The Catholic World

New Zealand Tablet, 24 June 1915, Page 55

The Catholic World

I- ♦ --~s ■ < - ENGLAND . . a"-.-; • U f - ~'' p gpM i ? HELP FOR POLAND. i y The appeal, which has been issued for the Polish; victims (writes the London correspondent of the Irish. Catholic has the support of a large number of prominent people, .including his Eminence Cardinal Bourne, • the Russian and French Ambassadors, the Duke of Norfolk, Father Bernard Vaughan, S.J. (who is also a member of the executive committee), the Marquis of Crewe, Mr. Churchill, Mrs. Jas. Hope (president of the Catholic. Women’s League), Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. Balfour, Mr. Bonar Law, Mr. T. P. O’Connor, and M. Paderewski, to quote but a few of the many names figuring on the list of patrons. M. Paderewski -has come specially . to England to appeal for help for his poor brothers and sisters, and has, for the time being, forsaken his music and his art and set himself the task" of collecting money for his beloved Poland. In the appeal which is made by Laurence Alma Tadema the wrongs and sufferings of Poland are forcibly put before us; and we are told of the terrors of war, especially in Poland, where brother has to fight against brother, because there are three Powers which dominate Poland. ‘Could Britain bear such a thing? /The Poles have to bear* it. There is a ray of light upon the picture. When peace comes Poland will be free. Russia has promised it, and she will keep her word.’

FRANCE A RELIGIOUS AWAKENING. Further testimony to the remarkable moral and spiritual effects of the war are given in an interview by the Rev. Dr. R. Saillens, a Paris clergyman who was an intimate friend of the late Charles Spurgeon. The churches, he says, are being filled in Paris almost as soon as they are opened, and Catholics and Protestants are working in unison for the relief of suffering. Everywhere he noticed signs of a great moral awakening which the war has brought about. In fact, it would appear that the war is like a great storm-cloud that is clearing away the miasma that has collected about the French nation for so many years. Dr. Saillens gives it as his opinion, an opinion shared by many other careful watchers of the tendencies of , soldiers and civilians alike, that France will never again fall into such gross materialism as distinguished her before war broke out.

THE POPE’S SYMPATHY. It having been announced in some of the French, papers that the Holy Father had lately sent a letter of public interest to Cardinal Amette, Archbishop of Paris, his Grace, questioned on the subject by a journalist, said: ‘ The information is incorrect, but I have been informed from Rome that the Sovereign Pontiff is about to send me a letter and I shall have it published. The Holy Father intends to give in this letter a fresh testimony of his sympathy with France. You know how his Holiness has shown the lively affection he entertains for our country. When, just after the Conclave, he was replying to my congratulations he drew me to him and said: “In embracing the Archbishop of Paris I embrace Catholic France, always the eldest daughter of the Church.” The Catholics of France do not knowhave not had opportunities of knowing—all that the Pope has done for us by diplo- „ matic action. That is why he desires to give them a F. public proof of his ardent sympathy.’

A MINISTER’S INTOLERANCE. We (Catholic Times) are glad,- to find that, anticlerical though lie is, M. Clemenceau has been protesting vigorously in his paper, L’Homme Enchain against the action of the French authorities in preventing the Abbe Desgranges from lecturing at Valence on ‘The Pope and the War.’ Clemenceau sees that ■ people * who

~~ *r— -- ~ ;- -'. v v - v . - are cofrmutting acts of petty w tyranny deprive themselves. of ' the - right to complain of tyranny on the | part -of others. , The truth is / that" they more anti-clerical members of /the French Government are : so : narrowminded and intolerant that they seem- to/forget the real interests of France when they are dealing with a religious' question, and they do not hesitate to set aside every rule of fair play. : The police and some two or three hundred soldiers were employed to hinder the Abbe Desgranges from speaking in the Valence Cathedral. A deputy, M. ; de Gailhard-Baricel, telegraphed to M. Malvy, Minister' of the V Interiorj to remove the prohibition, but M. Malvy declined to do -so. The deputy then wrote a letter of protest to the Minister//and when the newspapers proposed to publish it with 1 M. Malvy’s reply, it was scored out by the censor. Thus is freedom understood by the' French Minister of, the Interior. He. commits an act which is an outrage on liberty, and when a member of Parliament criticises him his words are suppressed. M. Malvy would, no doubt, have suppressed M. Clemenceau’s article also if he were not afraid of the ex-Premier. . ?/

HOLLAND I THE GOVERNMENT AND THE HOLY SEE.| A message from Amsterdam states The Maasbode learns that Mgr. Nolens has left for Rome with a mission from the Dutch Government concerning the restoration of the Netherlands representation at the Vatican. Mgr. Nolens is the leader of the Catholics in the Second Chamber of the States General. A Hague message says he has gone to Rome ‘ for the purpose of ascertaining for the Dutch Government, if possible, the facts concerning the attempts which, according to newspaper reports, have been made by the Vatican to promote the restoration of peace.’

ITALY GENOESE PILGRIMS IN ROME. . The audience given by the Holy Father in the Sale Ducale on April 20 to over two thousand Genoese pilgrims was an event in which his Holiness took quite a special interest. When the Pontiff made his appearance there was an outburst of enthusiastic applause. Mgr. Gavotti, Archbishop of Genoa, then read an address of homage and affection from the Genoese to their august fellow citizen. His Grace in concluding said that Genoa could be proud of the Pope, and he hoped the Pope would always have reason to be satisfied with Genoa. The Holy Father, in reply, warmly thanked the deputation and the people of Genoa through them, referring to the demonstrations of joy which took place there on the occasion of his election. His Holiness was particularly touched by the gift of a silver statue of the Madonna delle Yigne, and said it was at the feet of our Lady’s statue in Genoa he matured his plans for the future. His concluding words were : ‘ May the powerful intercession of her whom Genoa salutes as her Queen secure a bounteous stream of heavenly blessings for our fellow-citizens who are gathered here as well as for those elsewhere, for the priests and the laymen, the nobility and the masses, the associations and institutes, the troubled and the poor, the joyful and the afflicted. May the Blessed Virgin obtain a special blessing for the new Archbishop and grant that it can be said with truth of his ministry that it is a beautiful dawn, the precursor of a splendid noonday. And through the intercession of Mary may commerce, industries, art, and science in Genoa receive special blessings. May none of those present, none of those far away, be excluded from the blessing which We invoke upon Our Genoa, because if the wish is dear that the Pope may be always pleased with Genoa, it is fitting that Genoa should be pleased with the Pope, her citizen.’ The Archbishop of Genoa then handed to the Pontiff a richly chased silver casket containing forty thousand francs, the silver statue of the Mother of God, a photograph in a costly frame of the Palazzo Tagliavacche, Genoa, in which Benedict XV. : was born, and other gifts