CATHOLICISM IN THE ENGLISH ROYAL FAMILY.
[From the Catholic Mirror, Sept. 17, 1898.] It is difficult to describe the sensation caused among church-going people throughout the United Kingdom by the action of the Princess of Wales in not only accepting the presidency of a Roman Catholic orphanage at Norwood, founded and directed by Sisters of Mercy, but in likewise consenting to open a sort of fair or bazaar organized for the purpose of raising funds for the institution. It is the first occasion since the days of the Reformation, or rather I should say since the overthrow and exile of the Stuart dynasty, that a member of the reigning house of Great Britain has accorded recognition of any kind whatsoever to Catholic institutions, and one has only to recall the fact that it is not so very long ago that Roman Catholics were subjected to numerous civic disabilities, in order to realize the importance attached to the action of the Princess of Wales. The irritation which it has caused in all ultra-Protestant circles is intensified by the fact that the future queen of Great Britain has always displayed a very strong leaning for what is known as the High Church, or ritualistic branch of the Church of England. Like her fellow-ritualists she believes in confession, and in the divine presence in the sacrament, as well as in the intercession of the saints. In fact, her religious views (as in the case of so many other great ladies in England of foreign birth, who have been reared abroad as Lutherans, but have joined the Church of England) are so extremely ritualistic that the border line which separates them from full-fledged Roman Catholicism is barely perceptible. The Princess of Wales, moreover, has always remained deeply impressed by the fatherly words of sympathy and consolation addressed to her by the venerable pontiff when she visited Rome incognito with her two younger daughters shortly after the death of her eldest son.