THE CATHOLIC WORLD

New Zealand Tablet, 27 November 1919, Page 22

THE CATHOLIC WORLD

GENERAL. The jurisdiction of the Apostolic Delegates to Australia (says the London Catholic Times of recent date) has lip to now extended only to that country and the missions of New Zealand. The Sacred Congregation of Propaganda has decreed,- with the consent of the Holy Father, that henceforth the Apostolic Delegate shall also have jurisdiction over the missions of insular Oceania. The Cardinal-Archbishop of Milan warmly recommends to the faithful a collective document on social policy issued by the Bishops of Lombardy. It advocates measures for placing the workers on the land and giving those who are engaged in industrial concerns a share in the profits. It is urged that the people should have better opportunities for education, and points out that the Church not only does not fear the elevation of the toilers in the social scab;, but desires it, as it always has done.

Bishop Joseph Tacc'oni, of tho Province of Honan, China, where he bus been engaged in missionary work for over a quarter of a century, who lias lately been in Buffalo, U.S.A., as a guest of Rev. Joseph Gambilio, does not believe that the League of Nations will endure, unless the policy of self-determination is made one of the fundamental principles of the League. “I do not believe the League of x Nations will endure,” Mgr. Tacconi declared in an interview, “because the members of the League, in my opinion, never intended to carry out its policy of granting selfdetermination to provinces under the control of the nations of the League. Unless self-determination is granted them in tho near future there will bo another league of nations? composed of Germany, Japan, Austria, and all the Oriental countries. Then there will be a war greater than the socalled world war just ended, and I believe it will be within tho next 10 years. Egypt, China, Corea, Thibet, Cochin China, British India, the Province of Malacca, Java, Sumatra, and the Dutch colonies will gladly join a new League of Nations,” the Bishop continued. “This is true especially of the European Asiatic .countries. I do not believe it is intended the League of Nations should be applied to the East. That will make it easy to form a. league in opposition. They all want self-determination because they are growing more civilised each year.” Mgr. Tacconi is enthusiastic about the prospects of the Catholic Church in China. There are 4,000,000 Catholics in v China and 700,000 Protestants of various denominations,, he paid. The rest of ..the 400,000,000, ,to _ 450,000,000 population are

pagans. There-are 56- Catholic Bishops and 4000 missionaries from Italy and France. The Bishop is a native Italian, and is on his way 'to Home, where he intends to remain for several months. •

A CHINAMAN’S TESTIMONY TO THE FAITH. +/ M 6 j-oia; publishes the following outspoken testimony to the haith from a Chinaman of some position—M. Soun. Hus gentleman, as delegate of the Chinese Republic, delivered the Celestial decoration known as “The Golden Awn to Mgr. Reynaud, Vicar Apostolic of Eastern CheJviang, at Ning-Po. Not many years ago M. Soun was an uncompromising and active enemy to Catholicism. Converted since, as he himself declares, not to the Catholic faith, it is true, but to a deep appreciation of Catholicism, he took occasion from the Ning-Po ceremony to make the following generous avowal in the presence of the assembled mandarins; ‘Turning from an .erroneous past, I am anxious, gentlemen, to relieve my conscience by telling you,' who are not Catholics, that I was mistaken (and who knows it there be not amongst you some who are still so?) Not only can one be a Catholic and at the same time a true Chinaman, but in China, as throughout the world, Catholicism is the foundation of the purest patriotism and an unfailing source of the self-sacrifice which it demands. The war has come as a further confirmation of my personal experience. Those great men, those generals whose names an; on the lips of ail, those undoubted saviours of humanity, but first and lorcmost of their own country, are all men of ieligion, nearly all of them Catholics of fervent practice. loch the famous and admirable, the warrior whoso name mil pass into legend," Foch is a Catholicyes! He prays, goes to church, has a brother a, priest. 1 do.not recall the names of all the other French generals, but I know, from close attention to (he subject, that tho greatest among them aie like loch. I lie clue to what may seem to you an enigma is this: Without religious faith (and 1 have no hesitation in placing the Catholic in tho first rank) you cannot have — or can only with difficulty attain— disinterested love to the point of sacrifice, or patience under rials.”

n E X DOL 0 R 1 S. ‘■'S'Kjncd with Ike, s'njn of llis Cross, and salted with His lid ’ — . .1 a i/ii s f i u <:. “Wherefore wilt thou linger, Lady Persephone? The sheaves are gathered, the vintage is done, Bacchus through the ivy-leaves laughing with his satyrs Calls ns to the feasting, and the ripe, red sun Drops like an apple tumbling, to the westward, The shout of the Maenads is merry on the hill, Why do the wheat-ears fall from thy lingers? M horn dost thou look for, lingering still? “Whom dost thou look for? Hero is one to woo thee, Brown-cheeked, beautiful, lissom as the larch, Lightsome, slender, blossomy with kisses, Merrier-looted than the winds in March; Loose thy hair to dream along his shoulder, Drowse in thy whiteness warm upon his breast, He shall feed thee with wheaten cakes and honey And all fair fruits that are rich and daintiest.”

“1 weary of tho feast, 1 weary of tho harvesting, I weary of your music, children of the earth—

Your feet dance over the roofs of my palaces, Tho halls of Hades ring hollow "to your mirth; The great King of Grief hath reft me, ravished me, Broken me with kisses, conquered me with pain, 1 have drunk His bitter wine, I have eaten of His pomegranates,

Can find no savor in the honey-comb again.”

“Wherefore wilt thou linger, Lady Persephone, When sheaves are gathered and tho vintage is done, And Bacchus through the ivy-loaves laughing with his satyrs

Calls us to the feasting, and the ripe, red sun Drops like an apple, tumbling to the westward, While the shout of the Maenads echoes from the hill?” “Ere the round moon rise ruddy on the shocks Tho Lord of Hades shall have me at His will.”

Dorothy L. Sayers, in the New Witness.