The Catholic World

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXII, Issue 5, 4 February 1904, Page 27

The Catholic World

CANADA. — The Ruined University The death is announced of Father Charles Fulham, 0.M.1 , one of the professors in the University College of Ottawa, who succumbed on December 8 td the injuries he received during the fire which, as reported in our columns recently, destroyed the college. He was a. Meath man, and was only thirty-thre« ■♦years of age. The Ottawa University has its charter from the Government since 1866, and is empowered to grant degrees, but the statement that it is endowed is not correct ; it receives no money from public sources. As a Catholic University pt is the creation of the late Pope, who made the Archbishop of Ottawa its Apostolic Chancellor. ENGLAND.— A Vicar condemned The Anglican Bishop of Worcester recently condemned an article in the Press by the Rev. C. Beeby, vicar of Yardley Wood, near Birmingham, as directed, against the whole conception ol miracles, and against the virgin birth of Our Lord in particular. The vicar has since sent in*his resignation. Cancn Lynch The presentation of an address of congratulation and Canonical #abes to Canon Lynch took place on Monday, December 21, in the Hulme Town Hall. A grand concert was heild on the occasion. The Redemptorists The Redemptorists have purchased Windhill House and St. Katharine's High School, Bishop's Stortford, with five acres of ground attached, for the purposes of a monastery. A new church is eventually ,to be built in the grounds, which adjoin the parish church. Westminster Cathedral The very beautiful crucifix designed by the late Mr. Bentley and recently painted by Mr. Simonds was blessed on a recent Sunday at the Westminster Cathedral by the Right Rev. Mgr. Provost Johnson. It was an unpretending cremony, but most interesting as a revival of an old custom in the Catholic Church. In its position, about 100 feet from the ground in the centre of the* Cathedral, the crucifix cannot but be recognised as giving a most ecclesiastical tone to the whole building. The weight of the crucifix is about three tons, and the manner in which it was raised by pulleys and rapes into its proper place rellects great credit on the presiding genius at the Cathedral The cost of this unique work of art is not less than £600. Archbishop Bourne Archbishop Bourne, of Westminster, was having a sort of triumphal progress homewards from Rome when the last mails left. He was received at Milan by representatives of Cardinal Ferrari, Archbishop of Milan, and the Catholic Press Association An address on parchment was presented to him, and Cardinal Feiran made a gift of a relic of St. Charles Borromeo for Westminster Cathedral. The relic cansists of a portion of the body of St. Charles in a crystal urn, which is enclosed in a magnificent silver case. After Mass at Milan two days later before the exposed remains of St. Charles Bonomeo, Archbishop Bourne left for Mon/a, where he had a most cordial reception at the Seminary. Dr Bourne afterwards returned to Milan, where he was present at a literary and musical entertainment at the Academy Cardinal Ferrari gave a dinner to his honor, at which distinguished ecclesiastics and laymen weie present. Speaking at the Theological Seminary of the diocese of Milan, in the presence of 300 students, expressed his satisfaction at having been able once more to visit the celebrated Seminary which, he recalled, had been founded by St. Charles Continuing, the Archbishop said ■ ' I encourage you to arm yourselves with sound piety and a knowledge of sacred and profane science, so that you may face and cure modern ills This was recommended to me by the Pontiff when he expressed a wish soon to see a seminary founded in Westminster. Archbishop Bourne's enthronement took place in Westminister Cathedral t on December 29, the feast of St. Thomas the martyr, Bishop of Canterbury. The • Rock ' on a Reef Few people that value religious peace and the ordinary decencies of controversy will regret that the) ' Rock 'is in difficulties. A correspondent of that violont Protestant news-sheet has made a fervent appeal in its columns for funds to support the paper. It appears from a report of a case that came before the City of London Court, in which auditors sued the ' Rock ' Newspaper and Publishing Co. for their fee of five guineas-, that a subsidy has been received from the CJiurch Association. The * Rock's ' correspondent evi-

dently thinks that there should /be a further and a larger gift, for ha says that the £50,000 the Church Association is about to raise ' will be of little use to secure the Protestant Parliament, which is so urgently needed unless public opinion is formed by such a paper as the " Rock " is.' To the correspondent's letter the editor appends a note declaring that ' a crisis has overtaken the " Hock " like the " Pilot " ' and asking : ' Will Protestants rescue the former as Ritualists did the latter ? ' If, after having been in existence not ior a short time, like the ' Pilot,' but for some forty years, the ' Rock ' is losing £900 a yeai, the .prospect tfoi intending rescuers iis not altogether roseate. We take no pleasure (says tne ' Catholic Times ') in the ' Rock s distress, but we hope that it will learn a useful lesson from its troubles. The bigoted and fanatical contributions to which it has been continually lending its columns were enough to kill any paper. Why not try fair, respectables argument ? FRANCE.— Combes at Work Having expelled many of the religious Orders from their teaching establishments, M. Combes is now en>gages in providing schools to replace those which his persecuting laws have yet to close. Altogether (says an exchange), he has to deal with some 3500 schools which are still being conducted by Congregations who are authorised. These schools, too, must be seized in the name of the State ! Two thousand two hundred of them are for girls, and one thousand three hundred for boys. His prefects have sent him in an account of what pro\ision could be made for taking over the work, were he to expel even these authorised. Congregations of teaching Orders. Nineteen hundred may be closed at once, as there is for that number of schools a sufficiency of State schools to take over the pupils from them In the rest of the cases, either additional or entirely new accommodation must be provided before the State schools could deal with the dispossessed scholars. Apparently M. Combes' does not hesitate at the prospect. He has held a Cabinet Council, discussed with his Ministers his programme, and is prepared to, lay the matter at once before the Chambers. Thus the dechristianisation of France proceeds apace. ITALY.— The Pope a Collector Before his accession to the Chair of St. Peter, the Pope had accumulated a collection of over 10,000 postcards. He is still an enthusiastic collector. A Rumor Contradicted Rumor has been 'atit ' again in regard to Pius X This time it again repeats the old wheeze about his intention to quit the Eternal City. The London correspondent of the London ' Morning Post ' says he has received what may be almost termed an official declaration that the Pope has no intention of leaving the Vatican. A Monument The design for Ihe statue of Leo XIII. which is to be eroded as a memorial of the late Pope, on the hills overlooking his birthplace at Carpineto, has now been completed by Signor Ernesto Bondi, the sculptor to whom the commission was entrusted. Fire Practice Since the last fire at the Vatican the authorities ha\e been studying the question of securing better prolection of the building. The Pope, accompanied by Cardinal Merry del Val and the Papal Court, recently witnessed from the balcony a nre-extin,guishing experiment, which was made in the Cortile del Belvedere. Fire was set to some wood saturated with petroleum and other combustibles, 'but the flames were quickly subdued by the new type of fire-extinguisher. His Holiness expressed satisfaction at the result of the experiment. Pius and the Scriptures The present Sovereign Pontiff takes a special interest, as did his predecessor Leo XIII., in promoting the reading of the Scriptures. Tne Association of St. Jerome, whose object it is to introduce the Gospels into the houses of the people in Italy, have lately had an audience with his Holiness, and the Pontiff enthusiastically praised their work The perusal of the sacred text, he said, could not but prove profitable to every class of societyi It brought solace to the poor and the suffering, while to the highly-instructed it supplied, abundant food for meditation. Learning that Father (ihignoni was about to beem a course of sermons explanatory of the Gospels in the Church of St. Maria in Aq^iiro, he expressed keen satisfaction' at the news, and said he would impart a special benediction to him and his auditors. When Catholics are well aware that their clerical leaders are thus eager for the circulation of Catholic versions of Iho Scriptures it is hard that they should so ofieu have to reply to the accusation that the Church is hostile to the diffusion of the Bible.

SCOTLAND.— GIasgow Cathedral A scheme has just been entered into for the suitable embellishment of St. Andrew's Cathedral, Great Clyde street, Glasgow, at the cost of about £1800. At a meeting called for the purpose, Canon McCarthy alluded to St. Andrew's Cathedral as the mother Church of Glasigow, and, dwelling on its early history, mentioned the fact that for over a quarter of a century it was the only Catholic church in Glasgow, while, with the exception of Paisley, it was for some years the only Catholic church in the whole archdiocese. Amidst the greatest difficulties the foundation stone of the present cathedral was laid byt'Bishop Scott— then Father Scott — eighty-nine years ago. Sisters of Nazareth One of the last official wishes of the late Archbishop Eyre's life was, that a branch 'of the community of the Sisters of Nazareth from Hammersmith should be established in the western archdiocese. A little v more than a year ago practical realisation of that wish was brought about by the arrival of a contingent of the Sisters, who quietly took up their residence at Halfway House, Govan, and unobtrusively but effectively ♦ {began this gjreat work of Christian charity— that of yielding shelter to the homeless and the friendless. Musselburgh New Church The foundation stone af the new Catholic church, which is cruciform in design, and to be built of white stone at a cost of over £5000 was formally laid a few weeks ago by Archbishop Smith v at Newbiggdng, Musselburgh, in the presence of a large attendance of clergy and the Catholic laity of the East of Scotland. The Very Rev. Canon McGinnis, of Innerleithen, delivered a brief address. Musselburgh, he said, was small, but from a Catholic point of view it was large. History told them that three hundred years ago the old shrine of our Lady of Loreto was- burned in Musselburgh, but he was pleased to say that the spirit of those left fought the way, and now the Protestants and Catholics, although they had their differences, lived in peace and harmony. Catholic Progress The : Catholic Church is making rapid strides inj Scotland. Scarce a week passes that the erection of a church, school, or presbytery cannot be chronicled. Catholics are truly fulfiling their mission— that of spreading the light— in the ' Land of mountain and brown heather.' Within the few past weeks in St. Patrick's parish, Glasgow, £sso was subscribed by five persons towards the erectionof a high altar ; while another who has (withheld his name, has given £500 to the Seminary, Bearsden. Another fact worthy of record (says the correspondent of the Dublin ' Freeman ') is, that bigotry is largely on the wane in Scotland. Whether this is due to the largely increasing Irish population and the prominent position as citizens in which they have placed themselves, or to the broadmindedness of Scotchmen in this twentieth century, I cannot tell, but the fact remains that Catholic Irishmen are daily being more respected and considered and placed on qtial footing with their Scotch fellow-countrymen. SPAIN.— A Cardinal Passes The death of Cardinal Herrero, Archbishop of Valencia, is. announced. Our readers will remember that the Cardinal was seriously ill during the recent conclave He was born on the 20th January, 1823, and was raised to thq Sacred College at the last Consistory held by Leo XIII. He was a man of great learning and piety and an ornament to the Church in Spam. The Younc: King The visit of the King of Spain to Portugal has been marked by brilliant ceremonies. At the City Hall, Lisbon, al reception was he)'.-d and speeches were delivered. The royal visitors, who included King Alfonso, King, Carlos, Queen Amelia, Queen Pia, and the Prince Royal, entered their names in the Golden Book, and then visited the municipal building. The Municipal Guardsi formed, a guard of honor. As the Royal party entered^ and left the building the bells of the churches- played the Spanish Royal March. On December 12 King Alfonso and King Carlos, after Having heard Mass in the Belem Monastery, accompanied by the Portuguese Ministers and Senor Rodriguez San Pedro, Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs, proceeded to Cintra, where they took luncheon with Queen Pia, Queen Amelia, and the Prince Royal. UNITED STATES.— A Heroic Priest Seven deaths from typhoid and fifty new cases of the plague were reported early in December in the stricken city of Butler, Pennsylvania. Among the dead was Father Daniel S. Walsh," of St. Paul's church, .who contracted the disease while working among the employees of a factory. He had worked day and night to alleviate the sufferings of members of his church. Just before his death he gave all his property for the relief work.