THE LATE MGR. O’RIORDAN.

New Zealand Tablet, 17 June 1920, Page 35

THE LATE MGR. O’RIORDAN.

One of the finest tributes paid to the late Mgr. O’Riordan—who was, by the the way, a relative of the Rev. Father T. W. O’Collins, of Melbourne came from Mgr. Charles Salotti, a prelate well known to Australian students in Rome for his brilliant eloquence and his gracious personality (says the Melbourne Advocate). He concluded a stirring panegyric of the Irish Rector by a slight adaptation of Fere Lacordaire’s pronouncement over the tomb of Montalembert: “Before leaving the presence of this catafalque, I feel I must pause beside it a little longer, and as I pause I seem to hear the voice of the venerated Rector, ' Cecidi, sed resurgam ’ —‘ I have fallen, but I shall rise again on that day on which you, my dear students, shall have become the apostles and champions of the faith and the rights of your country. I have fallen, but I shall rise again on that day when the Pontiff of Christendom shall place on the heads of our national heroes the aureola due to such glorious champions of the faith. I have fallen, but I shall rise again on that day on which Ireland, my country, shall have burst every bond of slavery and oppression and shall at last salute the sunrise of that liberty which for centuries the clouds of foreign rule have hidden from us. I have fallen, but I shall iise again on that day on which the peoples of the world, gathered closely round the Papacy, shall seek from it, and from it alone, the light of truth, and the word which, shall repair all human injustices’.’ With my best wishes and most fervent prayers,” concluded the orator, “I too, look forward to the near approach of this resurrection.”