Catholic World

New Zealand Tablet, 30 March 1922, Page 39

Catholic World

t rr FOURTEEN MILLION CATHOLICS IN THE EMPIRE. The Catholic Directory for Great Britain, which is now published for 1922, gives some interesting figures regarding the position of the Catholic Church in England, Scotland, and Wales. England and Wales have 20 Catholic archbishops and bishops, Scotland six (the See of Glasgow for the moment being vacant); England and Wales have 3962 priests and Scotland has 598, giving a total of 4560 priests in Great Britain. The largest diocese, judging from the numbers of clergy, would appear to be Southwark, with 537 priests; Liverpool has 504; Salford, 378; Westminster has 492 (having lately shed the newly-formed diocese of Brentwood with 94 priests). In Scotland the Archdiocese of Glasgow has 304 priests; St. Andrews and Edinburgh, 106; with Aberdeen, Dunkeld, Galloway, and Argyll and the Isles following in that order..

The Catholic population of England and Wales is estimated ■ at something just short of two millionsthe actual figure being 1,931,991. Conversions to. the Catholic Faith registered in Britain during 1920 number 12,621. The Catholic marriages for that year, in the same area, were 23,940, and the baptisms 77,721. The Catholic population of the British Commonwealth in Europe is returned at 0,99/,348. In addition to that, in British possessions in Asia there are about 2} million Catholics, in Africa rather over hall a million, in British possessions on the American Continent (apart from Canada) about half a million. Canada has close on three millions of Catholics, and Australia about a million and a quarter, giving something over 14 millions of Catholics in the various States of the British Empire. The Catholic population of the world is estimated at about 317 millions.

THE SISTINE CHOIR. The Sistine Choir of 60 boys and men, in charge of Monsignor Antonio Rella, and accompanied by Mr. Timm as Quinlan, embarked on the Orient liner Omar at Naples recently for a tour of Australasia. The Sistine Choir is the most famous body of choristers in the world. The choristers are the Pope’s own singers, and they sing only at functions in the Sistine Chapel or at St. Peter’s, where the Pope officiates or presides. They never sing with instrumental accompaniment, and their repertoire is exclusively Gregorian, and of Palestrina or his school The choir consists of 60 boys and men; but of these not more than 40 sing at religious ceremonials, 20 of the choristers being held in reserve in rotation. Originally the sopranos and altos of the choir were boys, as they are now. But in the 17th century and part of the 18th, the male soprano and alto, chiefly trained by Spanish masters by a method now said to be lost, sang the higher parts. Most of the adult choristers are priests, with the title of Monsignor. Mendelssohn, who was half Jew and half Lutheran, has recorded his impressions of the Good Friday music as rendered by the Sistine Choir, and frankly ackonwledged that he was deeply moved by the - wonderful pianissimo mgmg an by the concentration of every individual choris-nr-Pl^ 1, < 6 Spell 0f SUch mUsic ’” said the composer of Elijah, one is filled with the spirit of worship and reverence During a very brief season the New Zealand public will have the privilege of hearing this unique organisation, which has never before sung outside of Italy, ■and which has won the homage of such men as Mozart’ Mendelssohn, Mascagni, Verdi, Gounod, Mugnone Sgama i, Marchetti, and all the great conductors of to-day.

THE SISTINE CHOIR’S GREAT CONDUCTOR Monsignor Re ? la ’, the famous conductor of the Sistine Choir lately received from the Dowager Queen of Italy and Queen Elena a joint souvenir in appreciation of his direction in Rome of the two great concerts he gave for the restoration of the church in northern Italy ruined during the Great War. The gift took the form of a set of musical biographies, magnificently bound in ivory and

bearing the joint monograms of the Royal donors. Monsignor Bella, who is a fluent composer, was at one time Professor of Music at the North American College, Rome. Toscanini has described Bella as the greatest choral conductor in the world.

THE VERY REV. FATHER P. M. LYNCH, C.SS.R. Very Rev. Father P. M. Lynch, C.SS.R., returned to Sydney the other day by the Aki Maru, after two years and a half on the mission in the Philippines. Though somewhat thinner, he is in splendid health. This was his second visit to the islands. On the first occasion, he spent nearly five years at Cebu and at Malate, Manila. On this occasion he was at Malate, and he gave missions and Retreats in the different parts of the islands, and at Hongkong, Sarawak, Borneo, and in the Straits Settlements and Malay Federated States, giving in all in Malaya alone nearly 20 different missions to the people, and retreats to clergy and religious.

The Redemptorists have now 13 Fathers on the mission in the Philippines. They have two very fine schools in Cebu and Malate, where in each school about 71ai boys and girls receive primary and intermediate education. They are first-grade schools, and the education authorities regard them as of a very high standard. The Benedictine Missionary Sisters have just taken charge of the Redemptorist school at Opon, Cebu. A Belgian Sister superintends 15 native teachers in Malate school. > Archbishop Doherty is pushing on Catholic education in the Archdiocese of Manila, and he is warmly supported by the native priests. All the bishops in the islands are doing the same work, seeing the absolute necessity for having Catholic schools for the children.

Father Lynch says there is a strong feeling on the China coast that the work of the Irish mission at HanYang will be a marked success. The Maryknoll Fathers, who work now in South China, are a great success. They are mostly Irish-Americans. The same is to be said of Father Frazer’s Canadian missionaries in China. Father Lynch speaks in the highest terms of the Millhill missionaries in Iloilo in the Philippines, and at Kuching, Sarawak, Borneo. “I have never met more heroic priests,” he said. “The cause of one of these missionaries, Father Felix Westerwoult, a Dutchman, is being introduced. He spent 12 years among the head-hunters, with no apparent success. But success came after his death.”

ARCHBISHOP OF OTTAWA DEAD. A Toronto message conveys news of the death, after a long illness, of Monsignor Charles H. Gauthier, Archbishop of Ottawa. Appointed to the episcopal See of Kingston by a Bull of Leo XIII. in 1891, Mgr. Gauthier 12 years later was promoted to the Metropolitan See of Ottawa as its second Archbishop. By birth the late Archbishop was, on his father’s side, of French-Canadian extraction. But through his mother, whose maiden name was McKinnon, the Archbishop could claim an unbroken descent through the ninth century King Alpin with royal Scottish ancestors whoso history goes hack to the dim ages of pre-Roman Scotland.

The Archbishop leaves behind him an imperishable memorial to his episcopal labors, in the many churches, hospitals, convents, and schools that were founded and built by him during his ecclesiastical career.