Catholic World

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 13, 8 April 1925, Page 55

Catholic World

(By John C. Reville, S.J., in America.)

| CONCORDAT RATIFIED BY BAVARIA. By a majority vote the Bavarian State Parliament has ratified the Concordat between the State Government and the Holy See r and congratulatory telegrams have passed between the Vatican and the State Ministry (says Catholic News Service, London, for February 16). The new. Concordat takes the place of the older one of 1871, and acI commodates itself to the changed conditions brought about as a result of the war. In its main aspects the Concordat guarantees, on the part of the Bavarian State, the free exercise of the Catholic religion. It | recognises the right of the Church in the ; ecclesiastical sphere to make its own laws | and ordinances, and assures it of the peaceable exercise of worship. Religious Orders and Congregations may exist without any restrictions whatsoever, though there are certain regulations so far as superiors are concerned. Professors in the theological faculties lecturers in the universities, and teachers of religion in the secondary schools will have to be approved by the bishops. Religious education will be an integral part of the curriculum in all the schools, and new schools will be erected where they are needed. Children in the primary Catholic schools will be taught only by teachers who are competent to instruct in Catholic doctrine. Professors of religion as well as religious superiors must be either German or Bavarian -citizens. The nomination of bishops to vacant Sees will remain in the hands of the Holy See with the fullest liberty; but in the matter of appointing clerics as parish - priests, the Government expects an intimation from the bishops as to the personal character of the candidate. Finally, the Concordat exnresses the hope that should any difficulty arise as to the interpretation of any clause of the Concordat, that it will be settled by friendly consultation between the Roman Curia and the Bavarian Government. FRENCH COMPROMISE ON VATICAN EMBASSY. Influenced, no doubt, by the decision of _ the Council of State that the Concordat of 1801 still prevails in Alsace and Lorraine, the Government has arrived at a sort of compromise in the matter of the Vatican Embassy. The Embassy is suppressed so far as the voting in the Chamber is concerned, though the Senate is yet to be heard from. But a, paltry sum has been voted to maintain a hi superior kind of clerk who, with a couple / of juniors, will reside at the Vatican EmI '" bassy ostensibly i to look after the interests A of Alsace and Lorraine. - , ; And the concession, such as it is, was extremely unpalatable with the extreme Left, which desires not only a'breach with Rome, but a breach that is i both : spectacular and melodramatic; and M. Herriot's proposal is neither.

"Mon cher Blum,'' the repository of prime ministerial confidences and the patriarchal shepherd of the Socialist flock, rose in his place with tears in his voice and anguish in his heart, to rebuke his chief for the grief this compromise occasioned amongst the faithful of the Left. 31, Blum is of the Chosen People, and the Right heard with a proper resentment his Israelitish dissertation on Church and State as viewed by him. The Left was inclined to boggle even at the few francs asked for, about £6OO a year; but the credit was grudgingly voted, and then, with a gesture of wide generosity, the expenses for the Moscow Embassy were voted by a thumping majority. Whether Rome will consent to have any dealings with this truncated diplomacy remains to be seen. Alsace and Lorraine, and the Right generally, are contemptuous of the compromise, which satisfies nobody, and does no more than save the face of the Prime Minister. Cardinal Dubois, the Archbishop of Paris, is reported to have told the Excelsior that there is no precedent in diplomatic history » for- the abolition of an embassy where there was no accusation that the Sovereign to whom the Ambassador was accredited had committed an unfriendly act against the country concerned. A "special envoy" substituted for the Ambassador; the Concordat which would persist in one part of the country but which it was proposed to abolish, although the face was not admitted to the population concerned—all that, said the Cardinal, made an ambiguous situation. Cardinal Dubois is represented as pointing out that the Concordat of 1801 provided that if the successors of Napoleon were not Roman Catholics, the appointments to bishoprics were to be settled by a new convention. Therefore the Pope would be quite within his rights if he were to appoint the bishops of Alsace and Lorraine directly himself. This, the Cardinal is" represented as having pointed out, is only one complication of the position, which so far as the Government is concerned, represents a policy that is not frank with regard to the Catholics. NOTES FROM ROME. The third anniversary of the death of Benedict XV was marked by a Requiem, celebrated in the Sistine by Cardinal Mistrangelo, the first cardinal created by the late Pope. The Absolution at the end was pronounced by Pius XI. There were 23 cardinals present at the Requiem, and among the distinguished lay personages present were the ' Princess Josephine of Hohenzollern and the Princess Matilda of Saxony, with the diplomats and the Knights of, Malta. Masses were celebrated continuously during the early part of the day at the tomb of Benedict XV in the crypt. Among those who said Mass in the crypt were' Cardinal Nasalli Rocca, Archbishop of Bologna, and Mgr. Testoni, who was private chaplainto the late Pope. The French Prime Minister's outburst-

about the alleged pro-German leanings of the Holy See during the war, with special reference to Benedict XV, have not been allowed to pass unnoticed. The Osservatore Bomano takes up the matter, showing that the charges made by M. Herriot against the policy of Benedict XV have not only been heard of before, but have also been completely disposed of. The Osservatore repeats, as it has so often before repeated, that during the war the Holy See maintained a. complete impartiality as to all the belligerents, and it denies that the Pope intervened with the .United States in the hope of suspending the dispatch of munitions to France. " Some of the more absurd allegations against the Holy See by M. Herriot are disposed of scathingly by the Osservatore, which. finds them all the easier to refute as,they have never'existed outside the imagination of enemies of the Holy See. The wonder is, in Rome, that the French Prime Minister should ever have made such wild and baseless statements in such serious circumstances; and the Osservatore's case is made all the more easier since, as has already been said, some, of these allegations are sheer" romance and nothing else. : Cardinal Friihwirth, who has been appointed Grand Penitentiary in place of the late Cardinal Giorgi, has taken possession of his new function. In the Portico of Constantino the new Penitentiary was met by : the officials of the Sacred Penitentiary, with the penitentiaries .of the Roman basilicas,, and a procession was made into St. Peter's, where the cardinal was met by the members of the Chapter. After visiting the Blessed Sacrament and the Tomb of the Apostle, Cardinal Fruhwirth proceeded to the chair of the Grand Penitentiary, which was hung with violet velvet. The secretary read aloud the Bull of appointment, and, after the reading the Grand Penitentiary, taking in his hand the symbolic rod, conceded the usual indulgence to all the faithful who filed past. Eighth .hundred pupils of the Christian Brothers,- headed by Brother Director Francis, of the Brothers of Christian Doctrine, were received in audience by the Pope in the Ducal Sala. His Holiness spoke in the highest terms of T,he work accomplished' by the Brothers, who, his Holiness said, had a thousand houses with 18,000 religious, and 400,000 pupils under their care. The Government has decided in favor of allowing the great cross to be replaced in the Coliseum, where it was erected by St. Leonard of Port Maurice and remained- in position until 1749. The proposal to replace the cross was made by the Centro Nazionale,and the Government after consideration has declared its willingness for the cross to be re-erected, which will be done shortly.