PEOPLE WE HEAR ABOUT

New Zealand Tablet, 19 June 1919, Page 39

PEOPLE WE HEAR ABOUT

Despite his advanced age 2 of 82 years']! Most'' Rev. Eulogia Gregori Gillow, the Archbishop of Oaxaca, Mexico, has heroically withstood all the'troubles brought upon him by the revolution (says an American exchange). His father was a descendant of the Gillows of Lancashire, England. His :; mother was a Mexican.

Mr.' Verner Z. Reed, multi-millionaire philanthropist, who as a Catholic proved one of the most generous friends the Catholic Church has ever known in America, was received into the Church at Coronado Beach, California, U.S.A., before his death on Sunday evening, April 20. He was buried from the Cathedral in Denver, Colorado, on Friday morning, April 25, with Solemn Pontifical Mass of Requiem celebrated, by the Right Rev. J. Henry Tihen, D.D., Bishop of Denver, assisted by a number of priests of the city. The largest funeral any Catholic layman has, ever * had in Denver was seen on the occasion. The famous business man, art patron, and writer had long' shown : a decided tendency towards Catholicity. His closest personal friend was a Catholic priest, the Rev. David T. O’Dwyer, pastor of St. Patrick’s Church, Denver. Two of Mr. Reed’s children are converts. The diocese of Lismorc, N.S.W., lost one of its foremost, priests in the death recently of Veil. Archpriest J. G. Walsh, who for so many years controlled the Maclean parish. Born in Enniskean, Co. Cork, on April 24, 1868, educated first from 1874 to 1883, at Mt. Melleray School, Waterford, commencing his ecclesiastical studies at All Hallows College, Dublin, at the age of 18, lasting from 1883 to 1891, and ordained on June 21, 1891. Father Walsh arrived in Australia at the end of that year, being first appointed to Elsinore, curate under his Lordship Dr. Doyle. At Lismore (those were days when priests were few and parishes were big : Lismore included the Tweed Heads) Father Walsh labored for seven strenuous years. He was Dr; Doyle’s right-hand man in connection with the commencing of the new cathedral, and he saw' the division of the vast church area and the making of the Tweed, Ballina, Bangalow', and Mullumbimby parishes. From Lismore Father Walsh went to Maclean, following Dean Kiely (his cousin). This was on March 1, 1901. His work there is too well known to need recapitulation. He worked that big area singlehanded, wiped off the debt of £4OOO that he found, built the presbytery commenced in -July; 1901, and the new convent and school, and leaves his parish financially in a most enviable state. He never spared himself. During the whole of that 20 years’ ministration he was absent from his parish only once for any extended time; that was when he visited New' Zealand 14 years ,ago, on the death of a lifelong, friend. He arranged to go home to that old Ireland he loved, but he never went; his ..work forbade.; The devoted band of the Franciscan Fathers of the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney (N.S.W.), lost’one of its most earnest members by the death of the Rev. Father G. P. Birch, which took place in the Hospice for the Dying, Darlinghurst, recently. The'deceased priest was born in Dublin on June 4, 1860, and was educated at St. Isidore’s, Rome. He was ordained on the 27th anniversary of his birth—-J 4, 1887— St. John Lateran’s, Rome. After his ordination the young priest came out to New South Wales, and- has since labored zealously in the three Franciscan parishes

—Woollahra, Waverley, and Paddington. About four years ago Father Birch took a trip] to his .native. land for the benefit of his health, and on his return was 3 enthusiastically welcomed by his parishioners in St. Francis's Hall, Paddington, and presented with a purse of sovereigns. His father was a Protestant of the severe school, and in consequence the lad found it advisable to conceal from him the fact that he was, like his mother, a devout ; Catholic. No. doubt from his .parent' Father Birch inherited the strength of character for which he was noted. He was a strong hater of all kinds of sham and deception, and never failed in pulpit or on platform to voice his condemnation of injustice and all forms of hypocrisy. His passionate sermons on the evils of social conditions attracted widespread attention. A great lover of his native and his adopted lands, Father Birch was . never slow to advocate their advancement. - The -arduous labors" of 31 years in the Eastern Suburbs told upon his constitution, and for some time past he had been compelled to relinquish parochial work.