600 



ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 



admired coadjutor, Bishop Schmitz; and on May 

 23, of this year, Archbishop Hubert Simar, after 

 a rule of a little more than two years. 



The Catholic Day (Katholikentag) was held 

 Aug. 24-28, in Mannheim, the largest city in Ba- 

 den and its commercial metropolis. 



The Imperial Census Bureau has published the 

 official results of the census arranged according 

 to religious denominations. The last population 

 of the empire counted 56,367,178. There were 35,- 

 231,104 Protestants and 20,321,441 Catholics. 



The archbishops and bishops assembled in an- 

 nual conference at the tomb of St. Boniface in 

 Fulda have issued a joint pastoral letter to the 

 Catholic people, the burden of which is the life, 

 labors, and aims of Pope Leo XIII. 



Spain. Pope Leo's strongly worded protest, 

 forwarded to the Spanish ministry, in condemna- 

 tion of their antireligious project had some influ- 

 ence with them. His Holiness demands freedom 

 for Spanish religious orders as for all other law- 

 abiding men in this intensely Catholic country. 

 The papal nuncio in Spain has announced what 

 is clearly the result of an understanding between 

 the Government and the Holy See, that the only 

 thing required for the authorization of the relig- 

 ious orders, after canonical approval, is civil regis- 

 tration, which can not be refused by the officials 

 of the state. According to the statistics published 

 by the Minister of the Interior, there are in Spain 

 3,115 religious communities, with 50,933 members; 

 40,188 are women. The greater number have com- 

 plied with the Government's conditions for au- 

 thorization. Some communities have presented 

 reasons for which they consider that they are 

 exempted from the provisions of the law. 



The members of the Apostolate of the Press as- 

 sisted at the mass of communion in the Church 

 of the Sacred Heart and St. Francis Borgia in 

 Madrid, and assembled in the evening to give ac- 

 count of their labors. They have printed 379,000 

 copies of different works 65,000 of clericalism 

 and 18,000 of defense of religion and its ministers 

 and 81,780 publications were distributed gratis 

 among the poorer people. In their address to the 

 King, which sums up the resolutions of the Con- 

 gress, the bishops demand liberty for the religious 

 orders, the best men and minds of Spain recogni- 

 zing society's debt to them. 



The bones of Columbus have been transferred 

 from the Cathedral of Havana. On Nov. 17, the 

 Duke of Veragua arrived in Seville, bearing the 

 remains of his great ancestor. He proceeded to 

 the cathedral, accompanied by the highest civil 

 and military officials, where the reinterment took 

 place. 



France. The Town Council of Aries voted the 

 removal of all religious emblems from public 

 places. In the night all the crucifixes were bro- 

 ken to pieces, and particularly one immense figure 

 much venerated by the peopfe. 



The Figaro estimates that 180,000 children are 

 deprived of all opportunities of attending school 

 in consequence of the recent closing of religious 

 schools. 



The Subsecretary of State, M. Mouget, ordered 

 that from May 1 the post-offices and telegraph 

 and telephone offices be opened in the forenoon of 

 Sundays, and not in the afternoon, as hitherto. 

 This is contrary to the expressed wish of the ma- 

 jority of the employees, who, being questioned, pre- 

 ferred to be free at an hour in which they could 

 attend divine service. 



Seventy-four of the 79 resident bishops of 

 France signed a joint petition to the Parliament 

 for the authorization of the 500 religious congre- 

 gations which have asked for it. The Council of 



State condemned the bishops for this exercise of 

 the ordinary right of citizens. The Bishop of Or- 

 leans answered by proofs that no law of France 

 was violated by the bishops' act. Announcing his. 

 program, the Premier, M. Combes who is not an 

 ex-priest, although he is an ex-ecclesiastic bold- 

 ly declared: "We shall reject all authorization 

 to compete with state education. The Falloux 

 law, allowing liberty of teaching, will have to go 

 in the name of liberty." 



With regard to the Passionist Fathers at Paris, 

 their central position for English-speaking Ro- 

 man Catholics (especially Americans and Irish), 

 thus attacked, will entail enormous inconvenience 

 on thousands who look to them for ministration, 

 counsel, and help. The hard-working staff of four 

 or six has always its hands full of work for relief 

 among the poor Irish, and for direction among 

 rich Americans. 



The Oratorians, who applied for authorization, 

 find themselves with the majority on the list of 

 the proscribed. But their case is not at all the 

 same as that of orders like the Franciscans, Do- 

 minicans, etc., from the point of view of legal 

 status. This aspect of the matter the father* 

 have not been slow in placing as clearly as possi- 

 ble before the Deputies in a letter in which they 

 explain what they pointed out to the Ministry of 

 Worship at the time that they only applied for 

 authorization in case their status as a simple as- 

 sociation of secular priests should be contested. 

 Though styled the Congregation of the Oratory, 

 they are not a congregation in the true sense of 

 the word. 



The Council of State having condemned the 

 bishops who signed the petition to the Senators 

 and Deputies in behalf of the religious congrega- 

 tion as being guilty of an abuse of their position, 

 the state stipends of three of the bishops whom 

 the Government regards as having had a principal 

 part in organizing the petition have been stopped. 

 The three prelates are Mgr. Petit, Archbishop of 

 Besangon; Mgr. Touchet, Bishop of Orleans; and 

 Mgr. Bardel, Bishop of Seez. 



At Tours private houses have been entered by 

 officials; at Marseilles an attempt has been made 

 to seize ecclesiastical property; and at Rheims 

 there has been interference in an ecclesiastical col- 

 lege. Even missionaries not religious at all, not 

 having vows or possessing property in common, as, 

 for instance, the missionaries of Our Lady of Laus, 

 are being proceeded against. The orders that 

 await suppression are preparing for exile, for 

 none of their members may join the secular clergy 

 or exercise any religious function without the 

 express permission of the Minister of Worship 

 Combes himself. 



The five congregations to be authorized with re- 

 strictions are the Brothers of St. John of God 

 (who have 10 establishments), the Cistercians of 

 the Immaculate Conception, the Trappists, the 

 Algerian missionaries, or " White Fathers," and 

 the African missionaries of Lyons in all 45 

 religious houses for 40,000,000 Catholics in Al-/ 5 

 giers. 



Australia. Cardinal Moran, who, owing to 

 his great age, has lately resigned from his archi- 

 episcopal see of Melbourne, said that he " did nrt 

 know if in the history of the Church one could 

 find such an expansion in schools as that which 

 the country (Australia) presented." 



Austria. The question of the religious orders 

 has come up in both houses of Parliament. In 

 the upper house, Canon Zschokke victoriously 

 pleaded their cause, freely adducing irrefutable 

 and irresistible statistics, showing, among othor 

 things, that 30,000 sick persons are cared for by 



