CATHOLIC NEWS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XX, Issue 15, 29 January 1892, Page 7

CATHOLIC NEWS.

(From the Liverpool Catholic Times.) THE state of Borne financially is wretched in the extreme, and yet new taxes are devised erery day. Every one predicts a crisis, political and financial, bat no one knows when it will come. The Monastery of Santa Ana del Monte, in the province of Talencia, Spain, has just been restored, and is now inhabited by several Franciscan fathers. It was in this Monastery that St. Paschal Baylon passed his novitiate. Two young Congolais, Makwama and Navambi, who have renounced the errors of paganism, hare been baptised at Gyseg^-m, in Belgium, by Mgr. Van den Bergle, parish priest of St. Joseph's at Antwerp. The function was quite a festival. By brief of 30th October the Holy Father has named M. de la Tour da Pin, a Deputy of France, and Herr von Heereman, one of the chiefs of the German Centre, for Grand Crosses of the Order of St. Gregory the Great. The conferring of these decorations is not without its political importance. Dom Pietro Prado, author of a book of dangerous tendencies, entitled, " The Dominators of the Ohuroh," has made a spontaneous retraction of bis errors, which he bad conveyed to the Vatican through the medium of the Cardinal Patriarch of Venice. By order of Leo XIII. the retraction has bean published by the repentant priest in the Difesa of Venice. The commitee of Dutch C*tholic9 formed to commemorate the Sacerdotal Jubilee of Leo XIII. bad conceived the idea of proTiding a suitable residence for the Pontifical Nuncio in Holland. After four years the idea has been successfully carried to an issue, and Mgr. Rinaldini, the laternuncio, has been authorised by the Holy See to accept the gift, which will remain as a permanent token of the munificence of these good Netherlander and their affection for the Pope. The Dutch Catholics are among the best in the world. The Benedictine Abbe Vaiz.ry, the new primate of Hungary, was born in Keezbe's of poor peasants on the 12th of February, 1832. He made his studies in his native town, and at Martinsberg, where he entered the Order of St. Benedict in 1854, and devoted himself to teaching. He was sent at first to Komorn as Professor of History and Latin, and afterwards was raised to the dignity of Prefect of the Order at Papa, where he made the acquaintance of the Hungarian publicist, Thomas Kissy. They labouied in conjunction over the composition! of a "Universal History," and founded in 1857 the "Hungarian Plutarch." At this epoch Vaizary wrote numerous articles for the reviews on pedagogy, criticism, and ecclesiastical themes. In 1891 he was appointed professor at the gymnasium of Gran, and brought out his " Universal History," in three volumes, remodelled the "History of Hungary „by Michael Horvath, and published a monograph called "The Battle of Varna." In 1869 he became director of the Gran gymnasium, and in 1889 on the death of Chrysostom Krues, was named Arch-Abbot of Martinsberg in his place. Martinsberg is the most ancient abbey in Hungary. It was founded from the House of Melk, and was richly endowed by the King St. Stephen. Its Arch-Abbot is a prelate nullius, and is invested with all the rights of episcopal jurisdiction.

The establishment of a hierarchy by the Pontiff in some country where the spread of Catholicity renders snch a measure requisite does not any longer create a foolish panic, such as was created in the English mind in 1850, when Pius IX. established the hierarchy in England with Cardinal Wiseman at its head. The establishment of a hierarchy in Japan has passed almost without notice. The Holy Father, by a Pontifical Bull dated June 15, 1891, now sent out to the bishops, institutes a Catholic hierarchy in that land where tha missionaries of the faith hare suffered so much and so long. The Metropolitan See has been established at Tokio, with three suffragan sees, at Nagasaki, at Ostka and at Hokodata. The following are the nominations made: Archbishop of Tokio. Monsignor Peter Osoaf; Bishop of Nagasaki, Monsignor Alphonse Cousin: Bishop of Osaka, Monsignor Felix Midon, and bishop of Hokodata, Monsignor Alexander Berlioz The Holy Father, in this Bull, briefly relates the story of the Church in Japan, showing how the moment has been now reached for the establishment of the hierarchy in that vast Empire. During a heavy storm which raged lately, the oak which Tasso planted in the garden of St. Onofrio — the monastery in which he died — has been blown down and irreparably destroyed, The greater part of it was blown down in 1842, but a young sapling shot up afterwards, and the place still preserved that memory of the great poet who sang the story of " Jerusalem Delivered" Now that memorial exists no more. In near neighbourhood is the small amphitheatre, overgrown with grass and flowers, wheie St . Philip Neri used to teach children, and assemble them for the half-dramatic musical performances which weie an original form of his oratorios," and which were the type and model of that style of music which revived at the end of last century and is new so popular. The Prince Don Ippolito Aldobrandini, aged nineteen years, younger son of Prince Don Camillo Aldobrandini, entered on Sunday last, November 8. the novitiate of the Society of Jesus. The

young man was accompanied, in the accomplishment of this act of religion and self-sacrifice by the benediction of his parents and the admiration of all those who had learned to appreciate his noble virtues and the exquisite affability of his character. The illustrious family to which this young man belongs is a very ancient Florentine family, formerly called Dei Nero and Garncci; bat at the beginning of the fourteenth century another family of the same name having settled at Florence, and assumed the name Aldobrandini, the distinction, di Piazza Madonna, was attache 1 to this name, from the fact that the Aldobrandini Palace was situited in that Piazza. The first member of the family settled in Florence about the year 960. Ai the end of the sixteenth century a member of this family the same name as the present youog Jesuit novice — Cardinal Ippolito Aldodrandini was created Pope in 1592, and took the name of Clement VIII. His reign lasted thirteen years, Many cardinals belonged to the same illustrious family.

In the chapel to the right of the grand apse in the Lateran Basi. lica, workmen are now engaged in placing a colossal relief in marble , representing an event associated with this church in the beginning of the thirteenth century. The great figures of relief represent the meeting and embracing of St. Dominic and St. Francis of Assisi at the door of this basilica. Dominic had a dream in which he bebeld him* self and another person as tha persons chosen to revive the faith and the Christian virtues throughout Christendom. He could not in his dream recognise the companion chosen for this work. On the following day, departing from the Lateran, he perceived under the garb of a mendicant the figure of this mysterious friend whom Heaven had shown to him. Immediately he ran towards him, and the two saints, recognising each other on the instant, embraced. Finally Dominic spoke, and related the vision he had had the previous night and said : *' Francis, thou art my companion, we will labour ia concert, let ns remain united, and no one can prevail against us." " The kiss of Dominic and of Francis," says Father Lacordaire, "is transmitted from generation to generation by the lips of their prosperity." This is the scene now commerated in well-nigh imperishable marble in the Basilica of the Lateran. Of all the representations of this touching event the best remembered by travellers is, probably, that over the door of the Hospital of San Paolo in the piazza Santa Maria Novella, at Florence, the work of Andrea della Robbia, the glazed and coloured terra cotta showing life-like.