Here and There

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 49, 9 December 1925, Page 45

Here and There

; The King of the Basutos, in South Africa, is a Catholic. X Cardinal Maffi, of Pisa, has Issued a ' I Pastoral Letter condemning immodesty of r dress. 11 Natives in the Fiji Islands “kiss’ a bishop’s ring by rubbing their noses against it. The first natives of Bengal to become priests will be ordained next year at Bandhura (India). ' The diocese of Great Falls (U.S.A.) is to have thirteen new churches by the end of next year. In Catholic journalism for seventy years, Rudolph Krueger, has died at St, Louis (Missouri). S Councillor John McCurdy, a Catholic, has accepted the invitation to become Mayor of Wigan. ; The National Council of Catholic Men of America has 1103 organisations in its membership. t Rolls and coffee are served in the basement of the Cathedral at Cincinnati for the communicants. One group of pilgrims recently received by the Pope consisted of thirty Catholics and 180 Protestants. : Gotthart Stroschein, who attempted to start a Ku Klux Klan organisation in Germany, has been deported. ( Two men have been arrested for robbing iho residence of Canon Fortune, parish priest at Taghmon (Ireland). Father M. Marty won the championship cup at the golf tournament promoted by the clergy of the diocese of Leeds. A Texas family of nine were received into the Church together on the fiftieth anniversary of the parents’ wedding. No fewer than 100,000 persons in the State of lowa are legally disqualified from marrying under the new Eugenics law'. (■ A list has been compiled of the names of all persons over the age of fourteen who have been or are now inmates of State institutions for the insane or feeble-minded, and all these have been barred from marriage. li Copies of the list are to be sent to the County Clerks throughout the State with instructions to refuse licences to applicants whose names appear on it ,A tablet to the memory of Mrs. Fitzherbert, the wife of King George IV, has been unveiled at Brighton by Alderman Thomas Stanford. Mrs. Fitzherbert lived in Old Steine, from 1804 till her death in 1837. She was at one time regarded as the mistress of George IV, but it was recently proved that she was married to him according to Catholic rites. Mrs. Fitzherbert was closely identified with the early history of Catholicism in * Brighton. On the same day tablets commemorating ■ jHerbert Spencer, Charles . Dickens, and Dr. ; Russell were also unveiled. All the tablets . j are on houses associated with the lives of the celebrities commemorated. ,

Viscount Grey’s Memoirs. —Viscount Grey’s Memoirs have just been given to the public ’in Europe. They chronicle the intimate details of the diplomatic negotiations between Washington and London which preceded the entry of America into the great conflict, and reveal definite documentary evidence to show that President Wilson, as early as 1916, was . giving thought to a definite proposal to throw the United States into the war on the side of the Allies. Grey relieves the former Kaiser and the German people of the odium of setting the torch which started the world conflagration and holds that in determining the guilt for bringing on the war the armedcamp conditions to which Europe had been brought by the events of decades must be considered. He holds that militarism and armaments made the World War inevitable, and he doubts whether even yet the nations have learned that lesson without which they must perish. * * « History of the Papacy.—lt is almost forty years since Dr. Ludwig von Pastor published the first volume of his monumental Geschichte der Papste which at once took rank as a classic. Nine massive volumes have since appeared, the tenth, dealing with the pontificate of Sixtus V, is in press, and several others are to follow in rapid succession. It- is all the more remarkable that the aged historian can find the time not only to revise, but completely to overhaul his earlier volumes. In preparing the sth to 7th edition of his first volume, for instance he had to utilise the re searches, domestic as well as foreign ,of almost an entire generation of scholars. He performed this gigantic task with his usual diligence and hardly a. page has remained unchanged. In reading his sketch of the literary Renaissance in Italy, therefore, and his account of the pontificates of Martin V, Eugene IV, Nicholas V, and Callistus 111, the reader may rest assured that he has the very latest word on this important period in the history of the papacy. * * * Religious Chaos in England.—“ Six hundred different sects and nothing but trouble,” is Father John Lane’s comment on the religious chaos in England to-day. He made this remark when preaching recently at St. Chad’s Church, Cheetham Hill Road, at the Mass which marked the inauguration of the 34th session of the Manchester branch of the Catholic Truth Society, Nobody, outside the Church, knew anything definite, said Father Lane in an outspoken address. Could they point out two Anglicans who believed the same thing? Could they mention the names of two ministers who taught the same doctrine? Could they tell him the names of two bishops who w'ould give, the same opinion on matters of fundamental importance ? The Archbishop of Canterbury, he continued, talking about why the churches were empty, said it was because the parsons could not preach. No, they could not preach because they had nothing to preach about. St. Paul said I

preach Christ and Him Crucified, but* out'side the Catholic Church people did not know Christ and certainly did not know Him : crucified. ,