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ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 



in honor of Columbus. Archbishop Ireland 

 made the opening address before the World's 

 Fair Association of Auxiliary Congresses, and 

 Archbishop Corrigan dedicated the New York 

 State building. 



The Pope and the French Republic. A 

 continuance of his support of democratic policy 

 in the Government of France characterized Leo 

 XIII. He addressed a letter to prelates and 

 people urging them to freely and fully accept 

 the republic, and in answer to the criticisms 

 with which it was received he followed it with 

 a special rescript to the cardinal archbishops, 

 in which he admonished the clergy to recog- 

 nize and comply with the established order. 

 At the request of the Holy Father, on his way 

 back from Rome Archbishop Ireland delivered 

 a series of discourses in sustenance of this at- 

 titude, in one of which he thanked God that 

 "through France and Leo XIII the republic 

 has become canonized at last." The formation 

 of a Catholic republican party to counteract the 

 irreligious elements is projected. 



Germany presented a parliamentary situation 

 with the German Catholic center of 107 mem- 

 bers controlling the destinies of the empire, and 

 demanding as the price of their support the re- 

 turn of the Jesuits and a religious educational 

 system. The latter was formulated by the Gov- 

 ernment, but afterward withdrawn. 



Ireland. The agitation for Catholic univer- 

 sity rights from the Government found an un- 

 expected accession in the chief directors of 

 Trinity College, Dublin, who publicly recorded 

 themselves on the side of educational equality, 

 and received the thanks of Archbishop Walsh 

 therefor. As a concession to the demands of the 

 Irish hierarchy the schools of the Christian Broth- 

 ers were included in the grants of the Gov- 

 ernment, and now come under the rules of the 

 National School Board. In the parliamentary 

 elections the priests sided with the Nationalists 

 led by Justin McCarthy, with the result that but 

 9 Parnellite Nationalists were returned, the seat 

 of Michael Davitt for Meath being contested on 

 the ground of clerical intimidation, and John Red- 

 mond, the Parnellite leader, threatening a pen- 

 alty bill against clerical interference in elec- 

 tions. The close of the year brought word that 

 Archbishop Logue, primate of all Ireland, 

 had been chosen by the Pope as the Irish repre- 

 sentative in the College of Cardinals. The 

 census showed that while there had been a fall- 

 ing off in Catholic Church membership, there 

 had also been a diminution of other denomina- 

 tions, with the exception of the Methodists, whose 

 increase is chiefly by inroads on other Protestant 

 sects. The new order of Sisters of St. Brigid, 

 whose mother house is at Tullow, Carlow, received 

 the Pope's approval. 



Scotland and Wales show marked increase 

 in Catholic growth. Rt. Rev. Angus McDonald 

 was translated to the see of St. Andrews and 

 Edinburgh in July, and his place in the Highland 

 diocese of Argyle and the isles, where half a cen- 

 tury ago a Catholic dare not proclaim himself, 

 was filled by the elevation of Very Rev. George 

 John Smith, Chaplain to the Marquis of Bute. 

 In twenty-five years the number of Catholic 

 priests has increased in Scotland from 200 to 

 nearly 400. 



England saw a Catholic Lord Mayor of Lon- 

 don in 1892 for the first time since the Refor- 

 mation, and an effort was made to pi-event Alder- 

 man Stuart-Knill, to whom the office went by 

 right of seniority in the board, from taking his 

 seat. The Catholic city of Dublin, whose Lord 

 Mayor is an English Protestant, conferred its free- 

 dom on Mayor Knill. 



The anticatholic course of Capt. Lugard in 

 Uganda, in the interest of the Protestant mis- 

 sionaries caused an inquiry in Parliament, and 

 the withdrawal of the charter of the British East 

 Africa Company, for whom Lugard was agent, 

 ensued. 



Bishop Vaughan, of the diocese of Salford, suc- 

 ceeded to the see of Westminster, made vacant 

 by the death of Cardinal Manning, and he sig- 

 nalized his advent by instituting a movement 

 for the encouragement and revival of Christian 

 art in England. He was called to Rome at the 

 close of the year to receive the red hat from 

 Pope Leo. Cardinal Vaughan is owner of the 

 " London Tablet," and comes of an old and dis- 

 tinguished family in English Catholic annals. 



"The Happiness in Hell." A remarkable 

 article thus entitled appeared in the " Contem- 

 porary Review " for December, from the pen of 

 St. George Mivart, the Catholic scientist, bring- 

 ing on the sharpest religious discussion in Eng- 

 land since the day of Dr. Newman and the 

 Puseyites. The criticisms were fierce on all 

 sides, Prof. Mivart finding theological defend- 

 ers and opponents. Rev. Richard Clarke, S. J., 

 and the Bishop of Nottingham figured most 

 prominently among the latter. The thesis 

 claims to be grounded thoroughly on theology, 

 and the writer fortifies it with the authorities 

 of the Catholic doctors, notably St. Augustine 

 and St. Thomas. On their interpretation of 

 the Church's doctrine he closes the hell of the 

 damned as far as permissible, carrying the theory 

 of evolution into it by insisting upon the most 

 charitable teaching with regard to the destiny 

 of unbaptized children, and of those infants of 

 larger growth, the untutored savages, and by a 

 broad interpretation of the " baptism of desire " 

 he includes among those saved from the exte- 

 rior darkness vast numbers commonly supposed 

 to be lost. He then interprets the conditions 

 necessary for a hell-deserving sin to be the 

 full knowledge, the free deliberation, and the 

 plenary consent ; contending that heredity and 

 environment diminish the malice of grievous 

 sins, and therefore, their punishment, in the 

 order of mercy what pcana sensus there may be 

 inflicted mitigating, until existence will be in 

 a sense tolerable, and certainly more desirable, 

 than annihilation. 



Spain and Portugal. The principal events 

 cluster around the Catholic Congress at Seville, 

 where the discussions took the character of 

 ameliorative recommendations for the wage 

 earners on the lines of Pope Leo's encyclical 

 on the labor question, and the revival of Cath- 

 olic literature by the publication under the 

 apostolate of the press of popular works bear- 

 ing upon faith and morals, and their systematic 

 distribution among the people. In tnis con- 

 nection several daily and weekly journals were 

 established, and two high-clasps reviews one at 

 Madrid, by the Jesuits, styled " Estudios Religi- 



