Wanganui

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLIV, Issue 1, 4 January 1917, Page 15

Wanganui

(From our own correspondent.? December 26. The Very Rev. Dean llolley has been appointed Provincial of the Society of Mary in the Dominion in place of Dean Smythe, of blessed memory, who died last September. Valuable additions to the adornment of the sanctuary of St. Mary's Church have recently been made, the gifts of parishioners. A beautiful Axminster carpet has been donated by Mrs. D. Cullinane, Mrs. Selby Morton, and the 1 learn family, at an approximate cost of £IOO, whilst Mrs. T. Cody has generously defrayed the expense of painting the sanctuary. On Christmas Day at St. Mary's Church the ceremonies incidental to the great festival drew large congregations. The decorations of the v altars and immediate surroundings with palms, garlands, and flowers were, as usual, of an elaborate and attractive nature. The celebrations of Masses began at 6 o'clock, when, notwithstanding the early hour, there was a large- congregation. The second Mass was at 7.30, when the church was crowded. A third Mass was said ; at 9 o'clock, and the last Mass, which was a choral one, at 10.30. It is computed that the total number of Communicants at all the Masses amounted to over 1000, a practical proof of the piety and devotion of the flock, and their ready response to the wishes and exhortations of their parish priest (Very Rev. Dean Holley) and his devoted assistants, who placed themselves entirely at the disposal of the faithful to prepare them for the worthy reception of the Sacraments. At the High Mass at 10.30 the Very Rev. Dean Holley was celebrant, Rev. Fathers Mahoney and Dowling being deacon and subdeacon respectively. Mr. J. Kersley presided at the organ, and Mrs. Spilla'ne was in charge of the choir, whose rendering of the Mass, together with the 'Adeste Fideles,' was excellently sung. The Dean, in a short discourse, congratulated the people on their fidelity in approaching the Sacraments in such numbers, which was the surest way to spend a happy Christmas, which he earnestly wished them all. lie thanked the choir,' the Sisters of St. Joseiih for their floral decorations, and eulogised the benefactors,to whose liberality the sanctuary, God's dwelling place, owed its present adornment. Solemn Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament brought the morning ceremonies to a close. ,

'. ■ GENERAL.' '-.■ -; Sister Maria Comers, a brave Belgian nurse, who is known as the 'Angel of Antwerp,' has been presented - with two medals in recognition of her saving the lives'of three Royal Marines recently. One medal, the Order gof King Leopold' 11., was presented to her by King Albert of Belgium, while the other, the Militaire War -.Cross;, was -conferred on" her by Gen. Konings of the -Belgian Army; ' r , , V -.;-.■ ~ :At least one of the recently decorated V.C. winners >is a v Catholic. Second-Lieutenant Gabriel George Anthony Conry, of the 'South; Lancashire Regiment, is -a Liverpool man ; of 20, educated ai Stonyhurst. , Joining the 6th King's Liverpool as a private he was afterr wards given a commission in the South Lancashires, and lately joined the Flying Corps. Lieutenant- J. Holland, another of the new V.C. is returned as ah Irishman. It is not known yet whether he also is a Catholic. : He came from the Argentine to join the army as a voluny teer at the outbreak of the war. - ' /"•'., ':.-.' "Probably no other nation in Europe has suffered more during the present war than have the Poles. ;.-.Fourteen million Poles, including almost all the children under seven years of age, have perished. More than 20,500 villages have been laid waste. More than 200 towns have been obliterated.- Over £2,000.000,000 . worth of property has been destroyed. Fully 1600 churches are in ruins. Unless food, clothing, and fuel are given to multitudes of the survivors, they will perish. Poland before the war had a population of 34,000,000. \; It now has less than 20,000,000, and legions of these men, women, and children are destitute. ' THE CATHOLICITY OF THE FRENCH ;:- ' ' - / • GENERALS. A writer in a contemporary journal calls attention to the marvellous change that has come about in the French Army since the days of Combes and General Andre, under whose regime of espionage and persecution and boycott no Catholic or Catholic-minded officer had the faintest chance of promotion, and all the responsible posts were filled by Masonic creatures or other anti-clericals (says the Edinburgh Catholic Herald). In the stress of a national crisis the Catholics have once more come to the fore, whilst Masonic and Republican Generals, having been proved incapable, have been compelled to take a back seat. The war has sifted , these men, the chaff from the wheat. Catholic officers, who were previously the victims of an anti-religious conspiracy, and were denied advancement because of their convictions, are now, by sheer genius, brilliancy, and sterling moral character, entrusted with the leadership of the armies of France as the saviours of their country. General Castelnau has already been referred to frequently in these columns as a Catholic pur sang. A contributor to the Irish quarterly Studies is quoted as furnishing a list of- the 25 most prominent French generals in the war, with their religious attitude and antecedents. Of these only two have shown distinct hostility to the Church. Six others are characterised as neutral or indifferent, without stooping to any baseness in their relations with Catholicity (General . Joffre .is among these). The largest class, composed of 17. generals, includes those who are frankly and professedly Catholic in belief and practice. Their names deserve to be recorded: Generals de Castelnau, Petain, Pau, Foch, d'Amade, j|j D'Urbal, de Maud'huy, Gourand, de Langle, de Cary, .Franchet d'Esperey, de Villaret, de Mitry, Bailloud, Humbert, and perhaps also Pelle, Roques, and Conneau. ■ These, and such as these, are the men whom Combes • would have kept down at the foot of the ladder because O of their staunch Catholicity : now they are really saving ; France from her enemies. If Combes and his pack of infidel Masons had had their way, 'it is not too much to say,' writes the Studies contributor, 'that two-thirds of the men whose guidance is saving France would not have'been in a position to do more than die for her.'

ARMY CHAPLAINS AWARDED MILITARY SUS -._....". CROSS. • ggsgs* Rev. Father Stratton, S.J., who was on the staff of St. Aloysius' College; Glasgow, before his appointment as : army chaplain, ; has been awarded the Military Cross for his £ gallantry -on the battlefield, during thel course of the Battle of the : Somme om the; 15th and ? 16th September. Father Stratton, who is "possessed* of a very gentle and 7 attractive disposition, , was very .popular in Glasgow. ■' Tie-underwent a severe operation r ; some time ago, and although this was not completely successful in removing the' cause of his malady, he V did not hesitate to volunteer for duty at the front when the necessity for chaplains ; arose. Me is at"^ present in hospital, suffering from shrapnel wounds, but' it is : hoped that he will r make a good recovery. Rev. Father B. Wilson, C.S.Sp., recently assistant V priest at St. Joseph's, Peasley Cross, , St. Helens, and/ at present chaplain to the 10th Argyll audi Sutherland Highlanders, has been awarded the Military Cross for conspicuous bravery on the field of battle. ■- " > The Rev. Arthur O'Connor, chaplain to the Forces, . has been awarded the Military Cross for special services in the field. Father O'Connor is a priest of the Salford : . diocese and was ordained in 1904. He was an assistant, priest at St. Augustine's, Manchester, when he volun- - teered for military service about two years ago. ;-v: :'- Captain the Rev. John Allan Gray, Catholic chaplain with the forces in France, and formerly of the Church of Our Lady and St. Joseph, Selkirk, has been awarded the Military Cross for distinguished bravery. His first experience of mission work was at Falkirk, ;'. where he remained until some ten years ago, when hewas appointed to the charge of the church at Selkirk. There he remained until this year when he received his appointment as a chaplain with the forces. It is characteristic of the esteem in which he was held by his non-Catholic friends in Selkirk and others that they presented him with his military outfit, along with an address. He proceeded to Egypt first, and latterly was transferred to the Western front. Since then he has been ; almost continuously in the trenches. Father Gray has a wonderful natural talent for electrical engineering. VON MOLIKE'S blunder. '■" Considerable interest is taken in Paris in an account; published in the Renaissance of a statement made by a: German officer, alleged to be of high rank, to a Spanish journalist, who has reproduced it in a Bilbao newspaper. \ . . ■;'...■■' According to this statement (says the Morning Post correspondent), General von Moltke was responsible personally for the German defeat on the Marne. He' states that General von Kluck wished to surround the capital, and undertook to capture it within a very ■ short space of time. He telegraphed to Moltke, who gave him instructions to ignore Paris and go in pursuit of the army corps of Franchet d'Esperey. In this way one day was lost. Two days had now passed, and Kluck a third time urged the importance of capturing Paris, and at the same moment drew attention to the" fresh French army which was appearing on his right. Moltke insisted that this new army was unimportant, and that the real objective was the French left.' Three davs had in this way been wasted and when Kluck delivered his furious attack on the French left he was attacked in. flank, as he. had foreseen, by the Sixth French Army under General Manoury, and was forced to fall back to the Ourcq. ' Such, according to the - German statement, was the terrible error that can never f be forgotten. In this way we lost Paris, for we knew it could never resist a siege by us, because its forts had no., heavy guns to reply to our modern weapons.'

- GERMANY'S CATHOLIC POPULATION. : Though the war will certainly have an ending unfavorable; for Germany, it is not likely that , the progress Ojf -fche Catholic Church in the German Empire will ,suffer any; serous check (says jbhe Catholic Times), The

Will Not Split

Kaiser and the militarists may find their power greatly weakened or destroyed; but the German people will possess 'more c liberty than they / enjoyed before the war and \J. Catholicity will accordingly to. progress amongst; them. - : It is one ;of the most encouraging; signs of the ; times from the spiritual point of view that; in the home of the so-called ; Reformation the Catholic Church ie regaining lost ground.;; According to statistics which 1 have just been published in a German Catholic paper, the number of " Catholics in the Empire at present is 24,215,032 and of -non-Catholics 40,724,000. In. some of the dioceses the Catholics considerably outnumber .the non-Catholics. ":[ In the diocese of Cologne there are 3,140,292 Catholics, and only 1,500,000 non-. Catholics. The Prince-Bishop of Breslau has more Catholics under his jurisdiction than the. Cardinal Archbishop of Cologne less than 3,216,188 —but the non-Catholics in the diocese are nearly three times as numerous as his f10ck—9,400,000. In the dioceses of Munster, Gnesen-Posen, Freiburg, Trier, MunchenFreising, Regensburg, Augsburg, Strasburg, Kuhn, Wursburg, Metz, and Passau the Catholics preponderate and it is probable that when hostilities tease the Catholics will in every respect be placed on an equality with the non-Catholics. For many years they have complained that the authorities in making appointments differentiated against them. BRITISH SOLDIERS AND THE SUPER- " NATURAL. One of the effects of Protestantism in England is that it has left many who profess it with little faith in the supernatural. But the English Protestant soldiers who have gone to France are showing that their religious views are undergoing a change under the influence of the ■ Catholic atmosphere in which they move. A contributor to a recent issue of the London Daily Mail describes the gradual progress that takes place. The priest blesses them as they arrive, and they are struck by the solemnity of the ceremony and the reverence observed by young and old present. Then they come in contact with French Catholic soldiers and find that their strong faith in the protection of the saints and particularly in Joan of Arc carries them confidently through great perils. They wonder, too, at the frequency with which when everything else around suffers destruction crosses, crucifixes, and statues of the Saviour," our Lady and the saints, escape and remain intact. The Protestant soldiers begin to feel that it is good to pray before the wayside crosses and crucifixes, and they collect and keep with reverence objects of piety. To the growth of this feeling and the letters home revealing it is due the new English custom of erecting shrines in the streets. When the Protestant soldiers come back their minds will certainly be much more accessible to Catholic ideas than they were when they left for the front. THE HOLY FATHER AND WAR PRISONERS. Readers of the newspapers in England know how hearty has been the reception extended to the British soldiers, who, being gravely ill or wounded, are now interned in Switzerland, where, owing to the arrangements that have been made by the Federal Council, they are properly cared for. They are also aware that these negotiations were brought to a happy termination, thanks to the interference of the Sovereign Pontiff, Benedict XV., to whom hundreds of broken fighting men have reason to be deeply grateful.

-;-,./.:' ~;> Welcome Presents; w —*"•* - T " - * vii;.; I have ; before me at , this moment (writes the" Paris correspondent of the Catholic Times) an account of the arrival in Switzerland of the French prisoners. When the first batch reached Aigle on their way to the sanatorium 'of Leysih a ' sympathetic crowd awaited - the travellers; who were ; already y laden '~ with f cigarettes, chocolate, and oranges that had been thrown into the train by friendly Swiss people at the stations where the train stopped. .The soldiers' joy and gratitude were manifest, but' they could not forget the comrades they had left behind ) those especially who, being brought to Constance, where, according to the arrangements accepted by the different Governments, they were examined by German "doctors, in presence of; Swiss medical men, were declared not to be sufficiently ill and -were" sent back to their camps. The happy soldiers who had successfully passed the dreaded ordeal, spoke feelingly of those who, within sight of the promised land, had been sent back to suffering—perhaps . to death. It spoils our pleasure,' they said, and others begged the Swiss officer in command to allow them to send the presents just given to them to their less privileged comrades. ..-„.■_•■• . . , G . Effect of the Cry, ( Vive la France.' Madame Noelle Roger, a Swiss writer, sympathetic to the Allies, tells that many French soldiers burst into. tears, when, at Kreuzlingen, close to Constance, they were saluted by the cry 'Vive la France,' which was raised by the friendly Swiss people, who are there on their own ground. ' I did not weep when I was wounded, taken prisoner, and operated on, but I did cry when I heard them ; it upset my heart,' said a rough peasant warrior. At Berne, the French Embassy had prepared a supper, which was served, by the Swiss Red Cross nurses. Here the different groups of . soldiers separated, being sent to their permanent destinations, according to the class of invalids to which they belong. Those who travelled towards the sanatoria of Valais were told that on the opposite shore of the lake, then wrapt in the morning mist, was France. . Poor France,' said one,' ' I never thought to see her again.' At Sierre, above the Rhone Valley, little girls in white were holding the Allied flags; "they surrounded the French soldiers, whose faded uniforms contrasted with the fresh dresses of their little friends. At Interlaken, the sight of a group of maimed soldiers brought tears to the eyes of those present. ' Que voulez vous said one of the worst cases, it was for France.' Self-Sacrificing Peasants. ■ When the Swiss officer in command of this particular region had settled the travellers in the comfortable rooms prepared for them, they seemed taken aback by the unexpected brightness of their surroundings. The average French soldier, it must be remembered, is a peasant, who feels keenly, but expresses himself with difficulty. ' How shall we be able to sleep in these good beds ' said one. 'I am ashamed to be so comfortable,' muttered an adjutant who was severely wounded. 'What have I done? I ought to be at the front,' and his features quivered. Madame Noelle Roger, ah excellent judge, being a cultivated Swiss woman, acknowledges that a certain pressure has been exercised by Germany on Swiss opinion, but she recognises also in .' our people of primitive Switzerland a warm feeling of sympathy towards France simply because an invaded country will always appeal more strongly to these lovers of independence than the invader. . : . " ;