CATHOLIC NEWS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 27, 3 April 1891, Page 5

CATHOLIC NEWS.

The Rev. J. Moultrie, who was until recently Anglican curate of Christ Cburcb, Doncaster, has joined the Catholic Churcb.

When the Church of St. Bernard, in New York, was destroyed by fire on Monday morning of last week the whole interior was completely ruined, except a crucifix, which wholly escaped even the faintest injury.

The Vatican library has increased by 100,000 volumes during the pactyear. All the new books are gifts from foreigners, sent to the Pope on tha occasion of his jubilee. The speculum for tbe equatorial photographs has also arrived ; it is entirely of iron and steel.

The Holy Father has addressed a letter to Dr. Windthorst, warmly eulogising his zeal in founding "The German Catholic People's Society," one of the principal objects of which is to combat Socialism.

Professor Newman, in his reminiscences of his brother the Cardinal, says ho agrees with an expression he hag heard made use of that the leader of the Tractarian movement would have shone as a lawyer quite as much a 9 he did in the Church.

In Silesia 620 of the country schools are under the control ot the barons ; of these, 240, with their 586 teachers, belong to tha Lutherans, while the remaining 380, with their 598 teachers, are under Catholic influence. The Hebrew Baron Rothschild owns eighteen schools, which, strange to pay, are under Catholic teachers. The majority of these schools (patronage schools they are called) are very poorly provided for. The riding whip of the baron is the principal wand of authority.

On the Feast of the Immaculate Conception a new Catholic Cathedral was consecrated at Mandalay, the old capital of Burmab. The Cathedral was built at the sole expense of a wealthy Burmese convert to Catholicity. On the following day the Tery Rev. Rocco Tornatore was consecrated Bishop and Vicar-Apostolic of Eastern Burmah. Mgr. Tornatore was one of the pioneer preachers of the Gospel among the half-savage Karen tribes in the Shan Hills, and has been a missionary in Burman since 1868.

Dr. Hurd von Schlozer, the representative of Prussia at the Tatican, in an audience granted by the Pope, announced that while the German Government was unable to accede to the return of tha Jesuits to Prussia, all other religious bodies were free to return. The permission necessary for the return of the Jesuits, Dr. Ton Schlorer said, was withheld for the present.

Apropos of the publication of the le'ters of Lord Sydney Godolphin Osborne, it ia not generally known that his youngest son " seceded " to Rome, and is now on the clerical staff of the Brompton Oratory. The Rev. R. B. (lodolphin Odborne is in poiut of fact one of the ablest Catholic preachers in London.

By her will, the late Lady Edith Noel giv-s all her personal estate and effects to the Catholic School of St. Vincent de Paul at Mill Hill, London, and appoints as sole executor of her will her brother-in-law, Sir Alan Bellingham, by whom the value of the testatrix's personal estate has been sworn at £2,684 3s Bd.

The newspapers have been conjec'uring a, good deU as to the nature of tbe forthcoming Encyclical on the social questions, but nothing really definite is known on the subject.

Pere Didon has commenced a series of sermons in the C lurch of La Madeleine, Paris, with the object of soliciting subscriptions to erect a church in Rome, as a present to the Pope, upon the oc:asion of the celebration of bis episcopal jubilee.

At the annual Catholic reunion in the Birmingham Town Hall, the Duke of Norfolk, who presided, said the number of forms of religious belief, wh eh twenty years ago were under one hundred in this country, were now as many as two hundred and fifty.

TheDetition to the Holy Father for the canonisation of Columbus bears 900 signatures, including those of archbishops and bishops ia various parts of the world. The Holy Father has wrict'-n a warmly commendatory letter to the promoters of the Columbus monument at Buenos Ayres.

Mr. William Young Craig, ex-M.P. for North Staffordshire, and a large colliery proprietor ia the same district, has recently joined the Catholic Church. Mr. Craig is a Liberal and a vigorous advocate of Home Rule. A large employer of labour, he is exceptionally popular with the working classes throughout the Potteries.

Negotiations between Russia and the Vatican are, it appears, still continued. Last wesk the Russian envoy to the Vatican returned to tit. Petersburgh for instructions, particularly, it issaid, in relereace to an appointment to the Archiepißcopal See of MoheUff.

M. Gurex, a learned physician of Bruges, in Belgium, recently ascertained the fact that the figure oq the crucifix in the cathedral at that place is a real human body in a perfect state of preservation. It is said to have b^cu ij its presint position since the beginning of the 11th century.

At the Catholic Congress at Coblentz last autumn it was resolved to take immediate steps to erect more churches at Berlin, where the ra',«id growth of the capital has left a large Catholic population dependent on two churcheß in the centre of the old town. The foun-dation-stone of the first ot these new churches, dedicated to St. Sebastian, has just been laid. The church will cost nearly £30,003. The Protestant municipality of Berlin has given the Catholics the ground for the church free and £20,000 to the bunding fund, to which the Emperor baa added a personal donation of £3.000. He sent one of his officers to represent him at the ceremony.

May 13, 1892, will be the centenary of the birth of Pius IX. A committee has been formed in Italy to celebrate the occasion, (1; by completing and solemnly inaugurating the monument to the great Pontiff at the Basilica of San LorenzD, outside the walls, (2), by erecting a monument to Pius IX. at his native place, Sinigallia, (3), by presenting an address of loyal devotion to the reigniDg Pontiff Leo XIII. in a special audience on the day of the centenary.

Cardinal Simor, Archbishop of Grau and for the past twenty-four years Primate of Hungary, died at Grau lately. By his death one of the moßt powerful and distinguished prelates of the modern Catholic Church disappears. His career justifies the boa9t that the truest ol democracies is the priesthood, for he was the son of a poor shoemaker, and rose step by step through sheer abilities in the most exclusive country in Europe to be the peer of Kaisers and the companion of Princes.

The fourth centenary of Christopher Columbus is about to be celebrated at Buenos Ayres by the erection of a statue to the great discoverer. To the promoters of this project the Holy Father has addressed a brief of warm encouragement. " Columbus," saya his Holiuess, " has done such great things, his genius and constancy have been the source of so much benefit all over the world, that few men can be compared to him. But, if his memory is in great honour with Us, it is specially because, in undertaking difficult voyages, in supporting great fatigues, and encountering immense dangers, he had for his aim to open the path to unknown regions for the propagators of the Gospel." The Pope concludes with his blessing upon the project, with which he repeats the expression of his hearty sympathy.

Ibe Centrum or Cutholic party is taking lessons from the Socialists, who, as is known, desire to be recompensed for the unconstitutional ravages of the Iron Chancellor during the period when the special laws against them were in force. In the same way, the Cburch now demands restoration of the clerical salaries sequestrated during the Kulturkampf. Now Windthorst'a party ia considering the advisability of sending to the Reichstag a number of Jesuits to battle for the readmittance of tbe order into Germany as the Socialist leaders did for the suj pression of the special laws framed against them. Father Aschenbreuen, who, by his personal bravery in the battle of Le Bourget in October, 1870, won the Iron Cross of the first class, is to be pioneer Jesuit Deputy in tbe Reichstag. He will be put up for election at the first vacancy that occurs.

William's sudden determination to put an end to the Kulturkampf is interpreted as an indication that he feels the necessity of having Catholic Bavaria Boldidly at his back in case the ship of state strikes rough water. He will not allow the Jesuits to return to Germany, but in other respects the Catholics now enjoy equal liberty with Protestants in his empire, and he has had a long personal letter from the Pope thanking him in affectionately paternal toaes for his action in the matter. This marks a very notable change from two years ago, when the young Kaiser's visit to Rome was made the vehicle for a characteristic Bismarckian insult to the venerable Pontiff ; but, then, everything is changed in Germany since that unworthy period.

An exemplication of the catholicity of the Churcb, in the universal significance of the word, was witnessed in ?t. Peter's Church, New York, on the Feast of the Epiphany. Mass on that morning was celebrated according to three rites — the Latin, the Syro-Greek, and the Marontte. "It was the same sacrifice, the oblation of Christ, with varying ceremonies and in different languages ; aad afforded a lesson to the two classes who declaim against the unity and the cast-iron discipline of the true Church," remarks the Catholic Jievien, The services reveal the fact to the general public that there are Syrian and Armenian colonies in New York, just as there are Hungarian, and Italian and German colonies.