698 



ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 



is concerned, by the publication of the facts 

 by the Archbishop of Freiburg from which it 

 appears that both Prince Ferdinand of Rou- 

 mania and Princess Mary of Edinburgh sought 

 personally and directly a dispensation from the 

 Holy See from the marriage impediment on ac- 

 count of difference of religion, and that they 

 agreed in writing to fulfill all the conditions de- 

 manded by the Church, notably that of bring- 

 ing up in 'the Catholic faith all the offspring. 

 The baptism of the firstborn by an Anglican 

 minister was therefore a violation of a personal 

 pledge, resolving itself into a matter of honor, 

 inasmuch as without it the Holy See would not 

 have allowed the marriage to be celebrated in 

 the Catholic church at Sigmaringen. The pub- 

 lication was authorized by Cardinal Rampalla. 



Rt. Rev. Otto Zardetti, D. D., Bishop of St. 

 Cloud, Minn., United States of America, was ap- 

 pointed Archbishop of Bucharest, Roumania, in 

 February. 



Germany. The imperial decree of twenty 

 years ago was revoked by the Reichstag, but the 

 Bundesrath failed to concur in its action. The 

 Catholic party maintained its important position 

 as the arbiter of the Emperor's destinies. 



The German miners who joined with their 

 English brethren against the anarchists of the 

 International Congress of Berlin, in May, 

 " cheered for the Pope and the Kaiser." 



France. The Holy See accorded an extraor- 

 dinary jubilee to France extending from Easter 

 to Christmas, in commemoration of the fifteenth 

 centenary of the baptism of Clovis, King of 

 France, and " there was a flavor of the old-time 

 religious fervor in the manner in which the 

 period was observed." Joan of Arc's canoniza- 

 tion by the Church was followed in June by a 

 governmental enactment making her feast day 

 a national holiday hereafter. The entente cor- 

 diale between Church and state was still fur- 

 ther established by the ecclesiastical action on 

 the assassination 'of President Carnot, by the 

 Pope's congratulations to M. Dupuy, the new 

 French Premier, and by the pontiff's order to 

 the Archbishop of Lyons, that he comply with 

 the Government's desires in the matter of Church 

 revenue. 



The Congregation of the Holy Cross elected 

 the Very Rev. Gervais Francois, rector of the 

 College Notre Dame de St. Croix, Neuilly, Paris, 

 a native of Brittany, one of the noted preach- 

 ers of France, to succeed the late venerable 

 Father Sorin, of Notre Dame, Ind., as superior 

 general. M. Puyo, president of the Catholic 

 Committee at Morlaix, received at the hands of 

 the Pope the cross of St. Gregory in recog- 

 nition of the fact that his committee was the 

 first in I.rittany to adopt the papal French 

 policy ami rally to the republic. A colossal 

 statue of tin- I J'lcssod Virgin, to surmount the 

 highest peak of the Rouergue mountains, in 

 the Department of Aveyron, visible to passen- 

 gers along the line of the Paris. Montpellier Rail- 

 way, was commenced. It will take four years 

 completing, and is the work of the Duchesse 

 D'Uzeo, whose son recently died in Africa. 



Belgium. The popular election of the year, 

 under the new suffrage laws, resulted in an over- 

 whelming Catholic majority, the Clerical party 

 practically controlling the Government by two 



thirds. The result is due to the broad policy 

 adopted by the Catholic congresses on the labor 

 question as well as to the violent actions of the 

 anarchists. King Leopold, in May, acceded to 

 his daughter's desire to enter a convent. 



Spain. The cause of Don Carlos received a 

 severe blow by an admonition from Leo XIII to 

 the Spanish clergy, and especially to those of the 

 Basque provinces, to the effect that they remain 

 faithful and loyal to the established Government 

 represented by King Alfonso XIII and the 

 Queen Regent. In July, as a means of develop- 

 ing the Spanish ecclesiastical college at Rome, 

 the Pope made the Queen Regent of Spain per- 

 sonal trustee of the Palace Altemps, situated in 

 the center of Rome, and purchased by him for 

 $200,000 from the Duke de Gallese. In April a 

 Spanish pilgrimage, headed by the Cardinal of 

 Seville, and numbering nearly 10,000 in all, was 

 attacked by anarchists at Valencia on its way to 

 Rome. 



Great Britain. The centenary of Stony- 

 hurst College, the English home of the Jesuit 

 refugees of the French Revolution, and the alma 

 mater of such men as Cardinal Vaughan, Arch- 

 bishop Hughes, Gen. Thomas Francis Meagher, 

 Charles Waterton, the naturalist, Father Perry, 

 the astronomer, Dr. A. Conan Doyle, Percy Fitz- 

 gerald, and Bernard Partridge, the authors, was 

 the most important Catholic event of 1894. Be- 

 ginning July 23, the celebration covered five 

 days. The present college building cost $1,500,- 

 000. While the establishment of Stonyhurst a 

 century ago marks the relaxation of the penal 

 laws against the religious orders of the Catholic- 

 church, the elevation of Charles Russell to be 

 Lord Chief Justice of England, vice Lord Cole- 

 ridge, deceased, may be said to mark the polit- 

 ical enfranchisement of English Catholics, Sir 

 Charles being the first of his belief to reach the 

 chief justiceship since the time of Henry VIII. 

 He was born in Newry, Ireland, in 1835, and has a 

 brother (Matthew) in the Jesuit order in Dublin 

 and a sister who is superior of a convent in 

 San Francisco. An English Catholic pilgrim- 

 age to the holy places of Ireland the first of 

 modern times proved so popular that another 

 on a grander scale is planned for 1895. 



Ireland. New Year's was ushered in by the 

 ringing of all the bells in Dublin a ceremony 

 dispensed with during the days of coercion but 

 their echoes had scarcely died away when the 

 death was announced of Dr. Donnelly, Bishop 

 of Clogher, who was accorded a public funeral. 

 January saw the suppression of " street preach- 

 ing" in Cork by the police, on the ground that 

 the " Evangelists." a new sect, gave pretext for 

 rowdyism, and endangered the city's good name 

 for toleration and order. Religious services of 

 all kinds are prohibited except within private 

 grounds. The grand collegiate Church of St. 

 Patrick at Maynooth has been completed, and 

 it is probably the finest piece of architectural 

 work in the world. The past ten years have 

 seen more educational and ecclesiastical devel- 

 ment in Ireland than in any other country of 

 Europe, strange as it may appear. The anti- 

 Catholic university system lost some of its bane- 

 ful features during the year. 



Archbishop Walsh, of Dublin, recorded him- 

 self as in favor of compulsory education. 



i 



