Current Topics.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVI, Issue 9, 5 March 1908, Page 9

Current Topics.

'Catholic' and 'Roman' Artemus Ward tells of a man who was so' loaded up with ' lickwid litenin' ' that he didn't know his own name. A writer in the « East Coast Mail ' (Wairoa) seems, apparently, to thinlc ihat the Catholic Church Is in some such evil case. At least, he is satisfied that she' does not know her own name. Worse still, from his point of view, is the fact that so many outside (her fold do not seem to know her true style j a^id title. They, like her, persist in calling her ' the Catholic Church '. This gets the gocd soul dow,n and wor- , lies him. He insists that her true and only proper designation is ' the Pom an Catholic Church '. But it • so happens that the Church never officially f,ave herself that title ; that,' in English law, the designation was given to her by Protestant legislators, and. is none of her creation ; ihat 'it was rejected by a committee of the Vatican Council ; and that, while it is susceptible of a Catholic sense, and in that sense is sometimes used by Catholics, it is also (as commonly intended outside our fold) heretical in meaning. We refer to the use of 1 Roman ' to limit or circumscribe the meaning of ' Catholic ', and to convey the idea that there is a ' Catholic ' Church which is not ' Roman ', or of which the ' Roman ' Church is merely a ' branch '. For Catholics, their old and honored title is sufficient. It is in possession. And those that would filch it from us or share it with us must first establish their title to it.

Some 'Scandals' from Afar In Thackeray's ' Newcomes ', Frederick Bayfoam says of somebocly : ' It is my firm belief that, on "the whole, he would rather lie than not '. So far as Catholic ecclesiastical persons and institutions are concerned, Bayham's remark may, without many qualms of "conscience, be applied to a section— and, we fear, a considerable section— of the Masonic and Socialistic press in Continental Europe, but especially in Italy and France. A few weeks ago we were able to give details of a large number of cases in which the Italian victims of newspaper calumny turned upon their slanderers, invoked the protection oP the courts, and gave a jolt to their Masonic and Socialist enemies that these will not forget *in haste. In its issue of January 11, the Philadelphia ' Catholic Standard ' publishes, in the course of a letter from its Rome correspondent, the following batch •of fresh exposures of calumnies that were set afloat by the Masonic and Socialist press • — • At Genoa, " II Layoro " has been obliged to swallow its accusations against the chaplain of the Immacolatine, also in relation to the " flight " of Sister Guizzardi from the bouse of the Dovotee, announced by the same paper. The " flight "in this case was a rather peculiar one. With the permission of her superiors, the religious visited her home to assist at the dying bed of her aged mother. lOn information received, the peace authorities of Cotrone hurried to the orphanage of that place to save the children from the " terrible sticks " of the Sisters. After a lengthy examination, they trudged horre denouncing under their breath the clever scoundrels who had fooled them. 1 The great agitation of the anti-clericals at Adria in consequence 4 of the "flight" of "a nun with a .local physician lasted the usual seven days. Then it was found that the Sister had been absent at a branch house for the purpose of making the' prescribed annual retreat. • - 'At Castellamare a Socialist journal published details of " a horrible scandal " it had " discovered " relative to the superioress of the local' 'hospital and its chaplain. When brought into court for trial, the precious paper was condemned for calumny. 'At Pitigliano, Canon Capitani was arrested am, a charge of immorality. His case was tried in court, and he was acquitted of the least stain on Ms honest char-

acter and blameless lile. I may add that Canon Capitani issued from the prison a broken and sorrowful" man. 1 At Pistola, the .Socialist "Avvenire " accused a Father Sella of .gross crimes. *An action taken by the defamed priest is at present occupying the courts. ' At Faenra a rumor was ' circulated that Father &. da Ferrara was kept imprisoned in' the Monastery del Paradiso under cruel circumstances. The police authorities searched the place diligently, but fruitlessly. The' good priest had been several months previously transferred to Massalombarda, a more active mission.' Horace says in a well-worn line :— 1 Serve'tur ad imum "Qualis ab incepto processerit^ et sibi constet '. Which, being broadly ' Interpreted, meaneth that a man or a party should from first to last maintain its character and be consistent. Yet, stran&e to say; the parties whose organs in the press are so busy inventing and denouncing Catholic ' scandals ', are now straining — every nerve to secure a free pardon for their dear comrade, ex-Minister Nasi, who was recently found guilty by the ' criminal courts of having, during his term of office, converted to his private use (or, an plainer terirs, embezzled) large sums of public money. No fewer than ninety-one members of the Chamber of Deputies (according to a cable-message of last week) joined in a request to the King to condone the crime of the corrupt exMinister. How true it is that one man may steal- a sheep, while another may not look (even innocently) over the fence ! -

Latin in Social Use In our Rotorua correspondent's interesting account of the local celebrations in honor of the Cardinal-Aroh-Archbishop of Sydney, the following details appear concerning the luncheon of welcome tended to his Eminence . by Count Morrier, Swedish Consul-General for Australasia :—: — ' Count Morner, speaking in Latin, welcomed his Eminence and expressed his pleasure in meeting an old friend in Rotorua. The Cardinal replied in the same language, complimented him on making a speech in Latip, and said that he had not heard Latin used or twenty y,ears for social purposes '. , The group of Scandinavian nations, one of which is represented by Count jYlorner, still retain sundry lingual' heirlooms of the old Catholic faith that once was theirs. And among them is a pretty fairly diffused knowledge of Latin among educated people, both' clerical and lay. Despite the changes introduced at the Reformation, the use of Latin in their liturgy has not even yet wholly disappeared. Thus, in his interesting ' Letters from High Latitudes ', Lord Duflerin tells how, in 1856, he attended the Lutheran service in the old cattn edral church at Reykjavik (Iceland). ' Altars, candles, pictures, aiiud crucifixes yet remain in 'many churches '• of that tight little island, says Lord Dufrerin. Describing the ceremonies at Reykjavik, he says (p. 26) :—: — ' Before dismissing his people, „ the preacher descended from the pulpit, and putting, on & splendid cope of crimson velvet (in which some bishop in ages past been murdered) , " turned his back : io 'the congregation, and chanted some Latin sentences "in good round Roman style '. , - . Eveni the social use of Latin was known among the inhabitants of that lone island that touches the edge of the Arctic Circle. Lord Dufferin says 4n- the' work just quoted (p. 22) :— 1 Immediately . upon landing, I was presented to a fine, burly gentleman,- who, I was informed, could let me . have a whole steppe-ful of horses if I desired, and a few minutes afterwards I picked myself up in -the middle of a Latin oration on the subject of the weather. Having suddenly' lqst my nominative case, I concluded abruptly with the figure syncope, and a bow, to wfcicn . my interlocutor, politely replied, ." Ita." Many of the inhabitants spea'< English, and one or two trench, but., in default of either ..of ' these, .your • onily chance' .Is

Latin. At. first I found great difficulty in brushing up anything sufficiently conversational, more especially as it was necessary to broaden out the vowels .in the high Roman fashion ; but a little practice soon made me more fluent, and I got at last to brandish my " Pergratum est ", etc., in the face of a new acquaintance, without any misgivings.' At a subsequent dinner in the visitor's honor the local doctor spoke in Latin, and, finally (says the noble author, -p. 39), the Lutheran bishop, 'in a magnificent Latin oration of some twenty minutes, a second ttme proposed my health, to which, utterly at my wits' _ end, I had the audacity to reply in the same language . The witty Irish peer worked off, in droll Latin, a pretty travesty of the usual insipid formality of reply which long usage has consecrated in English-speaMng lands. We quote in part :— • Viri illustres, insolitus ut sum ad publicum loajucmdum, ego propero respondere ad complimentum q,upd recte reverendus prelaticus mini fecit, in proponendo meam salutem ; et supplico vos credere quod multum gratificatus et ftattificatus sum honore tarn distincto '. In the old Ca.tho.lic days, Latin was the Esperanto or world-language. Your physician's prescription for dyspepsia, sciatica, or locomotor ataxia is even to this hour written in Latin, which is still .recognised as the language of science all the world over. For ,the world's great ones, the language of the monumental inscription is still largely Latin. The inscription on the late Queen Victoria's coffin was <in Latin. In his ■• History af Ireland ', the noted English Jesuit scholar and martyr, Edmund Campion, testified from personal knowledge that towards the close of the sixteenth century, Latin was commonly spoken 'in social intercourse by the Catholics of the Green Isle. In sundry parts of Austria, it is still spoken. We are told of a. remote community of mountaineers In the central part of the Balkans, between Bulgaria, Servia, and Turkey, who still retain the -Latin tongue which their far-off ancestors ibrougbt . with them from Italy in the long, long ago when the eagles of Imperial Rome were still a sign to be respected in those rugged regions. And (as we have rerciarked more than once before) any one who has witnessed a ' disputa ', or even the ordinary routfime of class-work, in (say), a Roman ecclesiastical college^ will find solid reason for doubting the classification which consigns Latin to the category of the languages that are 1 dead '.

Fasting by Statute Rabelais, in 'the grotesque 'work by which he is best known,- makes Pantagruel pass through the land of the Gastrolaters. This race of coarse Boeotians lived only to eat— ever [thinikjing and dreaming and planning, like cruder Brillafc-Savarlns, some new or recondite gastronomic sensation fit to • Titillate the palate of Silenus '. 1 They all ', says Babelais, - * owned Gaster (the stomach) for their supreme god, adored him as a »&od, offered him sacrifices as to their omnipotent deity, owned no other * god, loved, and honored him above all things '. And the race has by, no means died out, though many of them died- of their god Gaster. ■ The great, plain-spoken surgeon, Abernethy, used to say that nearly all the ills that flesh is heir to arise from ■ the c gjuzzling and gormandising * 'habits of so many people in our time. From' the medical profession of our day comes an earnest call for a return to ' the simple life \ And the ' Youth's Companion ' (Protestant), after having briefly stated the laws of the Catholic Lenten fast, says • — 1 The hygienic, excellence of these rules is beyond dispute, and the only quarrel the physician has with them is that they are binding only upon. the members of that Church, and upon them for only six weeks out of the fifty-two '.

A lengthy anthology might easily be gathered from the' writings of Protestant divines in praise of the moral and spiritual benefits of fasting. ■ Let it suffice here to mention Dr. Short, Anglican Bishop of St. Asaph. In his ' History of the Church of England ' (Bth cd., p. 202), he laments the general neglect of fasting by adherents of the Reformed creeds. They forget, says he, < that fasting is an, institution sanctioned by Christ . But it Was not always thus. The same author adds in a footnote ,(p. 202) :— 'As eai'ly as 1541, Gardiner reproved some Cambridge students for neglecting the observance of Lent ; but" in the" beginning of the reign of Elizabeth it seems -to have been very strictly kept (Parker, i, 133). Proclamations- were issued concerning fasting in 1563,' 1572 1576, 1601. And Elizabeth herself would not eat flesh meat during Lent till she had- obtained a dispensation' to that effect from the archbishop, 1587 ; and there are instances of other dispensations to the same" effect (Fuller, ix, ÜB2. Strype's " Whitgift'", ii, 45G).' Fasting in England^ in the early days of the Reformation was not, however, merely proscribed by royal proclamations. It was enforced by Act' of Parliament. And subjects of the Sixth Edward and of Queen Elizabeth who tasted of the flesh-pots during Lent . were treated, not to mere ecclesiastical reproof or censure, but to the weight of ' the butt-end iv the law '. The object of these - enactments was in- part political — to wit, to promote the trade of those who went down to the sea in fishing-smacks. But if the lawmakers _ had one eye on the bodily benefits of the. fisher-folk, they had! their other eye on .the souls (no pun is* here %s£ided) -of the people at large.. Thus, the Edwaordine statute of 1548 says in part in the preamble (we modernise the spelling) :— ■ • Forasmuch as divers of the King's subjects, turning their knowledge therein to gratify their sensuality, have of late more than in times past broken and contemned such abstinence, which hath been used in this realm upon the Fridays and Saturdays, the Embering Days, and other days commonly called vigils, and in the time commonly called Lent, and other accustomed times : the King's Majesty, considering that- due and godly abstinence is a mean to virtue and to subdue men's bodies to their soul and spirit . . .' And so on— winding up with a fine of ten shillings or ten) days' imprisonment l without flesh ' (and a double penalty for a second offence) for such as would eat meat at .the forbidden, seasons 1 . The sth Elizabeth, c. 5, made Wednesday a fish-day, and imposed a penalty of £3 or three months' imprisonment on any one who without a license, dared to munch -Ms morsel of flesh at forbidden times. Motives of religion are repudiated by the authors of this rather rigid law of abstinence. But a later act of the same reign— "passed in~ 1572— clearly, though negatively, associates fasting with spiritual benefits ; for (according to Strype's ' Annals ', ii, 208) it describes meat-eating in the Lenten season 'as ' lioentious and carnal disorder, in contempt of God and man, and only to the satisfaction of devilish -and carnal appetite ', and it " provides for mulcting Jn sharp penalties butchers and others found guilty of ' ministering -to such foul lust of the flesh. Here was, indeed 1 ,, a pretty ■' derangement of epitaphs ' for the benefit of those who, in the first fervor of tne Reformation, tasted of the flesh of fowl,, sheep, steer, or hog from the close of Shrove Tuesday to the beginning of Easter morn. Licenses to eat flesh during the ' close ' seasons were, however, granted— first by the Privy Council, afterwards by the clergy— to those who were willing to pay for the poor a forfeit of 6s Bd— provided (says 1 the ' Life of Whitgift*', p. 246) that the meat was eaten 1 soberly and frugally, cautiously, and avoiding public scandal 'as much as irs.gjh.t be *. The old Catholic instinct of the forty-days' fast long survived in postReformation England. But it gradually died out, and.

its passing was hastened by the opposition of the Puritans to this form of bodily mortification. The history of the decline of the Lenten fast in England may be said to be epitomised in these two entries !in Pepys'sdiary, under, the date, 1661. • I called ' says .Pepys, ' for a dish of fish, which we had for dinner, this being the first day of Lent ; and I do intend to try whether I. can keep it or no '. A few days later the diary contains this entry : ' Notwithstanding my resolution, yet, far want of other victuals, I did eat flesh this Lent, but am resolved to eat as little as I can '. " So many others, like Pepys, slithered dowfl the easy slope that leads, from the Gospel of Mortification to the Gospel of Comfort. And thus, among the Reformed creeds, began that neglect of the God-given law of fasting which drew a sigh from the heart of the good Bishop . of St." Asaph.