Catholic World

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 45, 25 November 1925, Page 55

Catholic World

CARDINAL SCHULTE IN ENGLAND. His Eminence Cardinal Schulte, Archil bishop of Cologne, has been visiting England at the invitation of Cardinal Bourne, to preside at the Jubilee celebrations and consecration of the church of St. Boniface, the London church for German-speaking Catholics. The roof of the church was injured during the war by a bomb dropped on London from a Zeppelin. Cardinal Schulte, as Bishop of Paderborn, was unremitting in • his care of prisoners of war, irrespective of nationality, and received the thanks of the French Government for his work. His Eminence was raised to the Sacred College in 1921. He is only 54 years of age. PASTORAL LETTER 0F BELGIAN HIERARCHY. The Belgian Hierarchy, with Cardinal Mercier, the Archbishop of Malines, at its head, has just published a Pastoral Letter which, after criticising the formulae of Socialism and Liberalism, declares that it is not wise to condemn the Catholic-Socialist compromise on which the present Belgium Government is based. Let us not condemn this compromise (the letter says). The two parties who have officially consented to share in the government have declared that they intend to maintain integrally their respective programmes, and so the doctrines which inspire these. There % is no question of a conflict of doctrine in a Cabinet. As far as the executive power is concerned, it is a question of the conciliation of interests in a field which Ts limited, and for a period which is usually short. The elections of April 5 made it necessary to ' form a Government to correspond with the results. No party having a majority, it was necessary either to renounce government alv together, and so lapse into anarchy, or to attempt to govern by means of a coalition of hostile parties. Was it possible to have produced a better coalition than was actually formed? We therefore consider it wise in the interests of public order not to refuse a prudent confidence in the men who have consented to try to govern us, persuaded as we are that no Catholic will confound the personal sacrifice of views which a limited and temporary coalition involves with the actual doctrines and programmes which the individual members support or symbolise. PRESIDENT OF THE ASSEMBLY OF ~ THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS. For the fourth time a Catholic statesman . has been elected President of the Assembly , of the League of Nations. This is the Right I Hon. R. Dandurand, leader of the Canadian Senate. The Assembly Mass, on one of the opening days, at which the Bishop of the y diocese pontificates, and which is attended V by all the Catholic delegates, has become an ' important international event, and the Universe correspondent describes the impressive scene:—

“The bowed heads of so many statesmen, themselves representatives of peoples so widely different, the venerable Count Apponyi symbolising the splendid past and troubled present of Hungary, for instance, and near him the swarthy delegates of the little negro Republics, Haiti, San Domingo, Liberia; M. Motta, former President of that Swiss Confederation in which model to —three national cultures are reconciled, and Count Skrzynski kneeling in the name of Poland. The Secretary-General, Sir Eric Drummond, and hi s family knelt in the first row of prie-dieux on the left, Senator Dandurand, President of the Assembly, and others of the Canadian delegation, on the right.” This year on the evening of the formal opening of the Assembly, many of the delegates attended a public meeting held in Geneva to hear Father Yres de la Briere, S.J., deliver a lecture on “Catholics and the League.” A few days later there was a reception of all the Catholics present in the Delegations to meet the Bishop of the diocese and to discuss subjects of Catholic interest. <X>