgr. Guibert, who blessed the first stone of the new church according to the usual formalities. The ceremonies were accomplished with, the utmost order, and nothing unpleasant occurred during the day. The neighboring houses were decorated with flags. About 5,000 persons were gathered in the space which the church will eventually occupy. All of them wereadmitted by ticket. The spot where the high, altar will stand was marked by a gigantic cross. The procession from the little chapel where mass was said was very long and beautiful. Many hundreds of young girls wlio belong to the new congregation of the Sacred Heart walked in it, dressed in white with blue scarfs. The hymn of the Sacred Heart was sung with fervor by the-entire congregation. At the conclusion of the archbishop's address, shouts of Vive Pie IX., Vive la France, rang through the air. Madame de MacMahon was not present, being unavoidably absent on a pilgrim age lo Paray-le-Monial. The Viceroy of Egypt is about to astonish the world again. Pie has resolyed to build a railroad aloiig the Valley of the Nile in the interior of Africa, and as he has plenty of money, and thousands of serfs at his command, he will iio doubt accomplish his purpose. In a few years, African explorers will be able to travel in sleeping cars, and to write magnificent descriptions of places which they have passed through in the dark. The 'Saturday Review' thus describes the present Disraeli Administration :—lndustry,: — Industry, a desire to do right, courtesy — these a,ro great virtues in a Ministry ; and, having them, what can a Ministry want more. That the Ministry does want something more is evident. It wa-nts a backbone. It wants to^be teas like a better sort of Jelly-fish. It wants mind and purpose. ' Ii decides on nothing,. means nothing". Its bills benefit no one, an>l hurt no one. They are like stuffed figures with rusty muskets shamming to be a regiment of soldiers. If anyone pushes the.n, these bills topple over and lie in placid impotence on the ground.