INTERESTING PARTICULARS BY THE ARCHBISHOP OF HOBART

New Zealand Tablet, 24 December 1908, Page 10

INTERESTING PARTICULARS BY THE ARCHBISHOP OF HOBART

tit Si* ■ ! t?- 1S n<^ w re l)uted one of the leading men of the French Hierarchy. How wohfcrf HW oil +i - V seem changed to me! Thirty l^vT^lf I lUgS £ ere brought clfanges of no smallSoS Sty t-Tanl tncn our own angle of vision widens out as^SSsWwS .experiences. But here the ■ onan^aro%«to unusual. And as you will readily anticipate- the' channel that engage, my attention have to do with'relL'ion. - Increase of Practical Piety * fa this church fresh worship™ "L ££{„£%££& total number who came this morning to this 6ieSari sh t\lf~ ?" stJ ™° f^ c]led »ever,d h™*-eds. And°'ol cmrrse it was but an ordinary week dav tk«;™, „ . u . e; devotion whatever on tl^day' "aVeLhS celebrated at the altar in which the tabernacle stands a surprismgly large number communicated. I celebrated noot?! f^ mySel/- Alld althou^ naturallySn e5 pect that women show up more numerously than men still Wl^sSkin^ «-** PW "^ -rsLi^ers> A Most Serious Symptom. i„ +il et th + G "gS f^* r °mains uncontested that CJemenccau is the master; that in short there is no aweciable cw" in the political situation. Bye-elections hi England W been going dead against a party. which scored a"hU at the general elections as tbe Clemencau-Briand Party t tht country. Yet here the bye elections indicate no rial change m public opinion. The victims of the opwessfve regime themselves seem to despair of safety from the elec toral urns now or hereafter And +],;« ,-„ +„ " „- , . iGC a most unfortunate frame' of mind and a most symptom For the hardships inf]ctedin the namland by the authority of Parliament are almost beyod endrn ance even for a people loss emotional and lLs iraLib^ than the French. And if the victims come to loL Win the one means of redress which a Parliamentary regime affords what remains to them but a wistful yearninlSo put it the mildest-after some extraordinary deveWment spelling rum for the power that grinds them down so remorsdodyP And then unhappily a third party-the party of monarchical ambitions, the Duke of Orleans' in satiate camp-followers, utterly regardless of the haTdsh ps' they precipitate on defenceless priests, and yet more defenceless children given over to a system of education which has become increasingly an atheistic propaganda^ fa the ready flames of anti-governmentism ii'to the peHlotfi fires of anti-republicanism. This puts Catholics hrboa wholly wrong and a wholly inconsistent position. It £ a wroii § position, because, as Leo XIII. was at oains to insist inseason and but of season, and as Catholic theolog? always implied is not inconsistent With Catholicism. A -good Catholic may be an equally enthusiastic Republican. And th^y sin against consisLicy, because as Catholics they havf been all" along in strong condemnation of the great Revolution, and that, too for being a revolution. Now, no one can deny that the monarchists at supplanting the form of government which actually, and for thirty odd years holds the field and which came into existence through no renublican violence whatever It is all a sad additional illustration of men losmg faith m constitutional measures, and in sheer desperation suffering themselves to be carried along against both their interest and. their proper nrincinles by selfappointed guides more astute and selfish than those they seduce. - ""^j College of St. Sulpice. n u HeV Vc? a re,: '-- n '*? ie' mi- dst of 1,1li »s. Tlie fine bid College of St. Sulpice, in which I lived happy days, stares me to-day in sulky^ emptiness. Indeed, I dare not enter its gates. It is black and neglected by the Government which has forcibly taken it over. Meanwhile, the former

house of Philosophy at Issy, outside the fortifications, harbors 300 ecclesiastical students who axe reading, some their two years' course .in philosophy, the others, their three years in theology. One additional year in theology is read at a rented house in the city. Since my time an immense amount of superb building 'has been carried buf at Issy by the Sulpician. Fathers who have charge- of it And just picture to yourself the state of a country in which tins work of theirs is likely, at an early date, to be taken oyer forcibly by the Government, just like the house in- the cityj Of course,, tho- Government are always ready with the same parrot cry, * Why did you not form an "Association of Worship " as we told- you- to do ?' They knew perfectly well in devising their pet expedient of those < Associations of Worship ' that Catholics would not, because they could not, have recourse to them. It was the generosity ot the fox inviting the crane to dine on soup off a shallow . clisli. lliey knew what they were doing. The Catholic University of Paris. I visited my old university. The students are not yet hack. Ihey return for the opening of term on November J. But the rector was at home, and I had a talk with Jum. I regret, and he regretted, that Professor Branly was out. He is, as the immense majority of the professors are, a layman. Of course, they are all excellent Catholics, it will be Avitlnn your memory that it was this Professor JJranly of the Paris Catholic University who experimented with a view to catch the well-known Hertz waves. He pursued his researches till he found the secret. He was able to announce the discovery that those wonderful waves were obedient to silver filings. - Like the lover "of knowledge tor its own sake, he gave his discovery to the world. _ Young Marconi took it up, and it makes him a rich notability while Branly remains a modest, hard-working professor in Ins beloved Catholic University. This university has suffered a great loss within the present year in the death ot 1 rofessor de L apparent—one really of the first physicists ot modern times. He, too, was a layman, hut how truly Catholic!- The students last year numbered six hundred of whom about one-tenth were in the faculty of theology. ' Will be Probably Confiscated in 1910. I expressed disappointment at the little improvement in buildings. I had seen such splendid work in that line at the Catholic University of Fribourg! The Rector sadly answered me that the property was merely held on lease, and that in 1910, when the lease expired, the Government would probably confiscate it like all the other ' ecclesiastical establishments.' Remember, the Government— in fact no Government ever gave a shilling directly or indirectly towards tlie foundation or upkeep of this University. But simply because it was held in trust for the Church under tbe Archbishop of Paris— was what is technically part of tlie ' mense '—it is taken, or will be taken, as soon as the present lease terminates. And all under the pretence that as no ' Association of Worship ' exists to administer it, the Government is obliged to find it an owner! All this is very sad; and it is but a drop in the bucket of instances which depress the Catholic- in passing through this once Catholic land. A Press Congress. Coming back from Issy, I fell in with a couple of priests who, I found, were going to a Congress de la bonne presse. It has been in session for a day of two. I went to see and was interested. The editor-in-chief of- the Croix, a layman, was in the chair. The hall was well filled with priests and laymen and a fair sprinkling of women: I should say women who did not idly come to see. I was asked to sit'on the chairman's right hand and to open the proceedings with prayer. As I said that I wanted above all things to see and hear what they were at, the proceedings began with the item on the programme, . an address of an entirely practical' scope and tone by a strenuous looking priest of about 34. He dealt with the use and practice of the magic lantern in popular lectures. ■ He was followed by a layman, who confined himself to a report of the work done in the past year by the magic-lantern wing of the Association of the Catholic Press. It is only right to add that few papers but the Croix are in this association. Not that the others do not sympathise .with- the. work; hut it is an organisation which owes its origin and development to that one paper. They do Things Differently in Germany. I think this is characteristic of .trench Catholicism to-day; there are ever so many initiatives here, there, . and everywhere;, prospering or languishing as the case may be, but not nearly enough of co-ordinated exertion. How different all this is from—the in Germany. T must, by and by, give you some outline of what I saw and enjoyed at the great Catholic Congress of Dusseldorf. London was dazzling as a mitred spectacle. Dusseldorf thrilled all present with, the powerful current of a master- j

ful Catholic life. The millions were at our back, and no mistake. Everyone knew it. The Emperor knew it as well as we. He did not fail to send his telegram of greeting m his own dramatic fashion, which, of- course, was read and received with the plaudits of an entirely loyal people. There is no dream there of constitutional tampering. But there is a fixed resolve. to use the constitution at the ballot box and in Parliament in defence of equal rights to all citizens. - .Dread of Politics. , . But to return- to this Congress." I was sorry I had to leave early. All knelt to receive. my blessing. I left, lull or admiration for the exhaustless - zeal and energy of so many good Catholic men, and of regret that they cannot nnd the remedy for their divisions. "But with so much good « J lu all / anks ' xt can oial y- be a matter of . time. . We may nnd that from the ranks of the rising generation of priests, of ideas, a new social ordei may come about, lhe older clergy were true to the maxim that wherever the priest .s duty lay, it could not possibly lay in the region of politics. That had settled into a fixed habit with both priests and laity It^is amusing to read of the political plottings of the clericals of France. . Why the utter dread of politics in the French ecclesiastic had reached the fatal poin "h , Under the Concordat, indeed, they could not have meddled in politics. Now they are free, because they cannot be robbed any further, unless of life. A G-leam of Hope. « ~- .. But the habit is too much for them. They will tell you tlmfc what France needs is a go.od : press ; this, that, and everything, m fact, appears to them to be the need. But they never will admit that the priest can be of the least use m politics. When I remarked to several of them that no priest need or ought to treat of polities' in the Church: but that as a citizen he surely had the common right, and as Dr. Clifford evidently believes in his own case, the duty as well, to speak of politics and politicians on the common meeting ground of fellow-citizens, they could hot hear of it Now the younger men are talking on the magic-lantejai ' a .very innocuous subject indeed. But when men come face to race at lectures in a hall, they will soon pass to the" discussion of burning questions, when there are burning questions. The .One Thing Necessary. One remark, however, to conclude: France "can" never regain her old Catholic faith until she has seriously resolved to abandon the lesson which her false ' philosophers ' have taught her. She must learn to become clean in order to become once more believing. A Pleasant Meeting. ~ :-- Writing from Dijon on October 22, the Archbishop says: In my letter of last evening I said that .1 intended breaking the journey here at Dijon in order to see my fellow-student of thirty years ago at the Catholic University of Paris. Twenty years ago he came to Vichy to see me but I hardly expected he would recognise me now unannounced. I. put him to the, test, and he flew to embrace me with the old exclamation, ' Cher Monsieur Delany !' It was pleasant to each of us to. feel that in a crowd we should have recognised the old faces. .One of Pius the Tenth's Bishops. .. Well, for many reasons this is a pleasant meeting. In the first place, Bishop Dadollc is regarded all round as the leading personage amongst the fourteen new bishops whom Pius X. gave, and personally consecrated, to the French Church as soon as the abolition of the Concordat had untied his hands. And the new men- count for most. The senior members of tlie Hierarchy were, many of them, already far advanced in years, and the sudden plunge 'into wholly inexperienced conditions weighed ..upon many with fatal depression. They have borne the burden with Christian resignation, but it has shortened their lives. Bishop Dadolle's Hopeful Views. Tlie new men were carefully chosen, and it is clear that they face the future with renewed spirits. As a.complement, then, to what I wrote you last evening — and it is true in all details— l will give .you the substance of Dr. Dadolle's replies to my various queries. I think this will be of permanent interest. -1. Since the rupture with the Church it is a safe estimate to place the accession to the ranks of earnest worshippers at twenty-five per cent. 2. Twenty years ago there' were hardly any evidences amongst young men of an organised courageous effort in defence of religion. To-day the. Young Men's Societies are marvellously flourishing. In this city of Dijon quite lately two thousand members of the Catholic Young Men's Societies of the diocese assembled in Congress and took everyone by surprise,, not merely by their numbers; but stili more by the uncompromisingly religious spirit they displayed. -

3. In spite of the wholesale confiscation of church property perpetrated by the Government, not a single Catholic enterprise has been abandoned, and considerable extensions have already been undertaken. More has, in fact, been done to widen out the field of Church activity in the last two years of freedom, if of poverty, than stood to the credit of twenty years under the previous regime. The Bishop received me, not in the time-honored palace of his .predecessors — that has been confiscated, and he was tinned out of it; but, as he smilingly remarked, he is now, at nT events, 'at home.' . Apostolic poverty, but apostolic freedom, without loss of dignity. Well, all this shows that there are Catholics enough of the true stamp left in this country to support the burdens of a Catholic revival. Aud the Bishop firmly believes in that revival. 4. On the sore point of politics— which I dealt with in yesterday's letter — let me sum up the views of this eminent and commanding member of the French Hierarchy : — The past is done for good and all. Only a political cataclysm could restore the old order of things, and even then could probably not bring about any improvement. As sane men the Catholics must not attend to an hypothesis so improbable. The Republic came in without violence, and was established in quite a legitimate way. Like any form of government, it is good or bad just as the men who hold ;the helm are good or bad. After a spell of thirtyseven years it has displaced the memory of former regimes in the minds of the immense majority of the people. To them any previous form sounds remote to-day. Ninetenths of the people probably desire no constitutional change. On the other hand, it is premature in all probability for the clergy to take eveii that legitimate part in public life which is the right and even the duty of the ordinary citizen — that is to say, to speak openly in the common haunts of men regarding the choice of candidates for Parliament. Of course, politics must be excluded from the Church; but at least for a while it seems necessary to forego the exercise of even the right of free speech; for the French clergy have been bred for ages to quite a different order of ideas. . But another sphere lies open to them, and they are busying themselves in it with manifest results. Bishops and priests hold meetings and attend gatherings, the objects of which lie at the root of the social and economic lvelfare of the people. This is bringing both sides — clergy and people — to study serious problems of the hour together. The patent effect is a broadening out of view in priests and people and a growing sympathy and hcartfulness. The politician is gradually being supplanted by the local mind. The Bishop did not, of course, instance his own signal efforts within the last three years ; but these were well known to me already from what I had been told at Rome and elsewhere. His principle is this: Let us go to the people; let us sincerely help the people. If we do, the people will not fail to recognise our deserts, and they will hearken to our advice as their fathers did in their day to the clergy who worked for their welfare. And such a people may be trusted to solve the political troubles of ytheir own selves. In face of the discouragement one meets with at older hands, this is refreshing, and the intelligence, the sincerity and the high standing of the young Bishop of Dijon warrant me m accepting his views as more in consonance with reality than tho more sombre presentation of older and feebler men.