PEOPLE WE HEAR ABOUT

New Zealand Tablet, 17 May 1917, Page 43

PEOPLE WE HEAR ABOUT

Most Rev. Dr. Aelen, Archbishop of Madras, has been nominated by the Government of the Presidency to a seat in the Madras Legislative Council. Rev. Theobald Butler, the oldest Jesuit in the New Orleans province, died recently at the College of St. Stanislaus, in Macon, Ga. He was in his eightyseventh year. Father Butler was a native of Tipperary and a cousin of the gallant Sir William Butler.

It has pleased the Holy Father to bestow the title of Doctor of Philosophy on Mr. Alfred Herbert, who since 1904 has held the responsible post of Prefect of Studies in St. Edmund's College, Old Hall. The honor comes as an acknowledgment of the by no means usual position in which Mr. Herbert, a layman, has done such effective work for the Diocesan Seminary of Westminster. It is a well-deserved honor which has been conferred on Mgr. W. L. Keatinge, C.M.G., of being promoted to the rank of Brigadier-General, on his appointment as principal chaplain to the British forces at Salonika. Mgr. Keatinge, at the beginning of the European war was made senior Catholic chaplain to the British Expeditionary Forces, and in 1915 received his C.M.G., also being mentioned in dispatches. The Dominican Order lost one of its oldest members in this country when the Very Rev. Charles H. McKenna, 0.P., died at Jacksonville, Fla., in his 83rd year. He was one of the greatest missionaries of the Order in America, and founded the Holy Name Society, the membership of which now aggregates upward of a million and a-half. The remains were brought to New York for the Solemn Requiem and interment.—R.l.P. Rev. Jean Le Grande, S.M., of the Church of Notre Dame des Victoires, South End, Boston, observed the golden jubilee of his ordination on December 27. Father Le Grande was born on December 27, 1836, in Bretagne, France. He studied in the seminary of St. Breieuc and was ordained there on December 27, 18G6. Two years later he joined the Marist Order and for some time was engaged as a teacher in schools and colleges in France. He came to the United States 25 years ago. The Rev. Daniel Quinn is an American, a Catholic, and, above all, a devoted priest. He is a linguist also —head of the Leonine College at Athens, Greece. In the ten years he has passed in sight of the Acropolis Father Quinn has had few lonesome hours —for even in that land the übiquitous Celt is in evidence. Several years ago Father Quinn took a vacation on the Island of Cephalonia, one of the seven lonian islands off the west cost of Greece. One day while wandering over the island he came upon an institution of learning for women. Father Quinn was invited in by the Sister Superior, whose name proved to be Murphy. She was reading a history of the Irish race written in Greek. Father Quinn continued his journey to the principal town of the island. There he found that the leading merchant and exporter was a man named O'Toole, of Irish extraction, who spoke no other language than Greek.

The Archdiocese of New York lost one of its most learned men when Rev. Remy Lafort died at the convent of the Missionary Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis at Peekskill, N.Y., where he was stationed as spiritual director. Father Lafort was born in Belgium sixty-one years ago. In 1882 he came to the United States to accept the professorship of Sacred Scripture in St. Joseph’s Theological Seminary, then at Troy, N.Y. When St. Joseph’s Seminary was changed to Dunwoodie, in the Archdiocese of New York, Father Lafort continued, for a time, to teach Sacred Scripture at the Seminary. When his health failed a year later, he was sent to the Franciscan convent at Peekskill, as assistant to the chaplain. In 1898, he was appointed examiner of books for the Archdiocese of New York. Right Rev. Bishop Hayes, of New York City, was in the sanctuary during the funeral Mass, which was celebrated by Right Rev. Mgr. John Edwards, of New

York City. The eulogy was preached by Rev. William Livingston, Rector of St. Gabriel’s Church, New York City, one of Father Lafort’s first pupils.