Cardinal Logue at Bobbio

New Zealand Tablet, 18 January 1912, Page 49

Cardinal Logue at Bobbio

On November 20' his Eminence Cardinal Logue (accompanied by Rev. M. Quinn, Adm., Armagh) arlived at Turin en route for Genoa, where his Eminence left ; the Trans-Continental express for a special journey, forty miles. N.E., to the ancient shrine of St. Columbanus at Bobbio, in Lombardy. - . Some years ago the Cardinal, mindful of the ancient glories: of Irish, missionary monks on the Continent, interrupted a journey similar’ to the present to investigate for himself the traditions of this great saint, who after years of incredible toil among the forests and mountains fastnesses of the Vosges, and along the Rhine ,by Zurich and Constance, was laid to rest on November 21, 615 a.d., in his last foundation,' the (afterwards) famous Monastery of Bobbio, in Northern Italy. His Eminence was much concerned to find that although the memory of the saintly Irish monk was still green in the hearts of the faithful peasantry of the district, and their devotion to him fervent and sincere, lack of worldly means had resulted in the falling of the ancient edifice into comparative shabbiness and decay. One of the very last objects to which Cardinal Logue devoted his energies on his return was the circulation of a private appear to > V Irish Clergy All Over the World for means to restore and preserve from-immediate decay" the old shrine, where in a far distant land the name of Ireland was honored and familiar. The appeal of his Eminence met with a prompt and-substantial response from lush Bishops and priests at home and abroad 5 • and his Eminence, on a subsequent visit to Rome, perobtai!i y ed SURerintended the oUtky of , tLe funds thus _ On November 24, the Feast of St. Columbanus, his Eminence presided at a Solemn-Pontifical High Mass in n? n °n u the s amt, SUng by the bishop of Bobbio in Cat A e d ral _ there The panegyric of the saint was preachecl by Right Rev. Monsignor Giovanni Battista padmi Cathedral Canon of Tortona, and special devotional exercises in honor of St. Columbanus were con“J the . ane ient crypt of the monastery, vhere, behind the old rood screen of unmistakably Celtic design in wrought iron, are still to be seen the stone sarcophagus containing portion of the saint’s venerated on?h!f S^ nd v eV r SUC ? toUcllingl y Wan relics as the quaint old. knife and wooden drinking cup which Columbanus took with-him from Ireland, when, a younmonk, thirteen centuries ago, he left the Monastery of Bangor, in Down, never to see Erin again - * :