GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXV, Issue 17, 3 September 1897, Page 20

GENERAL NEWS.

These is gratifying news from Norway. After an agitation which began in 1792, and has been vigorously carried on by the little Catholic newspaper, Olaf, and by the Vicar Apostolic, Mgr Fallize the Storthing, by a majority of 77 to 34, has abrogated the law which for so long has excluded the religious Orders and Congregations from the kingdom, the four Lutheran ministers who have seats in the House voting, we are pleased to note, in the majority. Only the Jesuits are still excluded, by special vote which was carried by 63 to iB. The step is, however, a decided advance and completes, with the exception just mentioned, the emancipation of the Norwegian Cataolics. Practically, indeed, a large number of nuns were already tolerated in the country, and are doing excellent work. The Orders of men will now be allowed to establish themselves once more in the country of St. Olaf.

In a recent issue we gave the text of the address to her Majesty the Queen, which was signed by the Cardinal-Aruhbishop and all the archbishops and bishops of Australia. The address was sent through his Excellency the Governor of New South Wales. The principal passage in the address of the hierarchy reads :: — •' Of the many measures of Si ate policy that have left the impress of their wisdom on your reign, we note with special interest the practical adoption of the great principles of religious cqu-ilir.y, by which the free exercise of their religion has been secured to all your Catholio subjects ; and we would fain recognise in the manifold blessings which a benign Providence has vouchsafed to bestow upon you and your Empire, the merited reward of such ju.=t and enlightened legislation." The reply came through Lord Hampden, and was by him placed in the hands of the Cardin il. It is as follows :: — '• Governmeuc House, Sydney, Gfh August, 18'.i7. My Lord,— l have to intorin your Lordship that I have received a di-spitch from the Secretary of State for the colonies conveying an intimation to the effi ct that the address from the Cardinal-Archbishop and bishops of the Roman Catholic Church throughout Australia, offering congratulations to her Majesty on the completion of the sixtieth year of her reign, was duly laid before the Queen. Her Majesry, who was much gratified by this evidence of the loyalty and esteem entertained towards her by the Roman Catholic Church in Australia, commanded that an expression of her grateful thanks should be conveyed to the signatories. I have the honour to be. my Lord, your Eminence's most obedient servant, Uampden. His Eminence Cardinal Moran, etc.,

His Holiness the Pope has been pleased to confer the knighthood of St. Gregory the Great on Colonel Edward Victor Law, the late British resident of Jeypore, Rajpootana, in recognition of the services he rendered to the Catholic religion whilst in India, by his liberal donations and personal exertions in promoting the erection of churches, and in supporting the Catholic institutions of the places where he happened to reside in the discharge of his duties as a Government servant. " The chapels at Ulwar and Jeypore," writes Father Pius, O.S.F.C, " owe their existence mainly to him, and during his last two years as British resident of Jeypore, besides giving at different times liberal donations to relieve the most pressing want of the newly-established convent school at Ajmere, and spending divers sums of money to beautify our Jeypore chapel, he was pleased to place at my disposal the sum of 2,500 rupees for the erection and decoration of the chapel of our holy founder St. Francis of Assisi, one of the four chapels that are being erected in connection with the cathedral church under construction at Ajmere. I may add that our Most Rev. Father General, on being informed of Colonel and Mrs. Law's piety and zeal for the spreading of our holy religion in Rajpootana and elsewhere, and of their great liberality towards our institutions, in order to give a special token of his good wi 1 towards them, granted them previous to their leaving India for England, a diploma of affiliation to the Capuchin Order, 4|r which they were made partakers of and sharers in all spiritual good performed by its members of both sexes." Colonel Law is a brother of the saintly Father Law, S.J., who died some years ago in the African mission of the Zambesi.