People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, 17 September 1914, Page 41

People We Hear About

A cable message reports that the aged Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria is critically ill. He celebrated his 85th birthday on August 18, in the midst of a terrible war which Austria’s action against Servia precipitated. Most Rev. Patrick W. Riordan, Archbishop of San Francisco, has entered the fiftieth year of his priesthood. He was ordained on June 10, 1865, and succeeded Most Rev. Dr. Alemany as Archbishop of San Francisco in December, 1884. Mr. James A. Farrell, president of the United States Steel Corporation, has been selected chairman of the National Foreign Trade Council of thirty business men chosen by the several hundred delegates who attended the National Foreign Trade convention held in Washington recently. Mr., Farrell is a Catholic, and takes a deep interest in Church affairs in Brooklyn, where he lives. • The death is announced of Dom Felix Faure, a Carthusian, who was well known in France before he became a religious. Dom Felix Faure was the son of an ancient peer of France. At the age of 68 he decided to become a Carthusian, and he was ordained a priest at the age of 72, in La Grande Chartreuse by Monsignor Fava. Dom Felix had attained his 94th year. Until a few months ago he was able to chant the office in choir at midnight with his religious brethren. His Lordship Bishop Bertram, of Hildesheim, has been appointed to the see of Breslau by universal vote of the chapter. The new Prinoe-Bishop is a native of Hildesheim. He was born on March 14, 1859, and in 1877 he took his bachelor’s degree. Ordained priest in 1881 he went to Rome to take his degree as doctor in canon law. Returning to Hildesheim, he was appointed general secretary of the vicariate and in 1886 became assessor. In 1894 he was appointed canon capitular. After being appointed vicar-general in 1905, Dr. Bertram was elected Bishop of Hildesheim the following year. At Breslau he will have charge of 3,300,000 Catholics. The new Prince-Bishop has tact and perseverance as well as energy and a winning personality. To his interest in art and ecclesiastical history we owe a collection of valuable works. Father Francis Xavier Wernz, the late General of the Society of Jesus, had held his, office for less than eight years. Prior to his election he was best known as an authority on canon law and as rector of the great Gregorian University in Rome. He was German by nationality, having been born in Wurtemburg in 1842. Entering the Society of Jesus at an early age, after a course of study in Austria and Germany, he was ordained. Thereafter he spent some time in special studies, and when the Jesuits were expelled from Germany, he was appointed to accompany the theological •students to England. He taught canon law in England for five years until 1883, when he was summoned to Rome to take the Chair of Canon Law in the Gregorian University. He was appointed rector of the university in 1904, and elected General of his Order in 1906. During his residence in Rome he was consultor to the Congregations of the Index, the Holy Office and Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, and some of his judgments on points of canon law are now classics. He also Began the publication of a standard Treatise on canon law. As General of the Society of Jesus, he directed special attention to extending the facilities of the Society for special studies, notably in Scripture and Oriental languages. His successor will be elected by a representative assembly drawn from the Jesuits throughout the world.