The Catholic World.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXV, Issue 37, 14 January 1898, Page 23

The Catholic World.

ENGLAND.— Cardinal Vaughan and the Election.—Cardinal Vaughan has written the following letter on the attitude of the Catholics in the School Board election : — " As you have asked my advice in reference to the School Board election, I lay before you the following principles, which I think contain sufficient guidance for the present occasion :—l.: — 1. No system of public elementary education is acceptable for the training of Catholic children but such as is distinctly and frankly Catholic. The Catholic demand is Catholio education given by competent Catholic teachers to Catholic children. If the State insists upon educating the children of the country, it is bound at the same time to respect the inalienable natural right of parents and their offspring in the matter of religion. 2. No instruction in partial Christianity, no form of Christianity other than the Catholic, can be accepted by Catholics for their children. Better a thousand times purely secular instruction, supplemented as best may be elsewhere, than unsound and faulty instruction in the truths of Christianity. 3. As Catholics are not expected to support the various non-Catholic Missionary Societies that seek to evangelise the heathen, so neither can they be expected to support any of the non-Catholic methods by which it is sought to evangelise the Board schools. 4. At the same time, Catholics who stand for the liberty of the subject will do wisely to demand that School Boards shall recognise the right of all parents to have their children instructed in their own religion and in no other, and this even during school hours, if it can be so arranged. School Boards are necessary and must be maintained ; but they ought not to have power to override a parental right directly affecting the religion of the children. So far as Catholics are concerned it will be distinctly understood that the limitation of religious education to the mere teaching of a Catechism, either within or without the Board school premises, is a compromise that will never satisfy the Catholic demand for an education that shall be fully and frankly Catholic. A compromise, indeed, may sometimes be accepted as the less of two evils, for instance, where no Catholic school is possible ; and in Buch case a School Board ought not to have the power to refuse it. 5. The main objects before Catholics, in sending members to the School Board and in serving upon it themselves, are these : To protect the interests and rights especially of the Catholic part of the population ; to see that Voluntary schools be not hindered, injured, or destroyed by the action of the Boards ; to secure that the Board schools be conducted with due regard to the rights and liberties of all to public economy, and to efficiency in secular instruction. I hope these points may help to decide your course in the coming election. — Herbert Card. Vaughan. November 1, 1897.

Father Hays's Temperance Crusade.— The Very Rev. Father Hays, rector of the Sacred Heart Mission at Bridgeford, England, will visit Dublin and inaugurate, in memory of Theobald Mathew, a great temperance crusade throughout Ireland. On Monday evening, November 15, at the Memorial Hall, Church street, and again on Tuesday night in the Concert Hall of the Rotunda, Father Hays will advocate " Sunday Closing." He will deliver a lecture in Drogheda on Wednesday, and on Friday he will be one of the principal speakers at the opening of the Athl one Father Mathew Hall, which has been erected by Mr. W. Smith, J.P. Last year the rev. gentleman, who is a nephew of the Right Rev. Monsignor Nugent, of Liverpool, drew thousands of people to his addresses at the Custom House.

Death of Father O'Dwyer, M.R.— The death of the rev. rector of St. Mary's, Mulberry street, Manchester, took place on Wednesday, the 3rd inst., where he had been stationed for eleven years. The deceased gentleman was a man of many parts, and of great and varied experience. He was endowed with superior talents, and was noted as an excellent linguist. But although bo highly gifted, he was of a most humble and unassuming nature, a fact which often led those who were unacquainted with his character to the conclusion that he was only a man of ordinary ability. But his chief characteristic was his largeness of heart. In that he excelled, and it was, that trait principally which endeared him to his parishioners, especially the poorer portion. For the poor in their temporal needs he had always a helping hand, and in their spiritual wants he was a kind father and a wise and discreet counsellor. The truth of this latter fact was painfully evident on Wednesday during the Requiem Mass, when the pitiful sobs and mournful wails of the congregation gave ample token of the great love which they entertained for their departed pastor and father.

FRANCE.— The Re-election of Abbe Gayraud.— Th c committee appointed to inquire into the verification of the reelection of the Abbo Gayraud as the representative of the third constituency of Brest, has finished its deliberations. M. Jules Brice, in the name of the sub-committee, which had the matter in hand, has made a report in which he states that only one objection has been made to the election, and that by M. Lefevre, one of the rival candidates, who only secured a very few votes, and whose objection seems to be advanced on insufficient grounds. The subcommittee, therefore, pronounced in favour of the validation of the election, but at the same time they went out of their way to point out to the Government that the undue interference on the part of the clergy was as flagrantly manifest in this second election as in the first. It is somewhat curious that under these circumstances the sub-committee did not refuse to ratify the election seeing that the undue interference of the clergy was the reason of the invalidation of the Abbe's first election by the constituency. Many explanations of their conduct will, however, immediately present themselves. Anti-clericalism is not such a popular battle-cry as it was. The Government are moderate and want things to settle down quietly. The Russian alliance has tendered to strengthen the moderates, who are not anxious to alienate the help that may be

expected, in obedience to the advice of the Pope, from Catholic Republicans and the growing concourse of the Rallied. Perhaps, too, the sub-committee wanted not to appear too lenient. The People and the Schools.— Recently we mentioned a circular signed by the people of Roubaix begging for the setting aside of legal distinctions in favour of parents who send their children to the lay schools maintained by the State. Here is another petition, still more outspoken than that of Roubaix. which is now going the rounds in the commune of Loos (Nord). " We. the undersigned, inhabitants of Loos, electors, ratepayers, and fathers and mothers of families, basing our claim upon the great principles of liberty, fraternity, and equality, and on that justice which is the bond of all society, beg that the children attending private schools Bhould have their bliare in the subsidies directly or indirectly allowed by the Municipal Council to the children in the other schools." The claim is put forward on three sound principles : — the inalienable right and duty of parents to educate their children, the fact that all pay the same rates, and the duty of the council to manage the general fund for the best interests of all. The National Catholic Congress. — The preparations for the National Catholic Congress, which is to be opened at Paris in Notre Dame on the 20th of November, are being pushed on with vigour. Not only has the programme of the Congress and the circular accompaning it been received with general sympathy by the Catholic Press, but French Catholics have been congratulated by certain foreign journals on their determination to consider agricultural and economic questions alongside their religious undertakings. In addition to all this the numerous adhesions received by the organising committee from all sides gives reason to hope that the Congress will be fruitful in good results. ITALY.— A Revival at SubiaCO.— The Abbey of Subiaco was most intimately associated with the centenary celebrations at Ebbs Fleet and Canterbury, and this with a fittingness which was not limited to the consideration that Ramsgate with its St. Augustine's represented Catholic Canterbury. The Abbey of Subiaco may have been the cradle of Benedictine monasticism, as Mabillon affirmed it to be. It was certainly the home of St. Benedict during the entirety of his eremitical life, and during by far the greater part of his monastic life. He made corporate foundations there, erecting 12 conferated monasteries which, if they do not represent the prototype of Benedictine homes, represent something earlier and more intrinsic still. For the rest, the Abbey boasts itself the Proto-Coenobium of the Ordo Monasticus ; a sufficient if undefined glory. Its hall of entrance bears a terse inscription : Bom. Urdinis S. Bntidioti Occidental aim Mo7iac7torum Patriarckae Proto-Cucnobinm. The Abbey had become the centre of a Benedictine Revival before the Italian occupation of the Roman province, in which Subiaco lies. The suppression bore its usual effects, just as the Catholic revival going on in Italy is now bearing its effects. The Abbey is now being repeopled. On All Saints' Day, at two a.m., a beginning was made of a return to that very severe common observance which fewness of numbers had made impossible for years. To the perpetual abstinence of the Cassinese Congregation of Primitive Observance will now be joined the splendid choral services by night and day proper to the Abbatial Cathedral of Santa Scholabtica. For years passed the monks have been harassed with heavier expenses and graver fears for the issue of a cause in which was involved the recognition of their ancient church as the Cathedral of the diocese of Subiaco. There was always a fear that the Government might take any pretext for a suppression of its revenues, while the very existence of the community seemed to depend upon the future of an interminable litigation. If the church was not a Cathedral, it was merely a national monument. and only a dozen monks would then have been permitted to serve it. As a Cathedral, it would require a full body of Canons, a body of Minor Canons, or beneficiaries, and a body of dependents. By a composition which has now been practically reached, it is hoped that this numerical restriction will be remedied, and that the ProtoCoenobium of St. lJenediot may again resume its place among the most populous houses of the l'.encdictine family. The Church of St. Andrew at Subiaco. to which Pius VI ga\o episcopal dignity and splendour, will probably rank as a co-Cathedral with its present Chapter of secular Canons. Meantime the visit to the Abbey of the Under-Secretary for Public Instruction, which was recently reported in The Tabht, is to bear at least two consequences, one of which is of general interest. The Library of Sancta Scholastica is to be enriched. Of course, its enrichment will be made from the spoils ot other religious houses. The favour which is to be given to its dependent monastery of the Sacro Speco bears a relation to Christian archaeology in general. 1 1 is the restoration of the apsidal paintings in the Chapel of St. Gregory the Great. These paintings belong to the early 13th century, and form a link of importance in the history of the Crucifixion in art. ROME.— A New Delegate Apostolic— Mgr. Gasparri. who is a Professor of Canon Law of the Catholic Institute of Paris, and an Officer of the Legion of Honour, is about to be appointed by the Pope to the high diplomatic post of Delegate Apostolic for South America. He will receive an archiepiscopal title, and will take up his residence at Lima. The professional chair occupied by Mgr Gasparri has not yet been declared vacant. The College Of Cardinals.— As it is now very late for an autumn Consistory the journalists who remember their promiseshave turned to think of a spring Consistory. In view of tht festivities for the sixtieth anniversary of the first Mass of hi v Holiness there is more intrinsic probability that a Consistory should be held late in winter, more especially in February. Meantime th' bad news which was leeched about the health of Caidinai Krementz, Archbishop of Cologne, has happily not been followc j by the announcement of his death. The English pilgrims for tin second jubilee of his Holiness will remember having .seen thi Cardinal at the Conbistories, when he received his honours, and

at the brilliant reception given at the English College by the Cardinal Archbishop. Another aged member of the Sacred College, Cardinal Celesia, Archbishop of Palermo, has just been honoured with public festivities, shared in by all classes of the population, on the occasion of the anniversary of his appointment to the See. A few days before a monument was solemnly unveiled in the Ccrtosa of Ferrara to the late Archbishop of that See, Cardinal Mauri, of the Order of Preacher, who died on March 12, 1896. UNITED STATES.— Departure of Archbishop Keane.— Archbishop John J. Keane, the former rector of the Catholic University at Washington, and present Canon of the Lateran Basilica and Consultor for American Affairs to the Propaganda at Rome, sailed for Europe on Saturday, November 6, on the La Gascognc. The Archbishop has in his possession the documents and findings in the trial of Mgr. Schroder of the Catholic University at Washington, which he will present to the Pope and the Propaganda on his arrival at Rome. " I have spent two most happy months in America," he said, " and am now ready to go back to my work in Rome. 1 shall spend three days in Paris, and then go direct to Rome, where I expect to be two weeks from to-day. I hope to return to America next August. Ido not care to discuss the Mgr. Schroeder case," continued the Archbishop, " except to say that the Board of Directors of the Catholic University at Washington has done its full duty to both the Holy See and the Catholic university. I am quite satisfied with the status of affairs in this relation — absolutely content with the present conditions — and I see no reason for any one to worry about Mgr. Schroeder or the incidents which led up to his resignation." Accompanying the Archbishop were his private secretary, Father G-avan, and Fathers Saillat and Pesnelle. Father Pesnelle is the Superior of the Provincial Order of Fathers of Mercy, and Father Saillat is Assistant General of the same Order. There assembled on the French line pier, to bid God-speed to the ecclesiastics, Archbishop Chapelle, of Santa Fe ; Father Malone, of the University of State of New York ; Rev. Father Wucher, of the Fathers of Mercy ; Father McTague, of St. Vincent de Paul's, and several other priests. A Generous Gift. — Mrs. Josephine Hecker, widow of George V. Hecker, the millionaire flour merchant, with her daughter, Mrs. Locke, has given 60,000d015. for the decoration of the sanctuary of the Church of St. Paul the Apostle, New York City. The gift is a memorial to the late Father Hecker, founder of the missionary Congregation of St. Paul, familiarly known as the Paulist Fathers. The task of decorating the sanctuary has been intrusted to John Lafarge, who has three years within which to carry out his design. He intends that this shall be the masterpiece of all his productions.