DIOCESE OF AUCKLAND.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 52, 27 December 1900, Page 19

DIOCESE OF AUCKLAND.

(From our own correspondent.)

December 19.

The local Press, with one solitary exception, and that in a halfhearted, halting fashion, is ominously silent over what for months it facetiously dubbed ' the Stoke scandal.' Rev. Father Henry, from the Sydney archdiccese, is at present here conducting a Retreat for the Little Sisters of the Poor. The Rev. Father Kehoe has gone for a fortnight's holiday for th 9 benefit of his health, and during his absence the parish of Parnell will be served by one of the priests from the cathedral. At St. Patrick's Convent Schools to-day a presentation of prizes was made by his Lordship the Bishop and a beautiful exhibition of work was shown which reflected the very highest credit alike upon the Sisters and their pupils. An exhaustive criticism appeared in Saturday's Herald of Marie Corelli's latest work, The Matter Christian. It is by 'an occasional correspondent.' It treats it in vety uncomplimentary terms as ' the dreariest, dullest, book it was ever my misfortune to read.' Plans for the enlarging of St. Benedict's Parochial Sohool have been completed by Mr. T. Mahoney, architect, and tenders for the same are due at the end of the present week. The school, when completed, will be taken over by the Sisters of St. Joseph. A meeting in connection with St. Patrick's Day celebration was held in the Marist Brothers' Schoolroom last Sunday afternoon. The Right Rev. Mgr. O'Reilly was in the chair, and there were also present Rev. Father O'Hara from St. Benedict's and a representative gathering from the four city parishes It was decided to hold the demonstration in the Domain Cricket Ground on Saturday, March 16, and the national entertainment on the evening of Monday, March 18 The committee decided to meet again early in January. At. Sfc. Patrick's Cathedral last Sunday at the early Masses and also at High Maps the Right Rev. Mgr. O'Reilly, in referring to the Stoke trial-=. denounced in scathing language the action of a large section of the Press and public throughout the Colony and members of Parliament in their treatment of the cases while th*y were still suhjitdtce. The morning paper gave a condensed report of the Mon^ignor's remarks and that very day a Protestant clergyman, in charge of one of the leading churches in the city, called at St. Patrick's presbytery to congratulate the Monsignor upon his outspokennens, and to express his deep pympatby with the Catholics of the city and Colony generally in the bad treatment to which they had been subjected. He denounced the unreasoning bigotry displayed and deplored it and said • ' I shall, on next Sunday, refer to the matter from my pulpit.' '