Cardinal Van Rocy has sent the following message from Malines to the Archbishop of Westminster: " I have. read with deep emotion the fraternal message of sympathy which Your Grace so kindly sent to me on September 7 through the good offices of the President of the Chamber of Representatives, and I take the first opportunity given to me to express my heartfelt gratitude.
" Although we have been cut off for more than four years by the tide of war, we have always felt very close in heart and spirit to the bishops, clergy and Catholics of England. We heard with great sorrow of the death of your eminent predecessor, Cardinal Hinsley, and we rejoiced at your elevation to the illustrious See of Westminster.
"Now that our country has been fieed from a merciless occupation, we are expressing our gratitude to God for having recovered our liberty. thanks to the heroism of the British and Allied Armies.
" We arc full of admiration tor your fighting men, your generals and your Government; and we shall never forget all we owe to them.
" With you. I hope that our relations will continue to be very cordial and that mutual visits will still further strengthen the links or friendship forged in our common trials.
" I send to Your Grace, to the clergy and faithful, expressions of my devotion and my most cordial regard.Cardinal Van Racy, Atchbishotir of Ma lines.
BOLTON The nomination by the Bishop of Salford of the Very Rev. B. Slevin, D.D., as Catholic Chaplain at Fishpool Institution, Bolton, in succession to the Very Rev. J. C. Mills, has been approved by the committee. and scattered Catholics in every part of the country.
A strong committee has been for med for this London branch and includes Lord Ventry, Sir Cecil Dormer, K.C.M.G., M.V.0.. Miss Ellen Foaaberg (who was a high school professor in Norway and who escaped about two years ago), Colonel Finn Backer, and Lieut. Wright.
Already there is quite a live membership, and those who came to the inaugural meeting on Friday listened to one of the most recently-arrived Norwegian escapees-a young lawyer--tell about life in Norway under the German and Quisling regime.
" A closely-woven network which the Germans will never be able. to unravel," was how he described the underground movement in Norway. Everyone who enters it must take a vow to escape if the Germans arc on their track-for discovery means arrest and torture until :tames of the whole organisation may be revealed by a semi-delirious man. And so, with the Gestapo practically on his doorstep, this young man (who is a recent convert to the Church) managed to get away, eventually making his way on skis into Sweden. His relatives are still thete and his brother has been taken as hostage. That is the usual procedure when anyone escapes-and it is accepted by all underground members as part of their sacrifice.
BAFFLING THE GERMANS
The significant thing about NOIWCgian resistance has been the solidarity of various sections of the Community ---of the teachers who have suffered incredible tortures and banishment rather than subscribe to the Nazi teaching; the parents who were rounded up into concentration camps because they supported the teachers in their stand; the twenty-one judges of the high courts who resigned rather than work with the Nazis; the shipowners who refused to send out orders to the ships neittered all over the world to return to Norway; the refusal of the sports organisations to allow themselves to be reorganised on Nazi lines, All this has baffled the Germans. The judges have been replaced by Quislings, and even when faked messages purporting to come from the shipowners were sent out. the men at the receiving end recognised the phoney character of the message and not a ship came back.
Talking to the speaker later in the evening 1 marvelled that a man, working at full pressure in the underground and knowing that he was being hunted and shodowed, should be able to find time to become instructed and received into the Church. "I did find time," he said. " We have a wonderful Dutch priest in my small town and a beautiful church which, you may be surprised to know. was built by subscriptions from all denominations in Norway. Since I left Norway I have heard that my wife and my three children have also been received into the Church."
In the whole of Norway, Lieut. Wright told nte. there arc only seven native priests. The rest are foreigners, and he looks forward to the time when England will be able to send some of her young curates to help. Converts to the Church are mostly among the intelligentsia, but there is a real dearth of priests. English priests would he particularly welcome.
Sigrid Undset's son. who is working with the Norwegian Government. was among those who came to the meeting. He and his mother are members of the St. Olaf Association in Norway.