Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 1.djvu/816

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740

ARMENTIA


740


ARMINIANISM


tolicam Sedem" (26 November, 1853), the city became a diocese. The first bishop was Johann Alexi (1854-65); he was succeeded by Johann Vanesa (1855-68), Pavel (1872-79), and Johann Szabo, appointed in 1879 (b. 16 August, 1836). The diocese of Armenierstadt contains about 683,300 inhabitants; 432,900 Catholics of the Greek-Roumanian Rite, 41,100 of the Latin Rite, and 1,600 of the Armenian Rite. It has one cathedral, six canonicates, four titular abbeys, one formal provostship, forty-five deaneries, 490 mother-churches, 391 dependent churches (Filialkirchen), one monastery with four monks (Basilian Order, in Bikszád), 475 pastors, 25 chaplains, one regular priest, eleven other ecclesiastics, and 64 clerics. The bishop directs a diocesan academy with seven professors, one teachers' training college, with four professors, one Armenian-Catholic Ober-Gymnasium, and about 600 public schools, with 38,900 pupils. The cathedral and the episcopal residence, architecturally speaking, are insignificant, a far more imposing building being the principal Armenian-Catholic church, built in 1792. Joseph Lins.

Armenia, Fray Nicolás, Bishop of La Paz (capital of Bolivia, South America), appointed 22 October, 1901; b. at Bemedo, diocese of Vittoria, Spain, 5 December, 1845. He was a Minorite and came to America as a missionary under the guidance of Father Rafael Sans, and followed the footsteps of that pioneer in the forests and on the river courses of the Reni region. He had, previous to his coming to South America, spent several years in France, and brought to the mission field, besides devotion to apostolic duties, a solid fund of knowledge in physics, astronomy, and natural science. The savage and cannibal tribes lurking in the fastnesses of the Beni region were not numerous, but often hostile, and had for years been cruelly decimated by epidemic disease (smallpox). To reach them he cut his way through almost impenetrable woods from one abandoned hamlet to another, exposed to the most appalling hardships from hunger, climate, and disease. He taught and preached wherever and whenever he fell in with Indians, establishing and re-establishing missions; in this way he gathered materials for the geography, natural history, and anthropology of those practically unknown regions. It cost him much labour to have these afterwards published, and his valuable books are, unfortunately, extremely rare at present. His principal publications are: "Diario del Viage al Madre de Dios, hecho por el P. Fray Nicolds Armentia, en el aiio de mil ochocientos ochenta y cuatro y mil ochocientos ochenta y cinco, en calidad de comisionado para explorar el Madre dcDios" etc.; usually bound with "Navegaci6n del Madre de Dios" (La Paz, 1887); and "Descripcion de la Provincia de los Mojos, en el Reino del Peru" (La Paz, 1888) — the latter is a Spanish translation of the book of the Jesuit Franz Xavier Eder, "DeBcriptio Provincial Moxitarum" (Buda, 1791). "Vocabulario del Idioma Shipibo del Ucayali" appeared in "Boletfn de la Sociedad geogrdfica de La Paz", I, No. 1. This is thus far the most complete vocabulary of any of the Pano stock (see Au.^waks), and embraces more than 3,800 words. "Los Indios Mosetenes y su lengua" was published at Buenos Aires, 1903.

Aside from personal recollections of the writer, gathered during years of intercourse with this prelate, there is a short biographical sketch, by Lafone y Quevedo, in Tacann, Arte, vorabuiirio etc. (La Plata, 1902). with portrait. The works cited in the text contain many scattered notices of the eventful career of the eminent missionary.

Ad. F. Bandeuer. Armidale, The Diocese of, situated in New South Wales (Australia), with its cathedral at Armidale, 335 miles north of Sydney. It is one of the six suffragan sees of the province of Sydney. Its boundary on the north is the Queensland border, on the east, the Diocese of Lismore, on the west, the Diocese of Wilcannia, ten miles beyond Walgett, and on the south, the Dioceses of Maitland and Bathurst. Area of Armidale Diocese, about 85,000 square miles. Armidale was not proclaimed a municipality till 1863. Ten years before that date (in 1853) the Rev. Timothy McCarthy was appointed its first resident priest. It was then a sparsely populated agricultural and pastoral district, where Catholics were few and far apart. Father McCarthy made Armidale his head-quarters, and (says Cardinal Moran) "his missionary district embraced all the territory as far as the Queensland border, and extended to the Pacific Ocean. His periodical excursions lasted for three months. From the Tweed to the Richmond, thence to the Clarence and on to Walcha, then across the Liverpool Plains to the Gwydir, and back by way of Glen Innes and Tenterfield to Armidale. Such was the route which he traversed in the discharge of his ordinary duties." He was afterwards transferred to the Carcoar district at a time when it was "in a ferment from the violence and lawlessness of the bushrangers. He rendered a great service alike to the State and to those unhappy outlaws, many of whom he succeeded in withdrawing from their life of sin and crime." He died in Ireland in 1879. Till 1864 all New South Wales was under the spiritual charge of the Bishop of Sydney. In that and the following years were created the present Dioceses of (ioulburn (1864), Bathurst (1865), and Maitland (1867). Armidale (says Cardinal Moran) "was also marked out for an episcopal see", but it was not till 1869 that its first Bishop, the Right Rev. Timothy O'Mahony, was appointed. Till 1887 the diocese had a vast and unwieldy area, and at the time that the new Bishop entered into possession it had no railroad running through it, "and even the ordinary roads were few". The first cathedral was a little wooden church 25 feet by 18, replaced by a brick and stone structure, opened in 1872, and measuring 102 feet by 32. Bishop O'Mahony's stay in Armidale was embittered by grave accusations that were fomented by a false clerical friend and given to the press and public by open enemies. He resigned his see in 1878 and was appointed auxiliary bishop to the Archbishop of Toronto, where he died in 1892. He was succeeded by the Right Rev. Elzear Torreggiani (1879-1904), an Italian Capuchin who had been on the mission in England and Wales. In Australia, as in Great Britain and Italy, Dr. Torreggiani always wore the habit of his order. His first visitation of his straggling and difficult diocese occupied three years. The coast district was, in 1SS7, erected into the Diocese of Grafton (now known as the Diocese of Lismore). A portion of the Maitland diocese was at the same time added to that of Armidale. Dr. Torreggiani died. 28 January, 1904. He was succeeded by the Right Rev. Patrick Joseph O'Connor, who had been his coadjutor from 3 May, 1903.

Statistics (towards the close of 1905). — Parochial districts, 15; churches, 52; secular priests, 22; regulars, 2; nuns, 144; secular teachers, 4; boarding schools for girls, 4; primary schools, 19; children in Catholic schools, 2.510; Catholic population, 25,540.

Lkvkv, lluli-hmson's AuKtrnl.n,,,,, E,iriicl,'v<r,lia (London. 1S92); MoR,\N, History of the Catholic Church in Auelralami (Sydney, imdated); Auslratasun Catholic Directory (Sydney, 190C).

Henry W. Cleary.

Arminianism, the popular designation of the doctrines held by a party formed in the early days of the seventeenth century among the Calvinists of the Netherlands. The tendency of the human reason to revolt against Calvin's decretum horrible of predestination absolute and salvation and damnation