BEQUESTS FOR MASSES.

New Zealand Tablet, 12 June 1919, Page 39

BEQUESTS FOR MASSES.

Judgment was reserved in the House of Lords in the test case in which his Eminence Cardinal Bourne and the Rev. Terence Donnelly, S.J., are appealing against decisions ,of . the courts below that bequests for Masses are void in England as being illegal (says the London Catholic , Times of ” April 5). At the conclusion of his arguments on behalf of the appellants, Mr. Russell, K.C., who had urged that . the Act of ..1860 treated as legal the Sacrifice- of the Mass with the .consequence that any gift for, the furthering of the Mass was valid, said Catholics were deeply grateful for the attentive and careful hearing which their lordships had given to the arguments, and they hoped and prayed that, convinced by "those arguments, their lordships would be able to remove a stain —for it was a stainfrom the spirit of tolerance in this country. ’ ■ y The Lord Chancellor said the appeal raised grave and important matters, and it was their duty to conl sider it with every degree of patience. V; w A cable message to the -press, under date, London, : June 3, states s that the--House hf Lords "has decided . that,,; bequests for . Masses-Tor • the dead are legal, thus , reversing the judgment of the Court of Appeal given on July 22, 1918.