The Catholic World

New Zealand Tablet, 22 April 1915, Page 49

The Catholic World

V V PORTUGAL RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION. The absorbing interest taken in the war has withdrawn attention from Portugal, and for the past six months the newspapers in England have given little nows of that country’s affairs (remarks the Cttthulic Times). But Portugal remains in -v .very disturbed condition and the Government have not abandoned the persecution of the Christians. Amongst the ecclesiastical changes announced on the occasion of the recent Consistory was the transference of the Archbishop of Guarda to Braga, one of the largest dioceses in the world. At the time the prelate was a prisoner of the Portuguese Republic. The last rising of the Monarchists was the pretext for his arrest. He was conducted tinder escort to Lisbon, and though it was proved during a trial there that he had had no part in the conspiracy, he was sentenced to two years’ exile. The enemies of Christianity who are at the head of the Portuguese Stale have done much injury to their country. Discontent has become chronic amongst the people, owing to their incapacity as statesmen. But despite their antagonism to the Christian religion, they have failed to do it. serious damage. The Church usually gains strength under persecution, and such has been the ease in Portugal since the establishment of the Republic. She will flourish in that land when power has entirely passed from the hands of (he persecutors. ROME THE HOLY FATHER'S CHARITY. The great interest which his Holiness Benedict XV. took from the very beginning in the terrible result of the earthquake is now a matter of history (writes a Rome correspondent)'. The doors of the hospital of Santa Marta wore thrown open at once for the wounded. The Holy Father in person went several times to visit ami encourage and comfort, the sufferers in their distress. Offerings from the faithful of Italy and other countries poured at once into the Vatican. And so, around the person of the Supreme Pontiff grew up a wonderful organisation of provident charity, with able collaborators in the Bishops of the afflicted regions and the members of the ‘ Gioventu Cattolica.’ But Benedict XV., moved by generosity, has gone farther still. .11 has been already stated that he took a special interest in the fate of the poor orphans who had lost their parents in the disaster, and that it was his intention to place at their disposition the magnificent Pontifical palace of Castelgandolfo as a place of temporary refuge until other suitable quarters are provided for them. All the necessary steps have now been taken to carry this intention out. 11 is Holiness lias sent a letter to his Eminence Cardinal Gasparri, Secretary of State, in which*he expresses the interest he feels in the children who lost their parents in the earthquake. To help them he entrusts his Eminence with the task of employing means to relieve their wants and to ensure them a suitable education. The female section will be placed in the Pontifical palace of Castelgandolfo ; the male in the villa Santa Caterina, belonging to the American College, and in that of Propaganda — in the same place. So that the beautiful little town on the Alban Hills, almost in sight of Rome, with its attractive volcanic lake, will go down to history as a perpetual memorial of the charity of Benedict XV. r SCOTLAND N ’ CHARITABLE BEQUESTS. Mrs. Alice Mildred Campbell, of Ardachie, _ Fort Augustus, Inverness, who died at Ville Beau Sejours, Lourdes, France, last November, daughter of Sir Victor Alexander Brooks, Bart., of Colebrooke, Co. Fermanagh, left estate of the gross value of £9414 19s Bd.

Among other bequests the testatrix left; £SOO to : St. . Augustine’s Priory,' Fort Augustus; £SOO to St. ’ Scholastica’s Priory,. Fort Augustus; £3OO to the Convent of Poor Clares, Liberton ; and £IOO to the Hospital of Notre Dame de Sept Doulcurs, Lourdes. UNITED STATES DEATH OF A MARI ST FATHER.* Very Rev. Oucsimus Renaudier, S.M., Provincial Treasurer of the Society of Mary, died at the Provincial House and Scholasticate of the Society, Brookland, near Washington, D.C., in the seventy-eighth year of his age and the fifty-third of his religious profession. Father Renaudier was born in France and went to the United States over fifty years ago. After his ordination he was pastor of a parish in Louisiana for twenty years. He was then transferred to San Francisco, where he built the Church of Notre Dame des Victoires. Later on he was appointed pastor of the Marist Church in Boston, where lie remained until about- ten years ago when he became Provincial Treasurer of the society. He bought the property near the Catholic University, Washington, D.C., and erected the' present scholasticate and was active in the management of the affairs of the society until the end. CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES. The leading Catholic universities in the United States last, year were: Georgetown University, with 196 teachers, 1628 students: Marquette University, with 240 teachers, 1670 students; St. Louis University, with 252 teachers, 1471 students: Fordham University, with 154 teachers, 1626 students: Creighton University, with 150 teachers, 1232 students; The Catholic University, with 85 teachers, 1307 students: Notre Dame University, with 90 teachers, 1150 students. Georgetown University possesses the largest Catholic library, 153,000 volumes; Notre Dame University has 85,000 volumes. The Catholic University has 75,000 volumes; Fordham University has 74,000 volumes: St. Louis University has 74.512 volumes; Marquette University has 13,000, ami (heighten University 48,000 volumes. GENERAL THE RELIGIOUS OF THE SACRED HEART. On February 22 the Rev. Mother von Loe was elected Mother-General of the Religious of the Sacred Heart by the general congregation assembled in Rome (says an American exchange). The new MotherGeneral was born in the Rhineland of a Belgian mother and a German father. Her family has long been distinguished for its interest in the welfare of the Church, one of her uncles, General von Loe, doing heroic service for Catholics during the Kulturkampf. Mother von Loo, who was educated at Blumenchal, Holland, has had a distinguished career. At twenty-six she' was mistress of novices in Brussels ; later, in 1889, she went to Italy, where she held various important offices, becoming first mistress general of studies in am.important convent in Rome, then superintendent of the same convent and mistress of novices, too, and finally, in 1896, Vicar of all the Italian houses. On the death of the lamented Mother Stuart, Mother von Loe became Vicar-General.