Catholic World

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 37, 30 September 1925, Page 55

Catholic World

VtO REALISE APOSTLE’S DREAM. The building of a,'worthy University Chapel in Tokyo as adjunct to the Catholic Uni- - versity is a project contemplated at the pre- ;■ sent time. . . / The University was established in the very centre of Tokyo and in the immediate neighborhood of the imperial palaces and parks. •■•. v: The Holy Father has honored it with . the - - ... . appellation of “Lighthouse of the Far East.” The proposed chapel is to be dedicated to Our Lady of the. Morning Star, in the Land > of the Rising Sun. It is proposed to make t;;fit an attractive religious centre, especially for Catholic students, and a shining morning star for those still sitting in the “shadow of death” and the darkness of paganism. . The carrying out of this worthy project ' ; is the realisation of the dream of the great Apostle of the Indies and Japan, St. Francis ' Xavier. The dream as told in his letters, was the following; On Christmas Eve of the year 1551 he was proceeding to Japan’s old capital, Miyako, now known as Kioto. He was barefooted and in ragged garments. Before hi s mind arose heartening vision of the great future of o, a ... Catholic University, to be erected in v Japan’s capital and which should become a shining beacon of truth to millions then unife born. The Saint’s dream is about to be fulfilled.

-?HOLY SEE’S MORAL POWER. g “The relations of the Holy See and the : p: 'League of Nations are unsatisfactory,” said Wsf. Mgr. Seipel, former Federal Chancellor of t;' Austria, speaking at a congress of Catholic statesmen from Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, held at Lake Constance. :f. .. “If we consider how, in practice, this position could be arranged properly, we find that accession of the Holy See to the League , by simple declaration is an impossible thing, both because of the fact that in the Geneva Protocols of 1924 armed intervention by members of the League is contemplated, while the Church holds a position of absolute neu- , trality; and, particularly, because of the other fact that the Apostolic See cannot place itself beside the other members of the League /as a Power of equal rank with them. % . “The decision which in all probability will /;. have to be taken in the future, will liave to take into consideration the character of the Holy See as a special spiritual and moral power which may enter into negotiations from y time to time with the League of Nations as a body when cases involving moral problems are to be dealt with. Some plan to . make this possible will have to be found.”

—— PRELATE’S VIEWS OF NEXT EUCHARISTIC CONGRESS. [f ;'.... That the International' Eucharistic Congress at Chicago in 1926 will establish a new n, Record for gatherings of that character was - uheprediction made to the correspondent of N.G.W.G. News Service at Rome by the Right Rev. Thomas. •J. •, Heylen, Bishop of

Namur and President , of the International Committee on Eucharistic Congresses. Bishop Heylen was, in Romo with a group of Holy Year pilgrims from his diocese. ■ “It will certainly be the biggest Eucharistic Congress ever held,” said Bishop Heylen referring to the Chicago assembly. “The Americans are accustomed to be big in all their manifestations and in this—which' has been so magnificently carried out in other nations they will display their special characteristics of greatness and magnificence without parallel. It will be, in a word, a Congress worthy of America. “I have been to Chicago and I have admired and have been greatly edified by the preparations which are being made there for the Congress in that huge city. In response to an inquiry as to the number of members of the Hierarchy who intend to participate in the Chicago Congress, Bishop Heylen said; . “Many Bishops have already let us know that they will take part in the Congress and the committee is continually receiving news of others at Chicago. A s for the Cardinals, it appears that there will be several here. Up to date Cardinal Mercier of Malines, Cardinal Faulhaber of Munich, and Cardinal La Fontaine of Venice have assured us that they will participate in the Congress. But there will certainly be more. From Rome itself more than one will go* but, as is well known, they must obtain the permission of the Pope to leave the city where their _ office as Advisors to the Pope obliges them to live. Therefore nothing definite can be said .about that yet.”

ECCLESIASTICAL SPLENDOR- CAR DINAL BOURNE ANSWERS CRITICS OF THE CHURCH. Protestant criticism of Catholic ceremonial and ecclesiastical splendor was answered by the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster in ™Vt, the Church of St. John the Baptist, Hackney. St. John’s Church has lately been extensively redecorated, and his Eminence based his address on the meaning and purpose of these improvements. “In seconding the efforts of W pastor to beautify this place where God Himself Catholic instinct oardina1 ’ "*« obeyed a itself wherever the Catholic' Churoh 6 exist? i self wherever the Catholic Church exists V 7 + lmP " tant that we shonl ™der--stand what is the root of this instinct, because every now and then you will come «r CIS “f- Uttere<l by Protestants of the Catholic attitude on this point. Nonconformists and the Crucifixion. "Only the other day I was reading in a non-Oatholio paper, representing, I think, one of the Nonconformist bodies, a criticism of our attitude towards the Crucifixion. They said it was a subject which ought not to be dwelt upon in its details—a terrible incident which should not be recalled. They, said the Redemption, of mankind was complete, and therefore the less we thought about the Passion of* Our Lord the better ► We must think

of Him only in the glory of His Father. :;: The second form of that criticism is quite • an honest one. In the month of July last we • had a wonderful Eucharistic' Congress at Amsterdam, which was attended by a Cardinal Legate sent by the Holy Father him- : self, and by many Cardinals and Bishops. * When the Cardinal Legate arrived he was y received with great magnificence and sur- ‘ rounded by evjery outward display of pomp and majesty that was possible. ; Papal Splendor Criticised. . ' One of the Protestant papers at once began to criticise. It said : ‘We suppose that this Papal Legate counts as the representative of the poor and humble Saviour, and ; yet he arrives almost like a king. What a contrast with the primitive teaching of the Gospel. You may have heard those criticisms in other forms, and they may have 'I constituted'a certain difficulty in your minds. The answer is very simple. The Catholic Church always faces the facts as they are. The Church takes the life of Our Divine ' Master as it is, not here and there, but as a whole, V e worship Our Lord, we venerate i Him, we commemorate His life, and we love Our Divine Master in all the poverty, in all the humility, in all His sufferings upon this' earth. That js the reason why we think of ,1 the Crucifixion, why we meditate on the Pas- i sion of Our Lord, and why our worship is surrounded with every magnificence we are capable of manifesting. Why the Pope Has a Court. " “The Catholic Church is at once the ! Mystical Body of Jesus Christ Our Lord and - His chosen Spouse. As His Mystical Body ! and a, s His Spouse, the Church must share in and manifest every phase of His life.- The life of the Catholic Church is the life of . esus Christ, Where in the world is evangelical poverty practised as amongst us ? Where ' is there prayer as there is in the Catholic Church? Where outside the Catholic Church do you find a parallel for the works of charity whereby hundreds of thousands of men and women consecrate themselves to Him? And Our Lord is not on earth only. He is in Heaven. There He is surrounded by all the magnificence and worship the heavenly choirsare able to offer to Him. Because we are members of Our Lord’s - Mystical Body, we must have our share in all the magnificence of that worship. That is the: reason why the Holy Father is surrounded by a Court why he has soldiers to guard him. That is the reason why he is housed; magnificently, so far as hi s official position is concernedwhile living more poorly in; his private life than any sovereign the world has ever known. Mere the Church ever to fail-she cannoto show forth magnificence in her worship, she would fail in'a part of her mission.” ‘