Catholic Information From Abroad

VATICAN CITY
PRIVATE AUDIENCES. The Holy Father has received recently in private audience Cardinals Tedeschini, Mar
chetti Selvaggiani and • Furnasoni Biondi; Mgr. Nasalli Rocca di ComeNano, Archbishop of Bologna; Archbishop Evreinof ; the Bishop of Pavia; the Coadjutor Bishop of Palma, (Majorca); Mgr. John Clark, Administrator Apostolic to the British Forces in Italy; Fr. Clement, 0.F.M.Cap.; three American Senators from the American delegation to the Congress of the Inter Parliamentary Union, which was recently held in Cairo, accompanied by members of their party, introduced by the first secretary of the American office in Vatican City; M. Francisque Gay, president of the M.R.P. party in France.
SPECIAL AUDIENCES. The Holy Father has received in special audience recently, Mr. Charles O'Connor ; Superior General of the Missionaries of the Holy Family ; Mr. Humphrey Weld, and Mrs. Murphy; Superior General of the Eucharistic Capuchin Sisters of the Mother of God; Superior General of the Sisters of St. Columbanus.
THE POPE has sent a letter of congratulation to Cardinal Fumasoni Biondi, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, on April 17, on his 50th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood. (B.U.P.)
The SALVATORIAN FATHERS will hold their General Chapter at the Mother House of the Society, in Rome, on May 1. The English Province will be represented by the Very Rev. Gabriel Enderk, S.D.S., Corn. Provincial, and by two delegates, the Very Rev. Xavier Howard, S.D.S., and the Rev. Cormac Coyne, S.D.S. AUSTRALIA The CARMELITE Fathers in Australia opened a new novitiate in a suburb of Sydney. The new novitiate is named Aylesford, after the famous Carmelite house in England. The building was blessed last year by Cardinal Gilroy, and the novitiate was formally opened by the Vicar-General of the diocese, Mgr. Collender.
The FIRST MONASTERY in the Australian island State of Tasmania was opened on March 16 at Newtown by the Archbishop of Hobart, Mgr. Tweedy. The new monastery is a foundation of the Redemptorist Fathers, who hitherto have had to cross from the mainland to give missions and retreats in the island.
MR. COLIN CLARK, well-known economist, formerly of Oxford, and later economic adviser to the Queensland Government, has been appointed Under-Secretary of Labour and Industry in that State. Born in England, Mr. Clark went to Australia in 1938 to lecture at Melbourne University, and was recommended for the post of economic adviser by Dr. Dalton, Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ho is married and has seven sons.
CANADA The FIRST CANADIAN to become Knight Commander of the Order of St. Gregory is Mr. Ambrose O'Brien, of Ottawa, who is honorary vice-president of the Marian Congress, to be held in Ottawa from June 18 to 22. The honour is conferred by the Pope in recognition of many distinguished services to the Church.
CHINA
FOUR BELGIAN priests and six Dutch nuns were killed when Chinese Communists sacked the town of Sungeiuchieu,. in Gehol Province. Local
missionary circles in Shanghai con.
firmed the report, and an investigation is proceeding to discover the names of the priests.
CZECHOSLOVAKIA
THE BIGGEST procession in local living memory was the culminating feature of the Catholic missions at Presov, in Eastern Slovakia, when more than 30,000 Catholics passed through the streets of Presov with missionary crucifixes. The procession was headed by Mgr. Josef Carsky, Bishop of Kosice, Mgr. Paul Gojdic, Bishop of Presov, and Mgr. Basil Hopko, Auxiliary Bishop of Presov.
ECUADOR The CONSTITUTIONAL ASSEMBLY, by a new electoral law, is free from any restrictive measures against the clergy, despite the efforts of the Government Party and a supporting group to get them into the law. It was argued that the object of the amendments stating that priests should keep out of -politics were covered by the Concordat.
FRANCE CARDINAL SURARD. Archbishop of Paris, has issued a strong recommendation to the faithful recalling the importance of their exercising their vote in the elections, which were due to take place yesterday, April 24. "It will be a grave obligation in conscience to exercise this vote," writes the Cardinal. A short communique was read in all the churches of the archdiocese on Sunday last, A FRENCH CATHOLIC delegation arrived in Warsaw on Sunday last. The
delegates are especially interested in the Regained Territories and in the affairs of the Church in Poland. They will visit Warsaw, Wflanow, the Western Territories, Lodz and Cracow. During their travels in Poland they will give several lectures.
CARDINAL SALIEGE, Archbishop of Toulouse, presided at the closing day of the pilgrimage to Lourdes of the JA.C., the agricultural branch of the J.O.C.—the Young Christian Workers, Mgr. Theas, and a number of other prelates were also present and gave conferences to the 8,000 young agricultural workers who had assembled for this pilgrimage.
GERMANY THE TEXT of a confidential letter issued by the Socialist Unity Party of Magdeburg to a selected membership, printed in Berlin PetrussbIatt, appeals to members to " visit churches and find out wether the sermons delivered are of a purely religious character and likely to promote the democratic reconstruction of the nation." Recent arrests of students in the Russian zone also have been disclosed. In Berlin alone, six students, all of them members of Catholic youth organisations, have disappeared.
SPAIN 'The OPUS DEI SOCIETY, a group which has been working in Madrid since 1928, will probably be among the first " secular institutes " to be approved under the recent constitution Provida Mater Ecclesia, issued by the Pope. The Opus Dei Society was founded by Fr. Escriva de Balaguer in 1928 among men university students. A year .later a women's branch was added. Members are lay folk.
U.S.A.
CARDINAL SPELLMAN has presented the Home-front (the Catholic welfare organisation of Dutch soldiers in the Far East) with 50 complete Mass sets.