The Irish standard., 1914-06-13
New Women of Right Kind

course of lectures in the Middle West
on behalf of the work of the sodal-
ity of st. Peter Claver. The Sodal-
ity of st. Peter Claver is a religious
institute Of women founded by Count
ess Ledochowska about twenty years
ago to aid in the conversion of the
whole continent Of Africa-the only
practical way Of iberating the black
woman from the slavery she now
,groans under. The headquarters of
the sodality are in Rome where the
foundress and present directress
general enjoys the utmost confidence
of our Holy Father, Pope Plus x, as
she did that of his illustrious prede-
cessor, Pope Leo XIII. The Baron
ess Won Schonau, who lectured here.
is what is called an external member
of the sodality. but she was accom-
panied by Miss Valeria Bielak, a
Polish lady, who is an internal mem
Der. that is. one of the religious of
this unique missionary organization.
The two ladies came, not to taks
up collection-for they neither
charged admission to their lectures
nor solicited donations but to
awaken personal interest in the
cause of the African Missions. They
made known by means of illustrated
lectures the aim and scope of the So
dality of st. Peter Claver; then left
it to their auditors own free choice
whether or not the cause of Africa's
conversion ought to be furthered by
patronizing one or other form of the
Sodality's activity. 1t is kind of
propaganda that has for the past
twenty years met with unpreceden-
ted success in Europe, and something
of the same success seems toshave
tended it in America.
There is that about the sodality
which ought to render the American
Catholic public peculiarly sympathet-
ic towards it. Its noble foundress-
no less noble in grace than in blood
has hit upon a means of making
the highly developed business meth
DDS of this commercial age do service
in the cause of Christ; has found out
way of turning the larger liberty
of the modern woman to the good of
souls. In short, Countess Ledochow-
ska has succeeded in giving the
agency system form Of religious
conservation; for she and her sisters
in religion act as the agents both for
the missionary in the field and the
people at home: for the missionary
by taking from him the burden of
seeking his support at the expense
of wasting priceless energies that
should be put to the saving of souls; ;
for the people at-home by relieving
them of the worry of how best to
place their contributions to mission
airy purposes. The Sodality in ad-
dition to arranging lectures in the
large cities of Europe for visiting
missionary priests from Africa, in
addition to organizing missionary
congresses of it's own and being rep
resented at others, in addition to
opening African museums in it's
branch Offices and at missionary
gatherings, in addition to all this
the Sodility is engaged in carrying
on a gigantic press propaganda. 1t
has two printing establishments, one
at Rome and one at Salzbourg. in
Austria, manned exclusively by the
Sisters of the institute. The output
of those presses is made up of bulle-
tins, pamphlets, and Claverian liter
allure of various kinds, not to men,
ton books of instructions such as
catechisms and bible histories in
native dialects for gratuitous distri-
button among the missionaries labor
ing on the Dark Continent. The
single fact that the Sodality's princi-
pdA Uullctlu, uS LULU lAOlA ALI I'D
is published in nine different
languages the French edition has
some 10000 subscribers-gives some
idea of the vastness of the press pro-
paganda which these Claverian
ladies so modestly conduct.
The lecture tour by the Baroness
Won Schoenau and her companion
was intended to bring the teaching
sisterhoods in this section of the
country into immediate touch with
the work of the Sodality and at the
same time to enlist the general
sympathies of the public at large.
For this purpose illustrated lectures
were given at the mother houses OF
the teaching communities of women
as we'll as the general public at a
few of the parishes in each of the
big cities visited. The lectures of
the Baroness were in both English
and German, whereas those of Miss
Bielak were in Polish and in Italian.
BY means of these lectures the So
dality expects eventually to draw
funds, and in large sums, from
America to help support the African