COMMONWEALTH NOTES

New Zealand Tablet, 20 February 1919, Page 30

COMMONWEALTH NOTES

NEW SOUTH WALES. The consecration of his Lordship Dr. C. J. Nicolas, S.M., as Coadjutor to the Right Rev. Dr. Vidal, S.M., Vicar- Apostolic of Fiji, took place at Villa Maria, Hunter’s Hill, on Sunday morning, February 2. The ceremony was a private one, confined to the officiating prelates and a few guests. His Excellency the Apostolic Delegate performed the -consecration, being attended by his Grace Archbishop Redwood, S.M. (Wellington, N.Z.) and his Lordship Bishop Carroll (Lismore). His Grace Archbishop Kelly, assisted by the Very Rev. Dr. Hayden and Very Rev. Father Chevreuil, S.M., was also present. Rev. Father Courtais was M.C., and Rev. Father Mulsant, S.M. (New Caledonia), assisted the new bishop. Father Herring, S.M., assisted Archbishop Rftdwood, and Father Laurent, S.M., assisted Bishop Carroll. Others in attendance were Very Rev. Father Moussy, S.M. (Superior of Villa Maria), Rev. Fathers Rigard, Goggan, Ainsworth, Rausch, Monaghan, and Flaus, S.M. The students of the Marist Brothers’ Juniorate, Hunter’s Hill, served at . the altar. As there was no congregation, no sermon was delivered at the ceremony. At the subsequent banquet, however, his Grace Archbishop Redwood delivered a special address. The Apostolic Delegate, Archbishop Kelly, and Bishop Carroll also spoke, Bishop Nicolas responding to the congratulations. The decision of the State Government to prohibit the attendance of Catholics at Mass, owing to the influenza, even in the open air under approved conditions, has occasioned considerable surprise and resentment (says the Freeman's Journal It was hoped, and not by Catholics only, that this extreme and panicstricken action might have been hastily arrived at, and that an attitude which is regarded as altogether unreasonable would be modified after more mature consideration. As a matter of fact, the Catholics were the first to express their willingness to help the authorities in their efforts to stamp out the disease. But the Cabinet goes altogether too far when it applies to the churches extreme measures which, if carried to their logical conclusion, would mean nothing less than the total abandonment of all social and business intercourse. The risk of infection attending a properly regulated open-air church ceremony is certainly no greater, if as great, as that , attending a passage along crowded thoroughfares, travelling in crowded trains, trams, and boats, or the conduct of ordinary business in shops and commercial houses. This point of view was placed before the authorities. The offer was also made by our Church to hold 'open-air Masses lasting only about twenty minutes, to allow no crowding of congregations, and to forbid the attendance of any person not. properly masked. But the response was strangely unsympathetic from the Minister of Health. In view of the uncertainty amongst the priests and people with regard to the situation, Rev. Father J. O’Gorman, Administrator of St. Mary’s Cathedral, approached his Grace the Archbishop for instructions, and from the Palace, Manly, Archbishop Kelly wrote a letter to the Administrator in which he said :

"We shall, as promised, conform to public order. The people, it appears from letters posted to us, would be encouraged by the Mass, and on the, contrary, will be saddened by any hindrance to their assisting at it. The priests will continue to offer the Holy Sacrifice in propitiation for our social evils and in supplication for Divine clemency.'' ." So far, then, the Government'is "treating the Churches, and particularly the Catholic Church, to whose members the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass means so much, with the usual pagan contempt for religion. Catholics are to be deprived of the Mass at a time when they stand most in need of the consolation of religion. How long, .this state of • affairs'- will" continue, and What further efforts" will be made" to secure some more sympathetic and.' Christian, treatmeflt jwr-thelpart of the authorities, we cannot say, \ • ..,■.'