ROME LETTER

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLIII, Issue 18, 4 May 1916, Page 45

ROME LETTER

(From our own correspondent.)

■ - • ’ • >• • February ' 18. THE RELIGIOUS REVIVAL IN ITALY.

./ Since Italy unsheathed the sword the world' has heard a great deal of the religious revival among her 40,000,000 people. Her churches are crowded, her confessionals are' beseiged, human respect seems dead or dormant; between the priest, the soldier, and the layman one sees in public that comradeship so eloquent of the healthy spirit which ought to exist in every Catholic country. : All this causes no surprise to anyone knowing that at bottom Italy is a Catholic country, no matter what impression many of her emigrants make by , falling off from religious practices on leaving her cathedral-covered land. ,- , . • But does this mean that the Church can Expect any appreciable diminution at the end of the war in the hostility of her enemies? Ido not believe it. No one who watches current events can believe it, v either; for the antiCatholic societies (secret and open) now «labor , even more energetically than ever to thwart the clergy, to represent the Holy See as hostile to the nation. Only his week the clergy were prevented by the Mayor of -Ravenna from officially officiating in the funeral cortege of the victims . of the aerial bombardment. To such a pitch can the anti-Catholic obstinacy of a few miserable cliques go in beating itself aganist the Rock unshakable.. After all, reader, is it not natural for this kind of gentry to witness all nations hearkening to the voice of. the Holy Father? In L’Eclair this . week,' M. Gudet upholds the thesis that none is so well adapted as the Pope to save the world from brutal solutions of differences in opinion. What has he not done for individual prisoners, and for Belgium, Poland, Armenia? And at present, Mgr. Heylen, Bishop of Namur, is carrying out the Pope’s mandate to go through the dioceses of France and make spiritual and material provision for the parts most overrun by troops. M. Briand, Premier of France, though making no effort, needless to say, to see the Holy Father during his recent visit to Rome, found it to his purpose to meet Cardinal Mercier. . So that Church and State, no matter how many Separation Laws are passed, go hand in hand. Truly the Pope’s influence is felt by all — those most reluctant to recognise it. No wonder every ruse is adopted - to represent him as not being neutral in the war. But what a charming little note has come to Benedict XV. from the four children named Hollande, to thank his Holiness for, as they ingenuously put - it, ‘ saving their father’s life.’ The little ones who sign the letter vary in age from two to fourteen years. Most Holy Father,’ they write from Paris, ‘we are four French children, very grateful to your Holiness for the initiative which you had the, goodness to take on behalf of the sick prisoners. Our father, after seventeen months of hard imprisonment in Germany, having been seized with pleurisy, has been interned in Switzerland. As he is the first officer of the French army who has been conducted there, we regard it as our duty to thank your Holiness for all our family and for our dear France, and beg you to please accept the expression of our profound respect and devoted attachment.’ This charming note has been aptly called in Rome ‘ a lily among thorns.’ About the same time as it appears, some curious statistics come to hand. Will it be believed that in Paris alone .the number of clairvoyants, mediums, witches, and others' of the pythoness genus come 'to the pretty total of 34,607 ? These are the professionals; those who exercise their calling privately are not included. It is calculated the annual receipts of the tribe amount to 73,000,000 francs. And one daily alone pockets from 250 to 300 francs a day for advertisements of the birds of prey and their dupes. ' ’ THE IRISH MARTYRS.

There is no man with a drop of Irish blood in his veins whp will not join the Most Rev. W. J. Walsh, Archbishop of Dublin, in thanking Cardinal Vannutelli for the recent advance in the Cause of the Irish Martyrs, and for the care with which he guarded its progress these past ten, yeqrs. Ever since the vast quantity of documents compiled in the diocesan courts of Sydney and of Dublin were placed before the Sacred Congregation of Rites, Cardinal Vincenzo Vannutelli has guided the Cause as a true friend. In the February number of the Irish Ecclesiastical Record," Archbishop Walsh writes - of the debt 1 of gratitude due to Cardinal Vannutelli, not only for the manner in which, as Cardinal Poriente of the Cause, he pushed forward the examination of-the Ordinary Process which the chief pastor of Sydney and of Dublin sent to Rome to Mgr. Murphy, but also for his steering the case clear of postponements. ' Dr. Walsh’s tribute is well 'merited. Acting in the name of the Holy See, the Archbishop of Dublin is now•; taking the > next great -step in the case, technically known as the Apostolic 1 Process, which will take to complete anything from two to four years. The desire of every Irishman at home and abroad is that both Cardinal Vannutelli and Archbishop Walsh /may be /spared to hear • on© . day ..the Vicar of Christ proclaim - v in' St. Peter’s the,elevation to the• honors of the , altar those. 280 men and women who died for- the faith. ' '' And in ;'Rome

. the on© great regret is that, two are not alive to share, the expression of thanks tendered to Cardinallyannutelli—' viz., Cardinal Moran and Mgr. Murphy. ’ i

"NOTE.

: /7£Nln the recent" issue of the Acta Apostolicae Sedis publication is given to the warm letter of encomium written by Benedict XV. to Viscount D’Hendecourt on the flourishing condition of the conferences of St. Vincent de Paul /Society." ; -