RETURNING TO THE FOLD

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 47, 23 November 1905, Page 3

RETURNING TO THE FOLD

Rev. Stephen Innes, formerly pastor of the Church of St. Mary the Virgin (Episcopal), San Francisco, has been received into the Catholic Church. A press despatch from Hackensack, N.Y , announces that' Key. Ernest Willoughby Jewell, of the Episcopal Church, has left that communion and become a Catholic. He was received into the Church by Rev. Father Gartland. Mrs. Winthrop Rutherford, fourth daughter of Lcvi P. Morton, former Vice-President of the United States, has been received into the Catholic Church. Her parents are members of the Protestant Episcopal Church, as is also her husband. Friends of Mrs. Rutherford had known for several months that she had an inclination toward the Catholic Church. She had practically completed her preparation when she called on Archbishop Farley for instruction. She was baptised in the Cathedral by the Archbishop.

Professor Phillimore, Professor of Greek at the Glasgow University since 1899, has been received into the Church by the Jesuit Fathers at Farm street, London. The distinguished convert, who is quite a young, man, having been born in 1873, is the son of Admiral "Sir Augustus Phillimore. He is one of the most notable lay 1 converts in Scotland within recent years. i M. Henry Schaeffer, a distinguished French publicist, who at one time wrote violently against the Catholic Church, and especially against the religious Orders in France, and who founded in his time a ' Union of Christian iChurches,' writes that he has renounced Protestantism and attached himself to the Church founded by Christ. He expresses regret for his earlier writings, and formally retracts his articles in the anti-clerical press. The Rev. George W. West, for more than thirty years a clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal Church, bas become a Catholic. He is a graduate of Trinity College and the General Theological Seminary, of New York, and was ordained in 1875 by Bishop Horatio Potter, ol New York. His ministry was for the most part spent within different parts of New York, but for the past year he has been a general missionary in Littleton, Cal. Councillor Walter Needham, of Stockport, England, was received into the Catholic Church on the eve of the Assumption by the Rev. Father Byrne, rector of St. Alban's Church, Macclesfield. The ceremony took place in the Church of the Oblate Fathers, Colwyn Bay. Mr. Needham was elected to the ■ Council in November, 1903. Previous to his reception into the one Church he was one of the churchwardens of St. Peter's Anglican Church, Stockport. From Florence comes the announcement that Mrs. Launt Thompson, sister of Bishop Potter (Episcopalian), New York, and widow of the celebrated sculptor, has been' received into the Church. She made solemn abjuration of Protestantism in the ancient Church of San Piero Gattolino, and this was followed by her confession and confirmation. The Archbishop of Florence graced the ceremonies with his presence. They were conducted by the Rev. Gioacchino Bonardi, pastor of the church, one of the oldest in Florence, which Dante mentions in his ' Divine Comedy.' Mrs. Thompson is now a member of the parish of San Piero Gattolino, and she has given a handsome sum of money to the pastor to be distributed to the poor of the parish. It is with very deep regret (says the London ' Tablet ') that we have to record the death of the Rev. Charles M. Stapley, of St. Augustine's, Tunbridge Wells, which occurred suddenly on August 18. Father Staples, was in his fifty-second year, and was born at Bexhill ii 1 §53. After taking his diploma in the Veterinary College, London, he practised at Eastbourne, and about the time of studying in London he embraced the Catholic faith. In ISB7 he gave his professional practice to his brother (now at Eastbourne), and went to study for the Church, first in France, and afterwards at Valladolid, in Spain. After he was ordained at Hammersmith he was appointed to the Duke of Norfolk's Church at Arundel, where he stayed until he asked to be removed, and was sent to Wandsworth, then to Mark Cross, Rotherfield, and afterwards to Eastbourne, where he practically started the resuscitation of Catholicism..