Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 34, 30 August 1923, Page 18

Current Topics

Ora Et Labora ' In 1916 was celebrated all through Spain, with the blessing and approbation of Pope Benedict XV., the "Day of the Catholic Press" (El Dia de la Prensa Catolica): In accordance with the wishes of the present Pope, expressed in a letter from Cardinal Gasparri, March 7, 1923, the Day of the Catholic Press is to be kept universally henceforth on June 29. The Holy Father gives his blessing and grants a Plenary Indulgence to all who co-operate in the movement by prayer, propaganda, and offerings. The promoters of the movement desire us to give prominence to the following notice: "CATHOLICS! On June 29, the Feast of SS. Peter and Paul, the annual celebration of the Catholic Press takes place in almost every country in the world, with the support of the Episcopacy, the co-operation of the press, and the benediction of his Holiness. The celebration is entitled: DAY OF THE CATHOLIC PRESS. The Ora et Labora of the Pontifical Seminary of Seville, organized the festival to promote the interests of the Catholic Press, BY PRAYER (Masses, Communions, Sermons). BY PROPAGANDA (Conferences, Meetings, Soirees). BY COLLECTIONS (in churches, streets, and homes). The contributions (last year) amounted to nearly 1,000,000 pesetas, of which ten per cent, was sent to Rome as a Peter's Pence offering, and the remainder distributed among various Catholic publishing houses, five per cent, being reserved for the promotion of the celebrations of the following year. Catholics of all countries! Let us commence at once to prepare a universal Day of the Catholic Press which may be celebrated in all countries of the world on June 29. "Rev. Ildefonso Montero Diaz, D.D., "Professor, Pontifical Seminary, •"Seville, "Spain." The Catholic Paper Ail true Catholics will co-operate with the wishes of the Pope, who has publicly emphasised the importance of supporting the Catholic newspaper. , The best way to prove your sincerity is without doubt to support your own paper and to induce others to support it. Catholic editors are hampered in many ways and their field of labor is necessarily restricted. But it ought to be remembered that their mission is to provide not exciting but wholesome reading for their subscribers, and it were unfair to expect them to cater for the general reading public in ways open to the secular press. Our appeal is necessarily to those who love serious reading, instructive reading, educative reading; and our aim is to provide this weekly mental and spiritual food and to set it forth as attractively as possible. Wc eannot supply all people with brains, but we can promise all who support us that if they read us attentively their knowledge of Catholic doctrine, of Catholic views on social subjects, and of good literature, will be largely increased at the close of each year. We. are in the happy position of having won from totally disinterested readers the magnificent tribute that the New Zealand Tablet . is the best all-round Catholic newspaper they know of. One critic who paid us this compliment was for years editor of leading Catholic reviews and of secular periodicals of great name in the United States, and the other is one of the most cultured of living, bishops, and not an Irishman by birth. We depend on the good will of the clergy, who recognise the benefit of having a good Catholic paper in every home. Of this importance there are many high witnesses. .Cardinal Maffi, of Pisa, in an address on the importance of the Catholic press, said to the priests:

"You preach, on Sunday, but the newspaper preaches every day and every hour. You address the faithful in the church, but the newspaper follows them to their homes. You speak for half an hour or an hour and quit, but- the newspaper never quits." This, should make it plain to all readers that the Catholic press is of absolute necessity. And these words of Cardinal Mam should encourage every Catholic to assist in the spreading of the Catholic press. Archbishop Moeller, of Cincinnati, in a letter to the clergy and laity says: "Fathers and mothers, we strongly urge you not only to do your duty by subscribing to the Catholic papers, but also by reading them. If you notice in them anything, that you judge of interest or benefit to your children fail not to call their attention to it, or direct them to read it. Cultivate in your children a love for reading Catholic literature. For thus your sons and daughters will become better acquainted with the Divine teaching of the Church, her laudable practices and her wonderful activity in every praise-worthy endeavor. "We also recommend that teachers, when they see in Catholic papers or magazines anything of particular interest to the children, have it read to them in class hours." An experienced priest said: "In my experience as a priest I have found that the weekly advent of a Catholic newspaper is one of the greatest helps that a priest can have in his parochial work. A Catholic family that reads a Catholic weekly will not be numbered amongst the absent ones at the Sunday Mass." Another pastor says: —"Truly, and indeed as Pius X. of blessed memory has rightly stressed, a Catholic paper is a weekly missionary in a Catholic home. Next to the Grace of God I ascribe the marvellous success, spiritually and financially, of this parish to the Catholic press." Appreciation of the Irish Government \ There have been far too few to say a good word fur the Irish Government during its uphill task in restoring peace to the country. Too few have appreciated the courage and strength with which these young and untried men faced the duty placed on their shoulders by the people who selected them to administer the government of the Irish Free State. From all sides they were attacked and criticised, and for their pains and trouble all they received from the general public was in the nature of the proverbial fiddler's pay — kicks than halfpence. We are glad to be able to add to the testimony of T. P. Gill, which we already published, the measured opinion of that grand old Irish prelate, Bishop Hallinan, whom death recently removed from the historic See of Limerick. Dr. Hallinan was a man of sound judgment and his rather frail frame was the casket of a soul endowed with wonderful moral courage. Irishmen who knew him will readily admit that his words are always worthy of respect, and no man can have any doubt as to his intense love of the old land whose sufferings wrung his heart during the past four or five years. Writing to the Committee of Cumann na nGaedheal, who had invited him to be present at a public demonstration convened for the visit of leading members of the Government, he said "With President Cosgrave at the helm, he and his Government have steered safely into port the little barque of the Irish Free State, assailed on all sides by wind and waves during the past year. . "With clear vision, undaunted courage, unfailing patience and perseverance they have accomplished their task in the face of unparalleled' difficulties, and hence deserve well of the Irish people. "Through legislation they have passed and established the fundamental principle of Ireland's independence and liberty by inserting in the Constitution ' That all authority in Ireland, legislative, executive,. and judicial is derived from the people of Ireland,' and. by administration they have vindicated the logical consequence of that principle, namely, the supremacy of the rights of the Irish people over all party, sectional or class, interests. "We have now within the limits of the Free State Irishmen freely legislating in Ireland for the interests

of Ireland without interference or hindrance from any source, and in this connection it would be hard to refuse a tribute of praise to the Dail for its legislative output, both in quantity and quality, and its orderly and businesslike debates during its session. "The future of Ireland is now in the hands of the Irish people. It is for them to make or mar its prosperity. r "At this critical period it would be well to blot out as quickly as possible from our minds the memories of a sad and sorrowful past and to look forward with bright hopes to the future whilst not neglecting partial or class interests. All should try to be animated with a sincere desire to serve Ireland first and above everything. J "The partition of the country, for which, as far as I can judge, the present Irish Government is in no way responsble, is a drawback; but it is so unnatural and unnational that it cannot last, and sooner or later must cease as a result of the peaceful and national evolution of the economic life and national spirit of the whole country." , ; A Defence of the Bishops Even in this country we have a few Catholics who imagine they are better patriots and better theologians than the body of distinguished men who form the Irish Hierarchy. Judging from some of the ill-spelt and ill-written letters of abuse sent to us from time to time by persons who want us to take a stand against the Irish people whom we have stood by alone when no other paper in all New Zealand actively helped them, ignorance and conceit must often go hand in hand among our critics. Our attitude has been always consistent. We stand for the majority of the people of Ireland; and were they for a Republic to-day we should be with them as we were when we risked gaol time and again in our efforts to make known here, among papers that with no exception were unfriendly, the truth of the Irish situation. When Cabinet Ministers brayed for our blood, even when all sorts of underhand wires were pulled against us, we stood firm and where we stood then we stand to-day. In seven years, from this office and owing to the exertions of this paper, sixteen thousand pounds went to Ireland to help the people. The attitude of the Irish Hierarchy has been exactly like our own. On sound ethical principles they were bound to support the government supported by the majority of the people. They did not condemn those who wanted a different form of government, but they condemned the unconstitutional methods to which such people had recourse. Owing to the foolishness of those who abandoned constitutional methods, the Republican Party is weak now when it might "easily have been the most powerful Irish party. That, and the waste of millions of pounds worth of Irish property, are to be regretted • but, far more to be regretted is the demoralisation caused by the revolt against the people and against the Hierarchy by wordspinning casuists and their dupes. The full extent of that revolt may be measured by the references to the Pope and the Bishops made not long ago by certain speakers who came from Ireland to Australia, via America. To us it has been astounding that Irish Catholics should be so blind. For ignorant people like some of our illiterate critics we make all sorts of allowances; but the attitude of those who cannot plead ignorance can only be explained by reference to that moral Modernism which the Pope not long ago condemned. At the consecration of Dr. Doorly, CoadjutorBishop of Elphin, the Most Rev. Dr. Doherty once more briefly set forth the duty of the Bishops to their flocks and that of the flocks, to their shepherds. ;'.;. Most Rev. Dr. Doherty, preaching in the Cathedral, said as the Bishops were commissioned by Christ, so the faithful were bound to. accept their teaching so long as it was within the limits of Catholic doctrine, and unless and until their teaching, on any doubtful point had been set aside by infallible authority. More than a year ago certain disputes arose in Ireland which plainly involved questions of public and private morality. Lives were being sacrificed, property was being

seized or, destroyed. It was of little use to acknowledge in the abstract the fifth and seventh commandments if the people could not be told whether these commandments were being violated in any concrete set of circumstances that might arise. And so, unless the Divinely appointed interpreters of God's law were to betray their trust and remain as dumb dogs when wolves were threatening the sheepfold, THEY WERE BOUND TO MAKE CLEAR THE LAW OP GOD. This they had done in a famous Pastoral signed by every Bishop in the land. They knew the result. There were those who refused the voice of their pastors as the Voice of God. There were those who recognised the voice of their pastors as the Voice of God. There were some who set themselves up as rival teachers and interpreters of the moral law. The living were calumniated as far as unscrupulous propaganda could effect it. The Irish successors of the Apostles were held up as a spectacle and a show before the world. POLITICAL LIES ON THE PART OF THE BISHOPS HAD BEEN ALLEGED by those who, of course, were themselves free from any such accusation. The Bishops were actuated by zeal tor God s law and no man would be their judge He had no doubt that now, as always, when the condition ot strife was over and passions were cooled, the Catholic instinct even of those who had erred would listen to the voice of St. Paul, "Obey your prelates." St. Columbanus . We have received a circular announcing that on the first three days of September, in the Italian town of Bobbio, will be celebrated the thirteenth centenary of that great old Irish Missionary Saint, Columbanus, who is patron of the town and diocese with which his glorious memory is so closely associated. In the long roll of those Irish saints and scholars who spread the light of the Gospel and re-awakened in foreign lands the true spirit of culture and religious life there is no more illustrious and more honored name than that of Columban, Abbot, first, of Luxeuil, in France, and afterwards of Bobbio, the historic diocese between Genoa and Milan, near the river Trebbia situated in a defile of the Apennines. Even in Italy' land of so many great names, the thirteen centuries that have elapsed since his death have not obscured the figure of St. Columban. The admirers of his work to-day are as innumerable as they are universal and Italian scholars trace back to him that remarkable reawakening of culture and of the religious spirit which took place in the sixth and seventh centuries, bearing willing testimony to the potent influence of his founda* tions in Luxeuil, St. Gall, and Bobbio—all marked, in their culture as in their missionary apostolate, with the stamp of the saint's personality. Both France and Italy have great reason to venerate the memory of Columban, but it is the special glory of Ireland to be able to claim that she was the land which gave him birth. He was born somewhere in West Lemster in the year in which St. Benedict died, and, despite the opposition of his mother, he decided to embrace the monastic state. In the celebrated monastery of Bangor, which at that time had for its abbot St. Comgall, he led for many years a life conspicuous for fervor, regularity, and learning. At about the age of forty he seemed to hear incessantly the voice of God bidding him preach the Gospel in foreign lands. At first his Abbot declined to let him go, but at length he gave consent, after which Columban set sail with twelve devoted companions, landing probably on the Scottish coast, where they remained but a short time, after which they crossed to Prance. In that country, where his fame had preceded him, Columban made several foundations, including that of Luxeuil, and for these flourishing communities he wrote his rale, which embodies the customs of Bangor , and other Celtic monasteries. After a sojourn of twenty years in France the Saint passed through Switzerland on his way to Italy, where he found a settled abode at Bobbio, the place

in which he erected the celebrated abbey that for centuries was a stronghold of orthodoxy in Northern Italy. He died there in the year 615, and in time his tomb became a celebrated shrine to which pilgrims flocked from all > parts of Europe. Saints and popes have knelt before the ashes of the Irish saint and scholar, to honor his memory and to ask his intercession. Once, the present Holy Father went thither as a pilgrim, and from his Throne in Rome he reminds us of the dutiful homage humanity owes “to the figure of the great •monk .who from the halo of his heavenly glory sheds such a light in history that it illumines the world.” Owing to the Avar the celebrations, which would otherwise have been held in 1915, had to be postponed. The circular signed by the Bishop of Bobbio says that the centenary functions will “signal out for special public gratitude that sacred island that gave Columbanus birth, and will bind still faster the relations which existed in the Middle Ages, and have been renewed in recent decades, between Ireland and Bobbio.” To all the Gaelic race the appeal goes forth, inviting us “to renew before the urn of Columbanus the old Irish 'spirit of Faith and learning, here so harmoniously entwined in the ardent heart of the Saint and in the glowing pages of his writings. Here, too, Ave will seek his intercession for the welfare of the countries dearest to him—-the land of his birth and that where he breathed his last.”

Apropos of the writings of Columban, we are told by Ware that they number seventeen, and regarding the sermons Guizot remarks: "The flights of imagination, the pious transports, the rigorous application of principles, the warfare declared against all vain or hypocritical compromise, give to the words of the preacher that passionate authority which may not always and surely reform the soul of his hearers, but which dominates over them and for some time at least exercises paramount sway over their conduct and their life." Bobbio's scriptorium alone, it may be mentioned, has enriched the greatest depositories of Italian culture —the Ambrosian of Milan, the Vatican, the libraries of Turin and Naples, not to mention the many volumes that found their way to Vienna and the Escurial, to Paris and Germany. Speaking their Irish origin in lettering and in ornament, these precious codices are recognised by paleographists as the source of the calligraphic reform of the ninth century. Pilgrims from Ireland and many other lands will flock to the centenary celebration, but those pious admirers of the Saint who cannot be present but are desirous of participating in the festival can help by subscribing towards the heavy expenses incurred in renovating the Basilica. <*X> '