Religion: In Australia

When tens of thousands of Roman Catholics go, from every land, to a Eucharistic Congress it is not to quibble over prayer-books, nor to hold intra-denominational forensics over matters of faith or morals, nor to establish the status of the ape in history. The Catholics gather for prayer. There can be nothing controversial about a eucharistic congress: at journalistic best it provides a spectacle, is “good theatre.”

It was the Roman Catholic Church on parade, therefore, in Sydney last week. To fast-growing Sydney, largest city in Australia, capital of New South Wales, came many a priest, many a pilgrim. From Naples came Bonaventura Cardinal Cerreti, witty envoy of the Pope; from San

Francisco came potent Archbishop Edward J. Hanna; from New Zealand came Mita Taupopoki, chief of the Arawa tribe of Maoris, once the most warlike tribe in New Zealand; from Manhattan came Bishop John J. Dunn, who brought greetings, regrets from Patrick Cardinal Hayes; from many another spot came many another layman & divine. As they came to Chicago in 1926 and will go to Carthage, North Africa, in 1930, so they flocked to the 29th Eucharistic Congress in Australia.

High upon a Sydney eminence is the new St. Mary’s Cathedral, costing £700,000 ($3,400,000). This modern pile was dedicated on the Sunday before the opening of the congress.

A Catholic stay-at-home could imagine the pretentious beauty of the masses & other ceremonies; he could picture thurifers, masters of ceremonies, acolytes in cassocks, surplices; be-mitered bishops, birettaed priests; gaudy canopies, ornate chasubles, elaborate dalmatics, humeral veils; bejewelled chalices, ostensoria, ciboria.