PEOPLE WE HEAR ABOUT

New Zealand Tablet, 23 October 1919, Page 33

PEOPLE WE HEAR ABOUT

During tho peace-celebrations of Belgium; King "Albert, President Poincare, and -Marshal Foch made : a special journey to Marines, where, in the presence of an enormous crowd and amid an indescribable manifestation of enthusiasm at the Cathedral, President Poincare invested the intrepid Cardinal* Mercier with" the French Croix de Guerre.' Rev. Eugene de L. McDonnell, pastor of St. Ignatius' Church, Baltimore,' and . a noted member of the Society of Jesus, will be relieved of his duties and will sail for Bombay, India, within a few weeks to take up work there (says an exchange of recent date). Father O'Donnell will be one of a party of ten Jesuits of the Maryland-New York province to go to tho East. The assignment of the American priests to India is the result of the recent joining of the Bombay province to the Maryland-New Y<Trk province and the detaching of the Jamaica province from tho latter. The Bombay territory was formerly under the control of the German province, and the work of the German Jesuits was brought to a close by their internment, in common with all other people of German parentage, in that region. Cardinal Mcrcier's secretary, Rev. Dr. Peter Joseph Strycker, arrived in New York recently from France to arrange for tho visit to the United States of the famous Belgian prelate. Dr. Strycker, who is Vice-Rector of the American College, University of Louvain, said Cardinal Mercier would land in .New York and would visit Philadelphia, Baltimore", Chicago, Washington, Portland, Ore., and other cities. "Cardinal Mercier," said Dr. Strycker. "is coming to the United States as a representative of the people of Belgium to thank the American people., for the part they took in the war. He will visit as many parts of the country as possible and particularly the North-west, a region he lias been greatly interested in through the Indian stories told him as a hoy by his uncle, Mgr. Croquet." Mgr. Croquet was a missionary in the North-west when that district was mainly inhabited by Indians. In his old age lie .returned to Belgium and fired the imagination of the future Cardinal with tales of his adventures among the red men whom he had grown to admire. Dr. Strycker will confer with Cardinal Gibbons and Archbishop Hayes of New York, as to the details of Cardinal Mender's visit. Abbe Earnest DinineH, one of the most gifted and facile French writers of English, recently visited tho United States. The Abbe is representing Lille University, seeking American aid in its re-establishment. The Abbe Dimnet is professor of English literature at the College Stanislaus, Paris. While in America he will deliver the Lowell lectures at Harvard University (says an exchange). Harvard can pay no higher honor to a foreigner than it has bestowed upon the French priest. Furthermore, the presidents of Yale, Harvard, and Columbia Universities and the rector of the Catholic University of America have promised the Abbe all possible assistance in his mission to secure financial assistance for the rebuilding of Lille. Examinations were still going on at Lille University at the beginning of August, 1914, when, at a single call, every one of its 700 young men students and many of its professors were mobilised. Soon thereafter the Germans took Lille, and held it for more than four years. Sister Regina, the much beloved member of the Daughters of Charity* of St. Vincent de Paul, who since 1898 was in charge of the men's hall at St. Vincent's Hospital, Indianapolis, U.S.A., left recently for Carville Island below New Orleans where she will take charge of the work at the Louisiana Leiper Home. This is an institution for lepers which is conducted by the devoted Sisters of the Order to which she belongs. The institution is on an island in the Mississippi river 15 miles below New Orleans There are 86 plague-stricken patients in the colony, and heretofore six Sisters of the Order, under Sister" Benedicta, have had charge of the great charity conducted on the

island. - The > number ■of lepers has increased -and' from year to year there has been heed of increasing the- number of Sisters. It ,is understood ' Sister Regina goes to assume charge of y the work-,- at the institution succeeding i Sister Benedicta who has conducted it for many years. 1,-When the Sisters go to this institution they generally, expect to spend the remainder of their days there. Rev. A. V. Keenan, of the diocese of New Orleans, is the chaplain in charge of the institution. During her years of service at the hospital Sister Regina attended many famous men, among them Theodore' Roosevelt, who, while President of the United - States was stricken while in Indianapolis.