The Catholic World

New Zealand Tablet, 6 July 1911, Page 1263

The Catholic World

ENGLAND CHARITABLE BEQUESTS. By her will Mrs. Randolph, of Boncliurch, has left £4OOO for the needs of the Portsmouth diocese, £IOOO to the Bishop of Portsmouth as an endowment for the Catholic Church, Ventnor, and £SOO each to the. Westminster Diocesan Education Fund, the Providence Row Night Refuge,, and the Hospital of St. John and St. Elizabeth, and, several other bequests.. ‘ ‘ - • : FRANCE AN ALLEGED SEDITIOUS EMBLEM. The Supreme Court of Justice has hitherto surely been a respected institution in France (says the Catholic Weekly). Yet its latest decree has turned, its name into a byword and a mockery of that for which it purports to stand. It has been reserved for its Procurator to add’ the crowning coup to the campaign of insult and injury so persistently waged against the Church in France by declaring the Papal flag to be a ‘ seditious 5 emblem, and the Catholic who ventured to wave it last year# at the Blessed Jeanne d’Arc fetes, has been condemned to a fine! So much for a Government which prates about respecting religious traditions,'and enforces its convictions by a crass insult to the supreme representative of those traditions ! Yet bitter as is its hatred against the Faith, the Pope’s position as a European Sovereign position recognised even by non-Catholic Powers, be ; it rememberedat least claimed the acknowledgment they refuse to his spiritual authority. But the French Government has forgotten even the demands of international etiquette in its insane desire to insult the Christian religion in its acknowledged stronghold. ITALY \ HOPES FOR THE FUTURE. How wonderfully close is the bond that knits official Italy to the Catholic Church, notwithstanding all the bitterness of party spirit that undoubtedly- exists, is evident from, the religious functions that mark most State- enterprises (writes a Rome correspondent). Thus no addition is ever made to the Italian marine without the banner about to be given to the ship being blessed by a bishop. Only the other day such a ceremony took place in the Basilica of St. Mark, Venice, ; when in the presence of, the Duke of the Abruzzi, the civil and military authorities of the*province, and the force of the marine' attached, to the Adriatic, the Patriarch, with the assistance of the Chapter of the Cathedral, solemnly blessed the ; banner destined for the now vessel, San Marco. There is such a depth of religious faith in Italy that one cannot but think that the settlement of the Roman Question should inevitably restore to her people the peace to which she has been for over forty years a stranger;. However, under the circumstances that presently attain, it is likely that years must pass before one dare hope to see such a change. PILGRIMAGES TO LOURDES. Of late years Italian, pilgrimages both to Lourdes and Palestine _ have become standing institutions owing to the energy of Mgr. Radini-Tcdeschi, Bishop of Bergamo, and the clergy of ’ Milan (says a Rome correspondent). The latest pilgrimage organised by the Bishop of Bergamo is that of 2400 persons to the shrine of the Blessed Virgin at Lourdes, to which place the Italians took one hundred invalids, many of them already pronounced long past human aid. Four miraculous cures of pilgrims have been announced, the most remarkable being that of Sister Angela Morisi, who had suffered for the space of live years from tuberculosis of the spine, and had been declared incurable. The committee of Italian pilgrimages are organising another pilgrimage to Lourdes for September, and a second to the Holy Land for the following month. SCOTLAND SUGGESTED CATHOLIC CONGRESS. Mainly as a result of a. suggestion thrown out bv Air. Clement Brand at a recent meeting of the Catholic Truth Society at Glasgow, there is a prospect of a big Catholic Congress being held in Scotland shortly on the lines of the recent English Congress. The co-operation of the Young Men’s Society has been asked by the Truth Society in the making of the preliminary arrangements, and it has been readily given. UNITED STATES \ - . ' • ■ • V; • ■„ A GOLDEN. JUBILEE. Two thousand guests assembled on May 10, at—the Catholic Club, New York, at a reception in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of Cardinal Gibson’s ordination as a

priest, and the twenty-fifth anniversary of his becoming a Cardinal. > / ' / - ■ _. • RESIGNATION OF AN ARCHBISHOP, - The news that owing to ill-health the Most Rev. Dr, Keane has resigned the Archbishopric of Dubuque, lowa, wih be received by many in these islands,' as it has been by multitudes m America, with , genuine regret (says. the Catholic Times). . He is one of the sons of the Green Isle to whose ability and energy the Catholic Church in America is largely indebted. Leaving Ballyshannon at an early age, with his family, he went to the United States. Spiritual work attracted him, and he entered St. Charles’ College,' and subsequently St. Mary’s Seminary, Baltimore, as a clerical student. After a dozen years’ service as a priest at St. Washington, he was appointed Bishop of Richmond, Virginia, in 1878. Ten years later his episcopal colleagues appealed to - him to undertake the great work of founding the Catholic University at Washington. Dr. Keanecomplied. He resigned his See and : threw himself ; ; heart and soul into the movement. No man could have been better fitted to further it. His enthusiasm was irrepressible, and he was eminently practical at the same-time. He visited Europe, studied the constitutions and programmes of the principal universities, interested in his own scheme everybody of importance whom he met, and adopted the wisest and best suggestions. The indefatigable prelate took occasion to help the temperance cause, and appeared on platforms here with Monsignor Nugent and other reformers. In the same spirit he exerted himself for the progress of education at the new University, and for the advancement of the people’s interests during the period for which he was Archbishop of Dubuque, By a life of ceaseless and fruitful labor he has earned rest, in his closing years, and all who know him . will earnestly hope that they may be free from .pain and full of happiness. NUN TO RECEIVE DEGREE. • ■ Patrons of the Catholic press throughout„ the world (says the Catholic Standard and Times) will be pleasurably interested—and more deeply than appears at first glance—in the announcement that on June 15, at the commencement of St. Joseph's College, Emmitsburg, Md., his Eminence Cardinal Gibbons, . acting for the faculty of the venerable institution conducted by the. Sisters of Charity, will honor another great teaching order, the Sisters of Mercy, by conferring upon one .'of its distinguished .members, Sister M. Antonio, of St. Xavier Convent, Beatty, l a., the coveted degree of doctor of literature. . . Sister M. Antonio is to receive the degree of L.H.D., ‘.in recognition of successful literary work jn the service of morals and religion,’ and when, in this connection, the recipient in spite of her personal inclination, is revealed as the ‘ Reverend Richard W. Alexander, ’author of true stories of conversions to the Catholic faith • which number their readers by the hundreds of thousand, and as the Mercedes ’ whose devotional poetry has graced the pages of every periodical in this arid other English-speaking countries, the*honor to be publicly accorded by St. Joseph’s College ,is . one that could not, in justice, be longer withheld. . - GENERAL A VERY SUCCESSFUL UNIVERSITY. Beyrout University conducted by the Jesuit Fathers, under great difficulties, has furnished over 400 skilled physicians to the Ottoman Empire and has given about 250 priests to the Church in the Orient (says the Sacred Heart Ifenew). It has a library of over 100,000 volumes and manv precious manuscripts,, all available to .the public. Little is known of this university in other countries, but throughout Asia Minor and Syria, its efficiency is generally recognised. . ' ‘ DEATH OF A NORWEGIAN CONVERT. Jacob Woom-Muller, the Norwegian journalist and author, died on May 7. He was born in Bergen in 1866. He wrote for the papers principally on politics, literature, history, and religious questions. In early life he was a Freethinker, and in 1882 lie refused to be confirmed in the Lutheran Church—an almost unheard-of thing ill Norway—and declared himself an atheist. He wrote many articles about religion and the Catholic faith, which were not correct; One of the Catholic priests visited him and pointed out his errors to him. The result of this visit was that in July, 1907, he was received into the Catholic Church, which thenceforward he loved with all the ardour of his soul. His warm love for Christianity made him write a series' of ■ articles to undo the effects of what he had published before The Protestant papers agree that it was his uprightness and honesty that made him embrace the Catholic faith;