IN HONOR OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN.

New Zealand Tablet, 26 August 1920, Page 28

IN HONOR OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN.

There are over 1000 churches in America that bear the name of Mary, observes the Western Watchman. The first Mass in America was said at Point Conception on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. The oldest city in the United States was founded on the Feast of our Mother’s birth. The first Bishop consecrated in America was consecrated in St. Mary’s Chapel on the Feast of the Assumption. The first Mass sung by the native Americans was the votive Mass of the Blessed. Virgin. Finally, when the Fathers of the Baltimore Council of 1846 saw that young Catholic America needed protection, and protection of ✓ a very special kind, they petitioned the , Holy Father to constitute Mary Immaculate Patroness and Mother of the United States.

ENGLAND’S . REPARATION ‘TO IRISH MARTYR f England’s solemn commemoration of the Beatification of Blessed Oliver Plunket took place at Westminster Cathedral on Wednesday and Thursday, and was attended by huge congregations (says the London Catholic Times of June 19). The historic function happily coincided with the annual meeting in London of the Hierarchy of England and Wales, whose attendance thereat added to the impressiveness of the various commemorative services. Contrary to expectations his Eminence Cardinal 'Logue, the successor in the Primatial See pf Armagh of Blessed Oliver Plunket, was unable to be present. The services commenced in the Cathedral on Wednesday evening with Compline, Te Deum, and Benediction, at which Cardinal Bourne assisted. The Hierarchy of England and Wales were present, in addition to members of the Metropolitan Chapter and hundreds of clergy, secular and regular, nuns from various convents, and a great concourse of laity. His Eminence Cardinal Bourne was the special preacher, and his pronouncement was a notable one. He referred to the sad history of misunderstanding, of sorrow, of tragedy, which had marked the relations of England and the sister nation across the Irish Sea. Religious differences, said his Eminence, accentuated and embittered all the old misunderstandings, and culminated in the long period of bitter, relentless, and sanguinary persecution by which the Protestant majority of Englishmen strove to impose their own religious dissensions on the minority of their own countrymen and on the people of Ireland. The celebrations were continued in the Cathedral on Thursday morning. By special permission of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, all the Masses celebrated at Westminster on that day, the Capitular Mass excepted, might be, as the special Mass, approved for the feast of Ireland’s Martyr. Cardinal Bourne, at 7.30 a.m., was the celebrant of the Mass in St. Patricks Chapel of the Cathedral. At 11.30 a.m. Pontifical High iVlass was sung by the Bishop of Portsmouth, in the presence of Cardinal Bourne and the rest of the Hierarchy. At the close of the Mass the relics of Blessed Oliver Plunket were venerated.