The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1914-08-22

lCatlOllClSm unJll the great MelnOulSI
movement. Their churches had been
Catholic churches, like the other
churches of Christendom. Their rites
had been Catholic; the great Eucharis-
tic sacrifice had gathered them to al
tars only less splendid than those of
the grandest fanes of England. The
land was covered with the names OF
saints, like the blue heavens with the
host of stars. Catholic sacraments
had been their spiritual life; the mys-
teries of our Blessed Lords life, and
the story of His Blessed Mother had
occupied their thoughts and directed
their prayers
By the Reformation, these elements
in the Christianity of the Welsh peo-
pie were lost to them. In Cardiff, as
elsewhere, the change was imposed
upon the people by force. The city
can claim the honor of being enriched
with the blood of three martyrs.
Thomas Vaughan, who died about
1890; the Venerable Philip Evans, S.
j., and the Venerable Father John
Lloyd, who suffered in 1879 at the
Market Cross, and who embraced the
wood of the scaffold, crying out with
st. Andrew, "Hail, 0 good cross Her
lists of recusants were numerous and
long, but by slow degrees persecution
wrought it's fell work, and by 1745 a
Custom House report could declare,
"Thank God, we haven't one gentle
man in this country of any figure of
fortune that is a Papist or non
Juror, and we are told that they are
very few and of the meaner sort"
But in the last century came a
change. At it's opening there was but
a handful of Catholics in the total
population of 1000 people, and it was
not until the works of the first Butte
Dock were begun that the little flock
began to increase, until in 1899, when
they numbered 900, a resident priest
was granted. Mass was first said in
a public house, and then in the house
Of a Catholic tradesman, but in 1912
the Church of ST. David was opened.
The growth of the town continued,
In 1850, at the restoration of the
hierarchy, the Vicariate of the Welsh
District was erected into the Diocese
of Newport and Meneyia, and in 1858
Bishop Brown transferred the whole
of Cardiff to the missionary care of
the Fathers of Charity. In 1895 the
Diocese Of Wales was subdivided into
the two dioceses of Meneyia and
Newport The latter covers prac-
tically the area of the old Diocese Of
LANDAU and is ruled by Benedic-
tine Bishop, who is the "doyen" Of
the English hierarchy, Bishop Hedley,
under whose rule, and the uplifting
influence of his writings, the diocese
has fourished exceedingly. Today
Cardiff can count her 10000 Catholics,
, third of the 10000 in the diocese.
She has seven churches, six of which
have large. elementary schools, st
David's, ST Peters, ST. Mary's and st.
Guthbert's, served by the Fathers of
Charity, Benedictine monks from
Ampleforth Abbey, and secular priests.
Then, too, there are several houses
VI IeilSlouS "olilch, winch ll|IuuC q
large secondary school and pupil
teachers center, carried on by the
Rosminian Sisters. The congress,
then, went to a town where Catholic
ism is in active work and growth,
thanks in no small measure to the
business initiative of the Butte family,
and to it's generosity to the religion
which the late Marquis adopted.