The Catholic World

New Zealand Tablet, 20 January 1916, Page 55

The Catholic World

I ENGLAND ■*;! CHURCHES FOR BELGIUM. < T Belgian workmen are engaged in a workshop at Hammersmith on work which has the special blessing of the Holy Father. They are making church furniture for presentation to Cardinal Mercier to replace the valuable church property destroyed by the Germans in their invasion of Belgium. The work is part of a larger scheme which aims at the erection of village churches to take the place of those which have been desecrated. It is proposed to erect wooden churches in Belgium’s desolated dioceses as soon as the enemy has left the country. The work will be done by Belgian refugees in England and interned . Belgian soldiers in Holland—rwhere there are about 30,000. The buildings will probably serve a useful purpose both in Holland and France before it is possible to re-erect them on a concrete platform in Belgium. This work of re-erection could be done rapidly and inexpensively, and the churches would last for many years. The average church would hold about 600 people.

REQUIEM MASS AT WESTMINSTER CATHEDRAL,

On Saturday, November 27, a Solemn Requiem Mass was sung at Westminster Cathedral for all British and Allied soldiers who have fallen in the war. His Eminence Cardinal Bourne presided at the impressive ceremony, and the celebrant was Bishop Butt. The huge church was crowded in every part, and the congregation included a very large proportion of men representing the fighting forces. There were also present members of the Metropolitan Chapter, the Bishop of Southwark, and a large number of other clergy. Seats were reserved for five hundred soldiers, and of these a hundred were occupied by a detachment of the Grenadier Guards, a hundred by the Irish Guards, and a similar number from the Scots Guards. The other two hundred seats were allotted to soldiers generally, including a number of Belgian officers, some of them wounded and under treatment in London, and a party of Belgian gendarmes. The general congregation included Major-General Sir Francis Lloyd (commanding the London District), the Earl of Stamford, Colonel Sir Ivor Herbert, M.P., the Duke and Duchess of Norfolk, and Lord and Lady . Edmund Talbot. The Cathedral choir, under the direction of Mr. E. H. Terry, supplied the vocal music, while there were a hundred and fifty instrumentalists forming the massed bands of the Brigade of Guards under the . direction of Captain J. Mackenzie Rogan. The Brigade drums and bugles were also in attendance. This is the first Occasion on • which a military band had been requisitioned for a service in the Cathedral. At the close of the service the massed buglers of the Brigade of Guards, posted in one of the galleries, sounded with thrilling effect the Last Post.’ „. BEQUEST FOR ECCLESIASTICAL EDUCATION. f The will of Mr. Robert Banks Lavery, of 6 Portland Place, who died on October 23 last, aged 80, has been proved at £130,840. This is for the English estate alone, and there are in addition valuable mining properties in Spain. • After making certain bequests, the testator bequeaths as follows:—£5000 to be raised twenty years after his death, and in the meantime interest at 4 per cent* to be paid thereon, both capital and income being paid in moieties to the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, or his successors, and to the Bishop of Salford, .or his successors, to- be applied for the maintenance and. education of students for the priesthood in the hope that some of ‘ the ‘students thereby assisted may serve in the diocese of Salford, declaring that the bequest is made in memory of the testator’s parents, brother, and sister, late, of the same diocese. The will, gives to the executors and trustees

power to finance the ; Spanish mines, and then provides for the accumulation for twenty years of a portion of the income, and gives the remaining income ; and, -at the expiration of the period of twenty years,- the entire capital (subject to any then remaining annuities) to nine Catholic charities.

INDIA THE GERMAN JESUITS. The German Jesuits of Bombay, including Archbishop Jurgens, S.J., were being repatriated by the Indian Government. It would now seem that his Grace will not leave India. A recent issue of the Times of India has the following statement; ‘On September 3, a letter was written by Mr. J. E. C. Juke's, DeputySecretary to the Government of Bombay, to the Most Rev. Dr. Jurgens, informing him that the Government had been pleased to allow him the option of being repatriated to Germany, or to Holland*, or to remain in India, and requesting him to inform the Government of his wish in the matter. On the following day the Archbishop wrote in reply that he could not leave the' archdiocese without the permission of the Holy See, by whom it had been entrusted to him, and that at the present moment he did not consider it opportune to ask for this permission. He had, therefore, decided to remain in India. Out of the 124 Fathers, scholastics, and Brothers in the whole mission, 95 are Germans; so that there will be only 27 Fathers and two Brothers left Swiss, Luxemburgiaus, or British subjects.

ROME A GREAT IRISH MISSIONARY. ' Owing to the war but little notice has been taken in these islands of the centenary of St. Columbanus, the great Irish rival of St. Benedict, who passed away in 615 (says the Catholic Times). • The centenary was, however, celebrated in Rome. Very fittingly, for the saint was not only an apostolic promoter of the faith so jealously guarded by Peter’s successors, but a special benefactor of Italy. . Tie died beside the Trebbia, after a wonderful career, in the course of which, besides carrying out many other important works, he founded the famous monastery of Bobbio. Though his habits were austere, his life was full of romance and adventure. There are no pages in the histories of missions more fascinating than those which tell how, leaving his native land with twelve companions, he passed through Britain to Gaul; how Gontran, the grandson of Clovis, induced him to settle down in Burgundy • how his voice subdued brigands and wild beasts; how the birds came to be caressed by him ; how squirrels descended from the trees to greet him ; how he drove a bear from a cavern to make it his cell; how Thierry, incited by Brunchaut, expelled him from his beloved Luxeuil ; and how, landing on the shores of the Rhine, he preached the Gospel to the Alemanni, converted many idolaters with the aid of his fellowcountryman St. Gall, and, crossing the Alps, went on to Lombardy to continue there his fruitful missionary labors. St. Columbanus was a plain speaker, but at the same time a firm believer in the authority of the Pope as the head of the Church. - ’ •