Catholic World

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 8, 4 March 1925, Page 55

Catholic World

Wf THE NEW BISHOPS. - * Di\ Keating, the Archbishop of Liverpool, is to consecrate the two new Bishops whom the Pope has appointed to the English See. • The consecrations will not take place at the same time (says Catholic News Service, London, for January 5). Dr. Thorman, who is appointed Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle, will be consecrated in his own cathedral church in Newcastle on January 27. Dom Wolstan Pearson, 0.5.8., the Bishopdesignate of the new diocese of Lancaster, will receive his episcopal consecration in the Church of St. Peter at Lancaster, his future cathedral. The date is not yet fixed, but it is understood that the consecration will be on or about February 11. Dr. Pearson will be the only Benedictine Bishop in England. This was a privilege reserved to the old See of Newport, but it was abrogated when the title of the See was changed to Cardiff and it was made the metropolitan Archbishopric of Wales. SAVED FROM THE SEA. The Apostleship of the Sea, whose headquarters are at Glasgow, has shown that it has a positive genius for discovering potential Catholics among the crews of merchant vessels visiting British ports, as witness the story of a Calcutta seaman. This seaman joined the army during the war and was stationed in Mesopotamia. Under the influence of companions he gave his . religion as Catholic, and for years he attended Mass as opportunity arose, passing all the time for a Catholic. His desire had been to be baptised at one of the ports in Great Britain, but the opportunity seemed never to occur, until his case was brought to the attention of the Apostleship in Glasgow. One of the ship visitors took this Indian seaman to St. Patrick's. The priest there found that he was already well acquainted with the fundamentals of the Faith, and the Vicar-General gave permission for him to be baptised and received. The baptism took place on the feast of St. Thomas, Apostle of India, and the Calcutta seaman received the name of Thomas in baptism. Not long ago a Chinese convert was discovered in similar circumstances. WELFARE OF CATHOLIC SEAMEN. In a little report of some twenty pages the Apostleship of the Sea, the organisation for welfare work amongst Catholic seamen, gives a survey of the increasing field of its labors. The Apostleship has its headquarters in Glasgow, with the Archbishop of Glasgow as its president and the Cardinals of Westminster and Malines as patrons. It is now in affiliation with seamen's welfare societies in India, Australasia, the United States, and the West Indies, the Argentine, as '.""V well as many Continental ports. J Started originally for the Catholic seamen of the mercantile marine, the Apostleship has now units in the Royal Navy. It has its own official organ which it shares with a Dutch organisation. This weekly paper, K known as Recht door Zee or Down to the Sea, •:-■,'■ '"

is published in both Dutch and English. Among its interesting features is a list of churches and institutes in all parts of the world for Catholic seamenfrom New York to Iceland, from Brazil to Bombay. The interesting report can be obtained from the Catholic Seamen's Institute, 32 Hill Street, Anderston, Glasgow, and it will be read with interest in any part of the world where English is spoken. CATHOLIC TEACHERS IN CONFERENCE. On the last day of the old year the Catholic Teachers' Federation met for its annual conference at Cardiff, with the Archbishop of Cardiff in the chair. In welcoming the conference to the metropolitan city Archbishop Mostyn referred to the latest fad, which has been seized upon by the cranks, that in all the schools provided by the State there shall be religious instruction and that the local authorities shall draw up the religious syllabus. This, observed the Archbishop piquantly, would not suit the Catholics at all. They were not prepared to give up their schools without a fight, and while hoping for a better system, would put up a fight to make certain that Catholic children had a Catholic education in Catholic schools. The same theme was pursued by the President of the Confederation, Mr. T. Meehan, and the conference pledged itself to stand for no change which did not secure for the Catholics all their rights secured by the Education Acts. The menace, in England at all events, is not so much in Acts of Parliament, which are generally fair in their provisions. It comes from the cranks and faddists who, by means best known to themselves, manage f-o insinuate their influence among the permanent officials in the Department. The strength of the Catholic position, therefore, consists in refusing to accept anything less than that allowed by law. THE POPE AND SOCIALISM. An interesting sequel to the Pope's outspoken warning against the menace of Socialism and Communism, at the recent Consistory, has been a brief correspondence in the London Socialist daily, the Daily Herald, on the part of a number of persons who profess to be Catholics and sign with Irish names. Most of the views expressed were, to say the least, extraordinary, one supposedly Catholic correspondent going so far as to declare that the Pope was merely airing his own opinion, and that no Catholic need pay any serious attention. The correspondence has been distinctly unedifying, and it is reassuring to know that organised Irish Catholics do not share these extraordinary views. The Liverpool Irish Party called a special meeting to consider the matter, and a unanimous resolution was passed that: "We welcome the warning issued by his Holiness the Pope in referring to the grave perils attending the spread of Socialism and

Communism, and we trust that the high advice thus given wiii be acted upon with the traditional wisdom of our people." THE MISSIONS OF JAVA; The Dutch Catholic papers report the opening of a new Catholic Church in Java, the centre of a large mission district and the thirty-fourth church to be erected in the great island. ~ Java is four times the size of Holland and has a population of thirtyfour millions, amongst whom the Catholics are still a small flock, about 60,000 in all, of whom two-thirds are natives. But the Catholic mission is less than a hundred years old. In, the 16th century missionaries from Portugal did some pioneer work in Java, but in 1596 the island was conquered by the Dutch, and the Catholic missionaries expelled. Then for nearly two hundred years the Dutch Colonial authorities rigorously excluded Catholics from the island. When Louis Bonaparte became King of Holland toleration was proclaimed, and two Dutch priests landed in Java in 1808. When the Dutch resumed possession in 1817 constant difficulties were put in the way of the few Catholic priests in the island, and progress was very slow, but in 1829 the Church of the Assumption, the first church of the modern mission, was opened at Batavia. In 1842, Gregory XVI (who made the reorganisation of the missions the chief work of his Pontificate) erected the Dutch East Indies it to a Vicarate and. sent Mgr. Groof, Bishop of Canea, to Batavia. But he was soon after expelled from Java by the Government. One may say that in Java the period of real toleration for the Catholic missions hardly began till the Pontificate of Pius IX. In 1874 he confided the missions of the island to the Dutch Jesuits. They have produced a popular literature of instruction and devotion for the native concerts in the Malay language and the local Javanese dialect, the latest addition to this library being a version of the Imitation of Christ in Javanese, printed last summer by the mission press. DEATH OF CARDINAL GIORGI. A note of profound sorrow has marred th» Christmas festivalthe death of Cardinal Giorgi, Cardinal Penitentiary, whose death makes the second amongst the cardinals during the year. Cardinal Giorgi was born at Valmontone, in the Papal States, in 1856. He studied at the Roman Seminary, and received priest's orders along with Don James della Chiesa, afterwards Pope Benedict XV, by whom he was created cardinal in 1916. It was only on Christmas Eve that his late Eminence, as Grand Penitentiary, assisted at the opening of the Holy Door, his function being to hand the golden mallet to the Pope. Cardinal Giorgi was a man of great learning. Among the Congregations of which he was a member were the Holy Office, Propaganda, of Religious, and Ecclesiastical Affairs Extraordinary. His Eminence was also on the Congregation for the Oriental Church, and the Supremo Tribunal of the Segnatura. Last year, in the capacity of Apostolic Legate, his Eminence journeyed to Palestine to consecrate the two basilicas of Thabor and Gethsemane.