Intercolonial

New Zealand Tablet, 25 September 1913, Page 49

Intercolonial

In response to the recent appeal for St. Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne, £6040 2s lOd have been subscribed by the public, and the raising of this amount entitled the institution to claim £2OOO from the Government in accordance with the promise of the Premier. On Sunday, September 7, his Grace the Archbishop of Melbourne, blessed and laid the foundation stone of a new presbytery at West Brunswick. The cost of the building will be about £llOO, and the subscriptions received at the ceremony amounted to £2OO. The foundation stone of new premises for the Catholic Club, Sydney, was laid on September 6, by Very Rev. Father Moynagh in the. absence of his Grace Archbishop Kelly, who was prevented by illness from being present. The club, which was started in 1909 with 25 members, has to-day a membership roll of 664. The site cost £IO,OOO, and the contract for the building is about £9OOO. Rev. Father Patrick Purcell Ryan, who passed away recently at Lewisham Hospital, Sydney, had lived for more than 37 years in Australiathe last 18 in the archdiocese' of Adelaide, where he had charge of the parish of Blumberg. The deceased was born in Rossmore, Tipperary, about 70 years ago. He made his ecclesiastical studies at Mount Melleray, and afterwards at All Hallows College, and was ordained over forty years ago. Besides Father Phil Ryan, formerly of Carcoar, who died in 1908, at Mount Melleray, where he was a Cistercian Monk, the late Father Patrick Ryan’s youngest brother was a —Father John Ryan, whose remains are interred at Bathurst. Two of his nephews are priests— Stanislaus Hickey, of Mount Melleray, the author of many theological works, and Father Edmund Ryan, of the diocese of Port Augusta, South Australia, who lately arrived in Australia. In the annual report of St. Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne, for the year ended June 30, 1913, it is stated that the work for the sick poor of all creeds and classes during the year under review far exceeded that of the preceding year. During the twelve months, 2728 in-patients, 19,152 out-patients, 5385 casualties, and 225 dental cases were treated. The receipts (including the special appeal, which resulted in a generous response of £6040), totalled £19,789 0s lOd; the expenditure was £14,139 11s 9d; the overdraft last year was £7638 12s 7d; this year closed with an indebtedness at the bank of £1989 3s 6d. The special grant of £2OOO from the Government will cover this overdraft and leave a small credit balance in the maintenance account. Very Rev. Dean Hegarty, P.P., V.F. (Kyneton), recently celebrated the 42nd anniversary of the day on which he sailed from Ireland for Australia to commence his career in the land of his adoption a. missionary priest. In the morning of that day—August 15 — future Dean of St. Mary’s, Kyneton, celebrated Mass at his parish church, Passage West, Cork, using for the first time a silver chalice presented to him by his friends in his boyhood’s home—the same chalice which he used on August 15. In the afternoon he sailed for Australia, accompanied by a school-fellow, then a deacon, now a priest in Tasmania. When Father Hegarty arrived in Melbourne there were only 60 priests in the Victorian mission; now the priests in Melbourne alone number 120.

His Grace the Archbishop of Melbourne, in thanking non-Catholics for their presence at the laying of the foundation of a new presbytery at. Brunswick, said it was not the amount of money handed in on these occasions that he valued so much as the kind feeling exhibited by members of different denominations. It was pleasing to see Catholics and non-Catholics meeting together on common ground, where they could see the virtues of each other, and form permanent friendships, apart from any question of sect. Whenever opportunity offered itself, Catholics would always dwell in peace, charity, and good fellowship with their neighbors. It was a cruel mistake to allow differences in

religion to interfere with the social relations of people residing in the same neighborhood. It had always been his endeavor to speak and act in order that the curse of bigotry might be removed from their midst, so that residents of this new and splendid country might live together, as God intended, in union, peace, harmony, and prosperity. .' •' _ •" • : On Monday, September 8, the golden jubilee of Rev. Brother Lynch, of St. Vincent de Paul's Orphanage, South Melbourne, was celebrated. Fifty , years ago Brother Lynch joined the Christian Brothers, and 45 years of that period have been spent in Melbourne, chiefly at 'St. Francis', Lonsdale street, Victoria Parade College, and St. Vincent de Paul's Boys' Orphanage, South Melbourne.. Brother Lynch was born in Carlow, and was educated by a local dominie, John Conwill, who was renowned for his love.of the higher mathematics. Perhaps the most famous of Conwill's pupils was Professor Tyndall, the eminent scientist, who owed much of his knowledge of mathematics to this humble Irish schoolmaster. Although Brother Lynch did not receive his education from the Christian Brothers, three of his younger brothers did so when that Order opened a school in Carlow. One of those brothers is now Brother Leonard Lynch, who has charge of the senior class at St. Patrick's College, Ballarat. On the completion of his school course, he went into business, but subsequently responded to the Divine call, and entered the novitiate of the Brothers in Dublin. He was professed on September 8, 1863. Rev. Father John O'Gorman, Adm., preached a charity sermon on behalf of the St. Vincent de Paul Society in St. Mary's Cathedral, Sydney, on Sunday, September 7. In the course of his discourse, Father O'Gorman said : Wonderful work in the cause of Chris-

tian charity was being accomplished in Sydney. In the archdiocese there were no fewer than six orphanages— St. Joseph's, Kincumber; St. Joseph's, Gore Hill; St. Anne's, Liverpool; St. Brigid's, Ryde; St. Michael's, Baulkham Hills; and the Mater Dei, "Narellan. There were three industrial schools —St. Vincent's, Westmead, to which an institution for deaf and dumb boys. was also attached; St. Martha's, Leichhardt; and the Immaculate Conception, Balmain East. They had also the Foundling Home at Waitara, and an institution for female blind at Liverpool, while their hospitals included St. Vincent's; St. Joseph's, Auburn; Lewisham (Nursing Sisters) ; and Mater Misericordiae, North Sydney. To three of these institutions private hospitals were attached. To assist those who were incurable towards a happy eternity they had the Hospice for the Dying. For the mentally afflicted they had St. Margaret's Mount, Ryde, and for the aged poor they had the magnificent "home of the Little Sisters of the Poor at Randwick. They had also the Magdalen Retreat at Tempe, Mount St. Magdala Retreat, Redfern, and the Convent of the Good Shepherd, devoted to the same work, was recently founded at Ashfield. Surely they could have no better testimony to the divine institution of the Church than in this marvellous expression of fraternal charity.