Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 14 April 1910, Page 569

Current Topics

A Gentle Hoax - Not long ago the Independant, of Rheims, got home neatly on the French anti-clerical and bishop-baiting organs. ‘ 11 has come to our knowledge,’ it wrote, 4 that the butchers and sausage-makers of Rheims have sued the Bishop for damages because the Catholic laws of abstinence, repeatedly promulgated by him, occasion them heavy material losses. The said butchers and sausage-makers intend to push this matter to the bitter end.’ The 4 brave action ’ of the . staunch Republican butchers,’ says an exchange, 4 was immediately extolled to the skies by the bloc organs, to the great surprise of , the butchers and the merriment of the rest of France.’ An Anti~Kissing League > Yet another 4 anti ’ league, and one that in a few weeks has enrolled a large number of members. It calls itself the Anti-Kissing League; but for the comfort of our younger readers, of both sexes, we hasten to add that the campaign is to be directed wholly and solely against kissing as between ladies. The old-fashioned cross-matched kissing, which dates from the time when Adam kissed the only woman on earth in the garden of Eden, is still to be alloAved to run its riotous way. The new league hails from South America the ladies of the Argentine, to be precise—and so sane and level-headed a journal as the Buenos Aires Southern Cross has given the organisation its blessing. The following are the 4 Rules of the League ’ as printed in our contemporary:l. Object of the Anti-Kissing League: Abolish the ungraceful, antiquated, and anti-hygienic custom of ladies kissing when saluting each other. 11. Obligations of members: 1. Never kiss a lady when saluting her. 2. Never allow a lady when saluting to kiss you without your protesting. 3. Tell all who wish to kiss you under the circumstances that you would feel thankful if they would not do so in the future, and that you hope they will excuse you, as you are a member of the Anti-Kissing League. 4. Invite your friends to join the league. 111. Members : All who take the firm resolution of fulfilling the obligations of the league. It is stated that in Germany and the United States similar movements are on foot, though as yet no actual organisation has been formed. * From the standpoint of the mere man it is impossible not to sympathise with the object of the new league, though one cannot help thinking also that the Argentine must be a very happy and fortunate community if the women have no greater evil than this to wage war upon. Certainly the spectacle of two women — acquaintancesrepeatedly kissing one another strikes the male onlooker as an awful waste —a waste that is utterly unpardonable except where the operation is gone through merely to keep the performers in practice. Against real, honest, emotional kissing—the kissing that is born in the heart and flies to the —the kissing that must do it or spoil—the ladies of the league, we may be assured, have not a word to say. It is against unmeaning, conventional kissing, such as is described in the following passage, that the Argentine women have taken up arms. 4 Mother’s kiss and little baby’s kiss,’ says the immortal Billings, 'are az pure az the utterance ov angells; so is the artless kiss ov sister Mary and couzin Fanny; but thare iz one cold, blue, lean kiss, that alwus makes me shiver tew see. Two persons (ov the femail perswashun) who hav witnesst a great menny younger and more pulpy days, meet in sum publik place, and not having saw each uther for 24 hours they kiss immegiately; then they talk about the weather, and the young man who preached yesterday, and then they kiss immegiately, and then they blush and laff at what they say tew each other, and kiss again immegiately. I would not objekt tew awl this if it warn’t sich a waste ov sweetness in the dessert air. I am willing tew be sworn that this kind ov kissing alwus puts me in minde ov two olde flints tricing to strike fire.’ If the Anti-Kissing League will help to put down exhibitions of this sort, all men will wish it well.

Broad-minded Protestants - v It is so refreshing to come across Protestants who speak as fair and behave kindly and generously to the Catholic body, that it is -a pleasure as well as a duty * to give the fullest publicity to such a creditable proceeding when it . does occur. The great annual Eucharistic Congress which, it will be remembered, took place last year in London to be held this year at Montreal; and two representative Protestants of the city have placed Canadian Catholics under a lasting obligation by particularly generous and

graceful acts in connection with the function. The prospec candidate for the Mayoralty this year, who is a 1 rotestant has withdrawn his candidature in order that - Ca „ c Chief Magistrate may be elected so that he may e able to take part in the ceremonies; and Lord Stratlicona, High Commissioner for Canada, has, though a Protestant, not only placed hi s house at the disposal of the Bishops for their accommodation—an offer which has been nnn l l ly ac s e(l ~but has sent a personal subscription of, £IOOO towards the expenses. A Montreal paper, La Patria, printed recently a letter signed ‘Occident,’ dated Toronto, February 3, announcing that Lord Strathcona’s residence would be blown up next summer by dynamite because of his generous attitude toward the coming Congress, but little heed need be taken of this wild statement. People who really mean serious violence do not send elaborate warnings to the papers many months in advance.’ * A similar edifying exhibition of a spirit of fairness and broad-mindedness was given the other day by the Premier °!/ 1 ® toria (Mr. John Murray) in opening a garden fete in a , , f t ll6 Convent of the Good Shepherd Training Home at Oakleigh. Speaking on the question of sectarianism, and on the nork of the Catholic Church, the Victorian Premier said he bad been privileged to visit the girls’ training home at Oakleigh, and only one who had seen it could properly appreciate the work that was being carried on there or could understand the self-sacrificing efforts of the ladies who had charge. They got no material reward in this world, but they looked for a higher reward elsewhere. If anyone ever did get that reward, he was sure they would. These ladies were also helping the State. While the home was a religious institution, it was doing .work that otherwise the State itself would have to do. Tie did not know pf any management that was better than the management of this and kindred Catholic institutions. He could speak quite without partiality, because he did not belong to the ancient and, as most of them believed, the true faith. Ho had no sectarianism about him. A sensible man soon had sectarianism knocked out of him. It was a thing that should have no place in the lives of public men in Australia.’ There is the right ring about this utterance, and we cordially commend it to the notice of some of our New Zealand politicians. • A Valuable Secret As is generally known, in accordance with the iniquitous Associations Law of 1901 the last of the Carthusian monks at 4 La Grande Chartreuse ’ were expelled from their French monastery by two squadrons of dragoons on the 19th of April. 1903. The French houses are now empty; but a number of the monks settled in England, and four new or restored houses have been opened in Spain and Italy. Some time ago an action was brought by representatives of the Order in defence of their celebrated liqueur to restrain M. Henri Leconturier (an officer of the French Government) and others (including George Idle, Chapman and Co., Ltd., of England) from using the word 4 Charteuse ’ in connection with the sale of liqueurs in England. The case was dismissed, but recent cables have informed us that the House of Lords Appeal Committee has decided that the goodwill of the Chartreuse liqueur factory did not pass to the French judicial liquidator. The highest judicial tribunal in the Empire ruled, therefore, that the monks now settled in England are entitled to the old trade marks, and liqueur manufactured by the French Government must bear a different mark. * The famous liqueur is a secret manufacture, invented by the monks in the nineteenth century, as a means of subsistence to take the place of the broad acres of which they had been deprived in the Revolution. It is little wonder that the monks were anxious to vindicate their legal rights in the matter, for the trade name and trade secret connected with 4 Chartreuse ’ are of enormous value. Some time ago a non-Catholic writer in one of the current magazines gave an interesting account of this the most popular of all liqueurs. It derives its name from the great Carthusian monastry of La Grande Chartreuse, where it was first manufactured. It is known that the basis of Chartreuse is a wine-spirit made from grapes grown in the South of France. It is suspected that another chief ingredient is some saccharine matter, and an elixir made of herbs grown on the Alps of the Dauphiny and Savoy. The great secret of the finest liqueur the world produces lies in the proper combination of these ingredients. The secret of its composition is eagerly sought. It is guarded by something better than bars'of brass and triple steel. One monk alone possesses the secret during his lifetime. It is then handed on to his successor. And the silent monks have learned, by the long discipline of years, the useful habit of holding their tongues.

1 The secret of the composition of the liqueur,’ says the writer, referred to above, ‘ has become the most valuable trade secret of the world.’ He tells the following story, lor me truth or which we cannot vouch: A few years ago it was saidand there is no reason for doubting the substantial accuracy of the statementthat an offer was made through the ope to . the ■ General of the Order, by the Rothschilds, of the -enormous sum of eighty million francs (£3,200,000) for the transference of the rights involved in the manufacture from the Carthusians to the great bankers. It was surmised that their intention was to form a gigantic limited liability company, which would go on with the preparation and sale of the liqueur. At the time it was more-than hinted that the Pope strongly urged the acceptance of the offer, but it was declined. So runs the story. » * The monks derive no personal benefit from the sale of the liqueur. The large proceeds, after-assisting to pay for the maintenance of their existing houses and the building of new ones, have been entirely devoted to charity. The green and yellow liqueur has built and maintained hospitals and other charitable institutions, and in Franco it had made the path of commerce easier by the number of bridges, aqueducts, and roads it had constructed and kept in repair throughout the Dauphiny. The Truth About Bartoli Some weeks ago, in answer to an Auckland correspondent, we made reference to some of the writings of a Father Bartoli, who, once a Jesuit, had just recently become a Protestant, and who was being somewhat,‘boomed’ by certain Australian and New Zealand Anglican papers. We showed that in his attempted justification of his new faith the ex-Jesuit was glaringly illogical and inconsistent, and we expressed ourselves as puzzled to understand how a man who must be presumed to have had at least a reasonable measure of education could have left the Church with age, territory, and unity on its side, to join— all sects in the world Waldensians. The puzzle has now been explained. Bartoli, posing as a distinguished convert from errors which had been adroitly concealed fromjiim all through his career as a studentand we may remark, incidentally, that he had passed twentynine years of his life among the Jesuits — now conducting a Waldensian propaganda in the United States, and the accurate and reliable journal, America, has given the entire history of the unfortunate man’s vagaries. The statement is clear and self-explanatory, and we give it as it stands in the pages of our contemporary. - - « ‘According to the newspaper statements which have appeared from time to time in the last few months,’ says America, it first occurred to him (Bartoli) to doubt about the correctness of his theological views when he was attempting to refute some publication (the name of which is not given) of the Anglican Bishop of Bombay, and discovered for the first time that St. Cyprian, whom he had been taught to regard as a staunch defender of the unity of . the Church, was not so at all; but that, on the contrary, his writings had been misquoted, interpolated, and falsified in order to make him appear as its defender. His press agents do hot know that the disputed texts* of St. Cyprian are commonly treated in text books of Catholic theology. The priest who claims that they have been concealed from him is either romancing or confessing ignorance. It was in India Bartoli discovered his doubts, and so warped and distorted had his views become during his usual four years’ Jesuit Seminary. course that it took him twelve years, living all this time as a Jesuit, to review these same theological studies, and to arrive at the truth which he now believes he has found in the doctrine of the Waldenses. It is in the interests of the Waldensian Church that he has come to this country to lecture and evangelise.’ . ■ ■ « - ■■ . • ‘Father Bartoli passed twenty-nine years of his life among the Jesuits; of this time about twelve years were spent in the Novitiate and in scholastic preparation for the priesthood. Most of the remaining seventeen years he lived partly at Scutari, Albania, and partly at Mangalore,British' East Indies, teaching the elementary studies which are usually taught in mission colleges or schools. About 1904, after suffering from sun-stroke and an attack of typhoid fever, he returned to Rome, and, although not a member of the editorial staff of the Civiltd Cattolica, he remained for a while in their residence, spending his time in writing stories for that periodical, one of which, the “ Biography of a Superman,” attracted some attention, although it did not run beyond the first edition. It would appear that his sun-stroke had made him restless and intractable, and he could no longer adjust himself to the observances of a Jesuit community. In 1905 he left Rome

r w^iere he attempted to act as correspondent of the Civihta Cattolica, but his contributions were not accepted, as he did not seem capable of regarding the country or its people seriously. Returning’ to Rome, and unwilling to comply with the rules of the Order, he was, for some time, in a dubious position, regarded by some as a Modernist, although protesting strenuously that he had nothing to do^ with Modernism, and that ho was determined to re-enter his religious Order.’ * ‘When refused re-admission by the Jesuits, he made a tour of Italy, preaching against the Romanism of the Vatican and the Jesuits, though still claiming to be a Catholic. The newspapers, even La Tribuna, 11 Giornale d’ltalia, and L’Avanti, ignored him, and he failed to find either pulpit or audience for his teaching. Next lie attempted to found a new Order called the “ Guards of Christ ” in order to unite all the weeds from the Pope’s garden, clerics, friars, and laymen. He announced the foundation of a Theological and Biblical Institute in Rome, appealed to the Americans there for funds, but received no response, and nothing more has been heard of the foundation. Lately he has been advocating Waldensian views, not because they are Protestant, but because they are, according to him, of Italian origin, arid peculiarly suitable for Italians, although their founder was a Frenchman, and the first members of the sect were known as “ The Poor Men of Lyons.” The Liberal or Anti-Clerical papers, which, as a rule, are glad to chronicle any clerical scandal, have paid no heed to his pretensions.’ * It only remains to add that in his lecturing tour in the United States Bartoli has fallen flat. The newspapers,’ says America, ‘do not take him seriously. The Italian press treated Irra as a charlatan. It was too much to expect our American reporters to warm up to the Waldensian exploit. Had he come as a Christian Scientist, an Emmanuelite, a Doukhobor, or a Holy Roller, he might have expected some attention; but the Waldenses are a trifle to long sepultured for resurrection, and would not stand an equal chance with the cold storage foods now under legal scrutiny.’