Catholic World

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 6, 8 February 1923, Page 47

Catholic World

EUCHARISTIC COMMITTEE MEETS IN PARIS. The permanent committee of the Eucharistic Congresses (says Catholic News Service, London) held its general meeting in Paris at the end of November, when new members were admitted to the committee. The first business of the meeting was to pay a tribute to members who have died since the last assembly, these were Cardinal Santos, Cardinal de Cabrieres, Mgr. Lausberg, Canon Collin, and others. Among the new members proposed for the committee are Mgr. Francis 0. Kelley, of Chicago, who was proposed by Cardinal Bourne and Mgr. Carton de Wiart; General Castelnau; Senator Cochrane, of New York; Prince Ghika of Rumania, and Prince Lancelotti of Rome. For the International Congress of 1924 five cities have put forward their claims —Funchal, Carthage, Lille, Santiago de Chile, and Sydney. For 1920 both Chicago, and Barcelona have proposed themselves as the locale of the Congress. (CRUCIFIX RESTORED IN ITALIAN SCHOOLS. The crucifix, which under some intolerant governmental decree was removed from the Italian schools, has been ordered to be replaced on the walls, together with the portrait of the King. Thus is swept away another shortlived anti-clerical achievement in Italy. In connection with this replacement of the crucifix a letter, of the widest interest and importance, has been addressed to all mayors in every commune of the kingdom by Signor Lnpi, the under-Secretary for Public Instruction in the Cabinet, in which these functionaries are addressed as follows: “During recent years the crucifix and the portrait of the King have been swept out of the schools of the kingdom. That in itself constitutes a violation, no longer to bo tolerated, of an exact and precise regulation, and it is moreover an affront to the dominant religion of the State and to the principle of the unity of the nation which is both symbolised and expressed in the person of the August Sovereign. Accordingly all communal administrations are formally invited to see to the restoration to the scholars, hitherto deprived, of the two emblems sacred both to their faith and their national sentiment.” cPASSIONISTS SETTLE IN YORKSHIRE. The London Passionist Fathers have opened a new settlement in Yorkshire, where they are to have a monastery and noviciate. For this purpose they have acquired an historic property, known as Middleton Lodge, near the town of Ilbley. In the property is included an open-air , set of Stations of the Cross, which was put up by Squire Middleton more than a century ago, and which, in the days before Catholic Emancipation, was a considerable rarety. Middleton Lodge itself is a mansion with an historic past,, since it was an outpost of the old religion in the penal days. The Middletons themselves trace back their ... ancestry to the “Pearl of York,” the Venerable Martyr Margaret Clitherow, who suffered the barbarous death of being pressed to death by heavy weights, when this was the penalty of the law for refusing to plead at the bar. Throughout the centuries of persecutions Middleton Lodge afforded a refuge to the harassed priests and lay Catholics whose lives were sought by the priest-hunters. The Middletons themselves did not always escape,' One of them, John Middleton, was carried before the Council in York Castle in 1679, and indicted as one of the victims ;, of the odious Popish Plot of that arch-scoundrel Titus Oates. ~ ; It is fitting that this old stronghold of the faith in the days of persecution should, now that persecution is a thing of the past, become the home and nursery of a religious Order. -

LUBLIN’S CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY.

When the Theological Institute at Warsaw was suppressed by the Russian Imperial Government in 1867, the only school of theology available to the Catholic Poles in Russian territory was the Catholic Ecclesiastical Academy at St. Petersburg, which disappeared after the Bolshevists became the masters of Russia When, after the war, Poland was reconstituted, the urgent question arose of a Catholic establishment for the higher education of the clergy, and after a great deal of consideration, it was decided to found a Catholic University. The choice’of a place fell on the city of Lublin, which has occupied an important place in the history of Poland. Situated towards the south-east of Warsaw, Lublin has long been one of the advanced posts of Catholicism in the direction of the east. In its ancient castle lived that Prince of Poland, St. Casimir It was at Lublin, too, that the Russians hoped to bring about their flank movement in wiping out Catholicism, and on its ruins erecting a nation-wide Orthodox Church. Hero, then, the Polish bishops founded the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in 1918, placing it under the direction of the lamented Mgr. Radziszewski, who had presided over the former Academy at St. Petersburg. In this endeavor the Polish episcopate was aided by the generous beneactions of a Polish nobleman, Count Charles Jaroszynski, who gave lavishly of his wealth, not only to found the university, but to place it on a substantial financial footing. The university is formed on the model of other Catholic universities of Europe. It offers courses of studies in Theology . and Canon Law, as well as other branches of science. The directing authority is in the hands of the bishops, with the Bishop of Lublin as Perpetual Chancellor of the University. The Rector is proposed by the Chancellor and nominated by the bishops, with the confirmation reserved to the Holy See. In the four Faculties of the Universities there are 42 professors engaged in teaching. The student body is increasing from year to year, and although the university is only four years old, it has already assumed the front rank amongst the establishments for academic education throughout Polanl. HISTORIC COLLEGE DESTROYED. At 2.30 a.m. on Saturday, November 25, the historic Jesuit College of St. Boniface, the lona of the West, was a furnace of flames (says the North-West lievieic). In less than one short hour from the time witnesses state they saw' the college intact, the building was doomed, and with it many precious human lives. Following upon what we might term an epidemic of destruction to Catholic institutions, St. Boniface College takes its place with a dozen others laid in ashes during the last year or so. The loss suffered is in some respects irreparable. A landmark has been destroyed that told the history of the Catholic Church in Western Canada from its heroic beginnings. Many valuable missionary records have been destroyed and one of our most interesting links with the past broken. For 50 years St. Boniface College has been the Catholic intellectual centre of Western Canada. Thousands of priests and laymen have passed through its portals not only to the evangelisation of the West but to every corner of the globe. When the first St. Boniface College was opened in 1818 by Father Provencher, the West was a wilderness. The first building of rude logs was a type of the beginnings of Christian missionary work there, but nevertheless a true beginninga good foundation upon which has been developed more than a century of real progress in the material as well as the spiritual sense-. When the fatal fire broke out one hundred and ninetyfive souls were slumbering within the college including 154 students. These occupied three dormatories, being graded according to age unto as many divisions. - * The alarm was sounded by the Prefect of studies who was aroused by an explosion. -o