AUSTRALIAN BISHOPS AT ROME.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVI, Issue 9, 1 July 1898, Page 18

AUSTRALIAN BISHOPS AT ROME.

The London Tablet contains the following information regarding the visit of Archbishop Carr to the Eternal City : His Grace Mgr. Carr, Archbishop of Melbourne, and Mgr, Moore, Biahop of Ballarat, had an audience with the Holy Father on May 9. They found him not in any perceptible way older than on the occasion of their former visit ad limhna. In answer to an inquiry as to what interested the Pope most of all things Australian, I received the statement : ' Everything: bishops, priests, people, religious institutions, civil government, education, the material condition of the people, the progress of religion ; he was interested in everything.' The Archbishop of Melbourne presented an address and an offering of £.">OO from the Catholic school children and the religious confraternities, and his Holiness, receiving the gifts, returned his thanks. On the part of the laity, his Grace presented an address and an offering of £1000. The Pope told him to assure the people or Melbourne of his grateful acceptance and satisfaction. His Grace also offered a publication by the Faithful Companions of Kew and a large picture of St. Patrick's Cathedral. At these offerings his Holiness expressed scarcely less satisfaction than appreciation of his Grace's lectures in defence of the Petrine Primacy. He praised the religious co nmunities of men and women in the diocese of Balhirat in speaking to Mgr. Moore, and eulogised the diocese as one possessed of an efficient and complete organisation. The Archbishop and the Binh.op subsequently presented the Rev. P. O'Doherty

a priest of the diocese of Derry, who is returning to Ireland from Melbourne ; Mr. and Mrs. T. E. Verga, of Melbourne, and Mr. W. O'Connor, of Indianapolis. Mr. and Mrs. Verga are benefactors of a church in Melbourne, and Mr. O'Connor is a nephew o* Mgr. Carr.