' ettira MigR OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF PERTH.
Ring
:Address
Box 1633, G.P.O.
A CATHOLIC WEEKLY
,
Phone B5447
. PRICE THREEPENCE
Registered at the G.P.O., Perth for Transmission by Post as a Newspaper.
SIXTY-FIRST YEAR.
PERTH, SATURDAY, APRIL 27, 1935.
NO. 2.871.
THE TRIDTZUM AT LOURDES CLOSING That singular sense of the fitness of things which marks the liturgy of the Church sci nn ique, will be in striking evidence during the closing days of the Holy Year of Redemption. The Holy Father has decreed that the end of the Jubilee Year shall be marked by a solemn Tridutun at Lourdes between the .15th. and the 28th. inst., when the Holy Sacrifice will be offered without a break for three days and three nights. Commencing with a Pontifical High Mass bv a Car.dinal at 3 p.m.—the hour at which Our Lord died—on Thursday, the 25th.. Masses will be c elebrated continuously in every possible rite, celebrants being chosen according to their nationality, until 3 p.m. on Sunday, the 28th. The central intentions of the Triduum are for w orld peace and for an increased devotion to the Holy Sacrifice. Special services will be held all over the world in union with the official Triduum at Lour4es.
OF ME HOLY hEAR
NOTRE DAME DE LOURDES
Lady in the redemption of the Year ushers in the month of human race. Just as Our Lord May, dedicated the world over to offered Himself on Calvary as Our Lady. Mother of God, and the new and greater Adam, so, by her share in the Redemption too, Our Lady, at the foot of the and by the wish of her Son. The holding of this unique Cross, was pierced by the sword Mother of men: c eremony at Lourdes at the clos- of sorrow. in union with her Son, The intention of world peace ing of the Holy Year signifies. to atone for the co-operation of the Church's recognition of the Eve in original sin. Very, ap- is also bound up very intimately tremendous part played bv Our propriately the end of the Holy with the commemoration of Our
Saviour's Passion, and with the associations of Lourdes. The Papal encyclicals have insisted again and again that the peace of the world and international relations can be maintained and given stability only through a solid spirit of justice and charity among the nations. It was the motto of Pius N. 44t0 restore all things in Christ." Pilgrimages from France. Belguitn. Italy. Spain, Switzerland, and England are being organised to take place in what promises to be the greatest gathering in the The coshistory of Lourdes. mopolitan aspect of this unique celebration will serve to emphasise not alone the Catholicity of the Church. hut also the fact that the nations of the earth may be bound and are bound together in a fraternity which transcends the instability of international pacts. T t will point, too, with a vigour that cannot be ignored to the force of Catholicism as a major factor in world peace. It may be that the day is not far distant when the Holy Father will preside once more in the Councils of the nations, and the spirit of Christ will become the foundation of their mutual relations
"ISLAM"--AS BELLOC SEES IT
HILAIRE BELLOC.
Ever); culture is founded on its religion ; and in Islam that truth is so glaring that even those who do not perceive it in an' other Now things perceive it here. the religion of Islam has proved unshakable. It is the one religion into which the Catholic Church has never advanced. There appears so far to be no chance of converting the Mohammedan ‘yorld. even in part. The most heroic efforts have been made, and the most persistent; but the block remains unchanged and unbroken like a piece of granite. . . . Another thing to be remarked ( and in my judgment a far more disturbing and essential one) is the almost unchanged devotion There is here of its adherents. the Cawith contrast sharp a tholic Church and its culture. Catholicism is always fighting what looks lke a losng battle; whole districts become what is called
"nominally Catholic ;• • Governments definitely anti-Catholic f.as in France) arise within the Catholic culture ;or again districts made and trained by Catholicism become slack from lack of opposition. It would seem as though both opposition and security threatened Catholicism alternately throughout the ages. Then, again, Catholicism is a subject to internal movements which break off great bodies of its adherents; the main Catholic t ruths become not only forgotten but hated by men whose immediate forefathers were devout. But in the case of Islam. you have nothing of all this. There are heresies of a sort, some of them permanent ; but they do not strike at the very root of the There are differences system. between strict observers and less strict observers, but the observation of the Mohammedan religious rule is general from the At-
_ 00-00148• •• •• •• • 44- •• •4. 00 -4.0 01-10 4,-'.-•• -i.e. 0.100.-00---N • 4.
lantic to the China Sea, and from the Euxine to the depths of Africa. The whole thing gives me the impression, when I travel in places where the mass of the population is Mohammedan, of a strong animal held in leash by a man who has captured it indeed, but who is still afraid of it, and has neither its tenacity nor its health. I cannot but believe that a moral situation so united as is Islam and possessed of such convictions- must not only survive but again threaten its opponents. . . . Islam has retained with its religion the lively morals which Christianity is in danger of losing. We see this notably in the case of justice. Many in Christendom have forgotten what justice is; Islam may not practise justice as it should, but it still knows what justice is. Justice is free in its courts, not paid for as with us.
-04e-040.00-00-040-00-.04000-00.--.00-.00-040-
-400. 00-4.0.00-.00