The Catholic World

New Zealand Tablet, 15 June 1911, Page 1119

The Catholic World

v , ■ THE NECESSITY FOR UNITY. . The first official statement of Monsignor Stagni, the new Apostolic Delegate to Canada, on the occasion of his reception in Ottawa, contained a keynote that found expression in the words: We must all be united together.’ _No text Isays the Montreal Tribune) could be more timely, and no advice could indicate better the spirit, in which the new envoy of Home enters upon his duties as the representative of the Pope in Canada. Although Monsignor Stagni comes to Canada for the first time, there can be no question that he has learned —very much—about the Church’, in this Dominion, that lie has made a study of conditions here, and that he has prepared himself for ’ all the diplomatic requirements of the situation.’ FRANCE A GREAT MISFORTUNE. A pastoral letter from Cardinal Lucon, Archbishop of Rheims, which was read at High Mass in all the churches of that diocese on Easter Sunday, contained an eloquent passage dealing with the champagne riots. The Arch- ~ bishop acknowledges the widespread and profound suffering which has been caused in many parts of the champagne region by the practical failure of the vintage during the last two or three years. But he deplores the violence to which the ‘ vignerons ’ have resorted in order to draw attention to their grievances. His Eminence proceeds to warn his flock against the spirit of the age, and the vain promises of those who delude the simple-minded into believing that the dawn of a golden age is at hand. He adds ; ‘Our era has done much that is highly to its credit, but it has taught our nation to do without God, and that is its \ great misfortune and its great crime.’ PORTUGAL THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE. The Provisional Government, after having exiled most of the religious Orders, has now formulated its code of laws for the separation of Church and, State (says the Catholic Weekly). By these laws the clergy are placed in a most humiliating and abject position*./- Not only are all the present possessions appropriated, but also future acquisitions; if a congregation desires to build a new church, the building passes after ninety-nine years into the hands of the State. All gifts made to the Church are to be handled by parochial commissions, and the Church only receives about one-tenth, the remainder being distributed as the Government thinks fit. The State will practically have control over the administration of canonical rights, which should only pertain to the Church. For instance, it appoints the professors in seminaries; the seminaries are reduced from thirteen to five; Sisterhoods are abolished, and public processions are restricted.. The law attacks ecclesiastical discipline by inviting priests to marry and giving pensions to their widows and children. It leaves the bishops and the clergy to the mercy of the lay element, and even the promised stipends will remain under the control of the parochial commissions and other Government bodies, which are generally adverse to the Church. ' ROME. DEATH OF A CARDINAL, Though the great Canonist of the Roman Curia, his Eminence Cardinal Cavicchioni was well advanced in his seventy-fifth year, most of his friends believed that a long period of labor for the Church still lay before him (writes a Rome correspondent). Indeed, so late as thf death of Cardinal Satolli, Cardinal Cavicchioni received a more important position in the government of the Church when called by Pius X. to assume the Prefectship of the Sacred Congregation of Studies. For some months, however, an internal complaint necessitated abstention from the arduous work to which he had been accustomed since his ordination to the priesthood in 1859, and an operation became imperative. For several days succeeding the operation success seemed to have attended the efforts of the surgeons; but on April 17 a change took place in the condition of the illustrious patient, and death from paralysis of the heart ensued some hours later. Like most of the Cardinals of the Roman Curia, Cardinal Benjamin Cavicchioni had seen long and varied service in different parts of the world in the interests of- the Holy See. His degrees of Doctor of Canon and Civil Law obtained for him in 1872 a position on the Sacred Congregation of the Counpil, from which he passed in 1879 to the Congregation of Propaganda, where the future Cardinal was exclusively employed in affairs pertaining to the United States of America. Four years later ho , returned to the former Congregation, _ when he received the appointment of defender of the matrimonial bond; and-

the next year Leo XIII. conferred the Episcopal dignity upon the brilliant Churchman, who had then scarcely completed his forty-third year. The years from 1884 to 1889 were passed as Delegate Apostolic to .the Republics of fr eru, Bolivia, and Ecuador. Various important positions were filled by Archbishop. Cavicchioni in Rome until the June of 1903, when Leo .XIIL, at the "last Consistory lie field, created his prized lieutenant a Cardinal, assigning him the titular Church of Ara Coeli. - ■ . . 4 RUSSIA RELIGIOUS FREEDOM. The Ukase granting something like religious freedom in Russia has been carried out in a very curious manner by the Russian authorities (remarks the Catholic Times). Occasionally they have observed it in the spirit and the letter That, no doubt, was, and still is, the. Czar’s: wish. Rut the bureaucrats, fond of meddlesome interference and tyranny, do not always act up to the standard of conduct prescribed and desired by the Emperor. The influence of the Catholic Church is still very attractive in Russia, and at various times since the first publication of the Ukase a considerable number of the Orthodox Russians have become converts. On these occasions the old-prejudices have been aroused, and freedom of conscience has - been violated by the authorities in the usual persecuting style. One of the anti-Catholic campaigns is, according to telegarms from St l etersburg, in full progress at present. Officials of the Ministries of the Interior and Public; Instruction have seized and are minutely examining boolqs and documents belonging to the Catholic Church of St. Catharine and the boys and girls school attached to it. The sole charge made against the clergy and the congregation is that they have induced Orthodox Russians to join the Catholic Church. Jhe only means of inducement has been the example -of good lives illustrating purity of doctrine. ; ‘ : £: ■ • 2 - I SCOTLAND SM WM'' . I THE ARCHBISHOP OF EDINBURGH. The Most Rev. Dr. Smith, Archbishop of St. Andrew’s and Edinburgh, has been obliged, on account of the unsatisfactory state of his health, to temporarily' relinquish the duties attaching to his important office. His Grace has not enjoyed anything like robust health for- a considerable time past, and -latterly" the trying season told so severely upon him that his medical adviser ordered a spell of complete rest. Accordingly his'Grace has transferred the management of his diocese to the Vicars-General, the Right Rev. Mgr.; Smith (Stirling) and the Right Rev. Mgr. Morris (Falkirk). The former has -been deputed to attend to the ecclesiastical concerns and the latter to look after the financial matters. . Archbishop Smith is in his seventieth year, having been born on October 18, 1841. Afer studying at various colleges he was ordained in Rome in 1866. He was nominated to the . See of Dunkeld by brief in August, 1890, and consecrated in Dundee in the October following. Towards the end of 1900 he was translated to St. Andrew's and. Edinburgh, and received the pallium on January 15, 1901, in St. Mary’s Cathedral. UNITED STATES THE LAYMEN’S LEAGUE. The growth of social unrest and anti-religious theories in the United States has for some time been a source of much anxiety to the Catholic bishops and clergy. As a result of several private meetings held by leading Catholic laymen a comprehensive plan of action has now been decided upon, and steps have been taken to give it effect at once. It is a plan of concerted social. study and of a concentrated social crusade. The Laymen’s League for Retreats and Social Studies, with Archbishop Farley as honorary president and the Bishops of Brooklyn, Trenton, and Newark as honorary vice-presidents, has been formed. The League will be governed by - a board of twenty-five directors and a special - committee ..on, social studies,, the latter containing the names of many of the leading, Catholic laymen in New York and Brooklyn. . It will. have a twofold purpose — the extension of the retreats movement begun less than two years ago, and the establishment of regular courses of systematic study by Catholic laymen of social questions. The object of these courses will be to train a corps of lecturers who can treat these questions with full and expert knowledge of all their phases, and through them thoroughly educate the Catholic public upon those matters. The classes will be opened next winter, and spring. These 'courses will be free'to Catholic men, and the lecturers to be sent out by the League will , give their services without compensation. ' V ; ‘ '