RETURNING TO THE FOLD

New Zealand Tablet, 15 June 1911, Page 1095

RETURNING TO THE FOLD

Bishop Hartley (we read in the Catholic Columbian) is greatly pleased to be able to announce that during the past year 264 converts were received into the Church in the diocese of Columbus. Rev, Gerald William Maude, formerly curate of All Saints’, Branksome, and of Christ Church, Doncaster, has been received into the Catholic Church at The Oratory, Edgbaston, Birmingham. Amongst those confirmed by his Grace the Archbishop of Westminster at Netting Hill on Sunday, March 5, was Mrs. Mary Cannon, a convert, who has reached the venerable age of ninety-two. . \ It is announced that Rev. Charles Selby-Hall, formerly Vicar of St. Saviour’s, Sunbury Common, Middlesex, Mrs, Selby-Hall, and their- children have been received into the Catholic Church. Mr. Rupert J. Large, of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and formerly of, Johannesburg, has been received into the Catholic Church, by Father Richard Ratcliffe, S.J., at the Holy Name, Manchester. From Rome comes the announcement that the Marchesa Beatrice Theodoli {nee Thaw) has been received into the Catholic x Church. The . Holy Father administered to her the Sacraments of Confirmation and Holy Communion. Mrs. Jayatilaka, wife of Mr. H. A. Jayatilaka, Proctor, Negombo, was received into the Catholic Church on March 24 by Rev. Father J. M. Masson 2 0.M.1., the parish priest, St. Mary’s Church, NegomOo (says the Ceylon Catholic Messenger). ' , . The Rev. John Cyril Hawes, late Vicar of Long'lsland, Bahamas, and previously assistant curate at the Church of the Holy Redeemer, Clerkenwell, : was received into the Catholic Church at St. Paul’s Friary, Graymoor Garrison, New York, on Sunday, March 19. One of the most interesting converts lately received into the Church is Mr. Thomas Willet Carlton Strong, of Pittsburg (writes Scanned O’Neill in the Catholic Columbian). Mr. Strong and his wife were received into the Church on the loth of December : last at. St. Bridget’s

I Church, Pittsburg, their respective godparents (represented by proxy) being Mrs. Bellamy Storer, of Boston, Cincinnati Paris, and Rev. Henry R. Sargent. Mr. Strong is an associate of the American-Institute of Architects, a member of the American Society ..of Civil Engineers, and was one of. the founders and late president of the Anglo-Roman Union. ' ~ , ~ ' ' The Rev. Gordon Tidy, who for two years was assistant to the Rev. Carr-Smith, 'at St. James’, Sydney, and who had 'charge of the Anglican Cathedral/ Bathurst, during the absence of Dean Marriott in England, was received into the Catholic Church on February 24,. at St. Stanislaus’ College, Bathurst, by the Very Rev. Father M. J. O’Reilly, C.M., Provincial of the Vincentian Fathers. Mr.-Tidy received his education at,, Wellington College, and at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. Dr. Benson; afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, was head master at Wellington, and there Father Hugh Benson was born. Mr. Tidy served for some years as lieutenant in the Bth King’s Regiment. He is a son of the late Major-General T. H. Tidy, who was for some years assistant-Adjutant General of the Horse Guards. Mrs. Bartlett, widow of the late Judge Bartlett, who was so well known in New York some years ago, has been received into the. true fold, having made her abjuration in Paris some time ago. Mrs. Bartlett received the Sacrament of Confirmation from the hands of the Most Rev. Archbishop Stonor, in the Church of San Silvestro in Capite, in the presence of the Rev. John Dolan, rector, late of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, New York, and a few special friends. Mrs. Bartlett (writes a Rome correspondent) is only one of the hundreds of foreigners who are converted. every year in Rome, and whose names never come before the public. Hebrews, Protestants,-and many who never gave a thought to ; any religion, find the light of faith after a sojourn in the centre of Christendom, for it is here alone even the most educated can form an adequate idea of the power and majesty of the Catholic Church. At the Church of the Sacred Heart, Edinburgh, on April 21, the Rev. A. J. Grant, M.A., 8.D., formerly minister of the United Free Church at Lochranza, Arran, was received into the Catholic Church by the Rev. Charles Widdowson, S.J. Mr. Grant, who is of middle age, is a noted scholar and a fluent Gaelic speaker. He is well known in the Highlands, and has held positions at Inverness, Fort William, and other places in the North of Scotland. He retired from his charge in Arran about two years ago, and since then he has been doing pulpit work in- the United Free Churches in and around Edinburgh. It is understood that Mr. Grant’s fvife has been a Catholic for some time, and that fact becoming known led to difficulties'which- ended in his resignation from the Arran charge, the final outcome now being that he also has obtained the inestimable grace of entering the one true Fold. Mr. Grant is said to be the first United Free Church minister to join the Catholic Church, although within the last few years two ministers of the Established Church of Scotland in Glasgow became Catholic priests, and are now engaged in active work in Glasgow archdiocese. V April 2 (says the London Tablet) is a date which holds high anniversary place in the records of that proud chapter of history, the Victorian conversions. Recent happy happenings in the South of England, in the first year of our own Georgian era,, tend to send our memories northwards to what took place in Leeds sixty years ago last Sunday. , The evening of April 2, 1851, closed upon a memorable scene in St. Ann’s, Leeds, afterwards the Catholic cathedral of the diocese. Before its altar seven Anglican clergymen knelt to make public profession of the- Catholic Faithsix from St. Saviour’s, Leeds, and. one other, making probably the largest number ever received in joint association. Dr. Newman had come from Birmingham to receive the converts, whose names were : The Rev. Thomas Minster, M.A., Catherine College, Cambridge, Vicar of St. Saviour’s from 1849, who died the following year in Catholic minor orders at St. Mary’s, Hanley; the Rev. George Lloyd Crawley, of Christ Church, Oxford, curate of St. Saviour’s, afterwards an Oblate Father of Mary Immaculate in Leeds, who died in 1874; the Rev, Seton Rooke, M.A., of Oriel College, Oxford, curate of St. Saviour’s, who preached in his Dominican habit at ‘ the second opening of St. Mary’s, Leeds, in 1866, and died at Haverstock Hill in 1901; the Rev. Henry Combs, M.A., Fellow of St. John’s College,' Oxford, curate of St. Saviour’s, who lived for a time : with the Oblate Fathers in Leeds, and, dying in 1880, left them many of his books; the Rev. Richard Ward, M.A., of Oriel, Oxford, first vicar of St. Saviour’s, who, died a Canon of Westminster; the Rev. W. H. Lewthwaite, M.A., Trinity College, Cambridge, vicar of Clifford, Yorkshire, afterwards a devoted Father of Charity, till his death in 1892 and, finally, Newman’s warm personal friend, the Rev. William Payne Neville, assisting at St. Saviour’s, who joined the Birmingham Oratory, and for whom Newman called faintly, William, William,’ almost in his last moments. He died but six years -ago, the, List survivor of the band, and the last but one (Dr. Ryder) of that more famous company of Newman’s felloAA’-Oratorians whose names are inscribed on the dedicatory page of the Apologia. Several lay members of St. t Saviour’s congregation presented themselves for reception into the Church at the same time; but the example thus set has been far exceeded in point of numbers in Brighton,