RETURNING TO THE FOLD

New Zealand Tablet, 23 February 1911, Page 328

RETURNING TO THE FOLD

Mr. George Mozart, the well known comedian, has been received into the Church.

It is stated that Mrs. T. St, John Gaffney, wife of the American Consul at Dresden, has been received into the Church.

The London Tablet announces that the Rev. David Rhys-Morgan was received into the Church on December 8 at the Franciscan College, Oxford.

The Rev. Archibald Burges-Bayly, late of Clare College, Cambridge, and formerly Anglican curate of Raynes Park, near Wimbledon, was received into the Church at St. Anthony’s, North Chean, on December 16.

At the Church of St. Catharine, Frome, Somerset, on November 17, Mrs. Edwards, wife of Mr. Robert Edwards, M.D., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., had the happiness to be received into the Church by the Very Rev. Dean Lonergan, rector of Frome, Somerset.

Two London clergymen have recently been received into the, Church. The Rev. C. Russell, late curate of All Saints, Netting Hill, was received by Father Herbert Vaughan, and the Rev. William Buckle, formerly curate of Holy Trinity, Hoxton, was received at Erdington Abbey by Father M. Gavin, S.J.

Mr. Arthur Blood-Smyth, one of the best known Protestant solicitors in the North of Ireland, and for twentyeight years prominently identified with the Masonic and Orange Orders, was recently received into the Catholic Church at Cootehill, after having read a public recantation (says the Catholic Times.)

The Irish Catholic, of November 26 says that as the result of a mission given by Fathers Sharpe, M.A., and Arendzon, M.A., fifty persons in Holloway, London, are now receiving instruction from the rector, Father Thomas Carey, who is assisted by the Sisters of Notre Dame Convent. It is worthy of note that the catechumens are representative of various Protestant denominations.’

- Three years ago several Syrian Catholics of Buffalo were led astray by proselytisers. They failed to find in their, new home the true spirit of Christ, It was not the religion of their forefathers. Now they have come back —all returned to their original parish church, that of St. John Maron.

P H ev - P - k- Senior, M.A,, until recently curate of St. German o Roath, Cardiff, has been received into the Church. Mr Senior who was a Scholar and Naden Diviniwin fc^ de +i of J l ohn 8 College, Cambridge, graduated in 19 in the. first class of the Theological Tripos (second part} and in 1902 was included in. the first class of the Oriental Languages Tripos, after winning the University Hebrew Prize in 1901. In 1902 he also won the Tyrwhitt ®± oI S P and the Mason Prize. He was ordained in 1902 to the Church of St Mary the Great, Cambridge, and tor the • last five years has been curate of St. German’s Roath, in the diocese of Llandaff. S ’

The Rev. William I. McGarvey, the Rev. William E. Henkel, and the Rev. Maurice L. Cowl were ordained Th« S Rpv n w;irT n 1 the Cathedral, Philadelphia. The Rev. William I. McGarvey celebrated his first Mass on the following Sunday at the Cathedral; the Rev. W E Henkel, at St. Peter’s Reading, Pa., and the Rev. M. L. Cowl, at Our Lady of the Rosary, Philadelphia. These priests are + a i converts from the Episcopal Church, and ion« + fi k St °L tl . lose 1 who entered the Church in 1907 and 1908, to be ordained for the Philadelphia diocese. The Rev. Henry R Sargent, .formerly of the ‘Order of Holy Cross ’ at West Park-on-the-Hudson, was ordained on Christmas Eve by the Archbishop of. Boston.

The Rev. J. A. M. Richey, rector of the Episcomlinr. Church of the Good Shepherd at Quincy, 111., was received into the Church in St. Louis on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8. The sponsor of the con vert minister was the Rev. M. J. Foley, editor of +Lo Western Ccdholic of Quincy. Mr. Richey graduated from Nashotah Seminary in 1893 and was pastor for a time at Mason City, la. From there he went to Janesvilh? JXor’ here , be was pastor of Holy Trinity Church until until whem he went to San Diego, Cal., where he remained Quincy b ° Ut * year ag0 ’ when he was offered a pastorate at

* A sequel to the case of the leader of the Sillon comes to light m a letter which that gentleman has received from

Dr. Amieux, Chief Physician to the Messier Institutes (writes the Rome correspondent of the Catholic Times). The letter is worth giving in its entirety : — ‘ Dear Friend, — I am about to become a Catholic. I ask your prayers on my behalf. I cannot remain , without the Sacraments. You did well to bow your head before the authority of our Holy Father the Pope. If you had done otherwise 1 should not now be becoming a Catholic; for I had faith in you, and therefore you should have caused a shock to that faith and retarded my conversion. 1 have waited four years before taking this irrevocable step, and I shall never turn backwards no matter what I may find contrary to my ideas in Catholicism. 1 have studied its doctrine point by point; I have prayed to God, to our Lord Jesus Christ, and I have also invoked the assistance of the Blessed Virgin Mary. And after continuous labor and much religious experimenting that is known to God alone, in the ardent desire for Him, in full possession of my faculties with a knowledge of my responsibilities, I wish to be a Catholic. I ask you and your comrades of the Sillon to pray for me, and I inform them of my decision only to give them the comfort of knowing they helped to edify me, thanks to their firm Christian attitude. If Luther had done what you have done, we should not have to deplore the rupture in Christian unity, and we should not behold the sad spectacle of the actual decadence in Christian unity and faith. I believe with all my strength in Revelation, in the Trinity, in the Incarnation, in grace, in the supreme and infallible authority of the Pope in matters of faith. I believe in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ born of the Virgin Mary, Who arose the third day, in Him living in the Sacred Host, and I believe in the efficacy of ail the Catholic Sacraments. And since the philosophy of Sabatier or of Harnack, or the variations of Protestantism, do not satisfy my profoundly religious cravings, I feel it my duty to proclaim my definite faith and to glorify God for my elevation and my approach to the Light, to the absolute Truth.’ What excites fears about ‘ Rome ’ both in Great Britain and Ireland is in reality the religious activity of the Catholic Church (says the Catholic Times). That is attested constantly by facts. A fortnight ago we recorded in our columns the news, which was circulated by the daily papers at the end of last week, that the Rev. J. H Steele formerly chaplain to the Earl of Erne, Grand Master of the Orangemen, has been received into the Church and is now studying for the priesthood in the Academy of Noble Ecclesiastics, Rome. Mr. Wrightson, of Trinity College, Dublin, who had been preparing for the ministry of the Protestant Episcopalian Church, is in one of the colleges of the Eternal City for the same purpose. So are two Brighton vicars of the Church of England and three curates lately received into the Catholic Church, and already as the Bishop of Southwark stated at St. George’s Cathedral on Sunday, January 1, over two hundred of these gentlemens congregations have followed their example. It is, perhaps, natural, that information of this kind should be disturbing to certain Protestants, especially to the Orangemen, whose creed consists of hatred of Rome. But reasonable people, whatever the religion they profess, will not expect the Catholic Church to cease to preach her doctrines to the whole world. That is her mission. She carries it out fairly and honorably, and the tact that thp converts she wins are in a large number of cases educated and intellectual proves the straightfordness as well as the convincing character of her appeal. In connection with the foregoing list of those who have recently come into the Church, the following item from the latest issue of the Lamp will be found of interest: On Sunday, November 20, the Superioress of a community of Anglican Sisters with five of her companions arrived in New York by the steamship Carmania, en route for Graymoor, where they happily arrived towards evening of the next day Their purpose in making this long journey is first of all to be received into the Catholic Church after due instruction, and then as postulants Jo seek admission to the Sisterhood of the Atonement. ’The prayers o n,! readers are requested that they may all prove +L om o i° UF worthy of the habit of the Society of the Atonement and persevere to the end ; . They have made great sacrifice ”n abandoning their position and work in the Anglican Church and they must have received great grace from Pori +o leave everything behind them, t? cross tte Va in order Jo re Sous “ The‘ ra co ge as Catholics and as Franciscan eugious. The conscientious convictions which led tn this happy conclusion did not come to them suddenly Their first attraction as High Church Anglicans was to Francis of Assisi, then for years they read tho Tinmn having at last become of like faith with the' Society of the Atonement in regard to St. Peter and the r«»+Lni;^ enced° h them - th6 S °q i - ety ’ s Emission has influ" S fts&spbi arin^°s