Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 13.djvu/140

 ROERMOND

110

ROGATION

Tyburn, 21 Jan., 1641. Educated in Suffolk and at Cambridge, he became converted through a visit to a Cathohc prisoner at St. Albans which unsettled his religious views. He was admitted as a con victor into the English College at Douai, entered the English Benedictine monastery at Dieulward where he was professed in 1012, and, after ordination, went to the mission in 1615. From 161S to 1623 he was impris- oned in the New Prison, Maiden Lane, whence he w^as banished and went to the English Benedictine house at Douai but returned to England after four months. He was again arrested in 1625, and was imprisoned for two months at St. Albans, then in the Fleet whence he was frequently liberated on parole, and finally in Newgate. He was condemned a few days before his execution under the statute 27 Eliz. c. 2, for being a priest. With him suffered Thomas Greene, aged eighty, who on the mission had taken the name of Reynolds. He was probably descended from the Greenes of Great Milton, Oxfordshire, and the Reynoldses of Old Stratford, Warwickshire, and was ordained deacon at Reims in 1590, and priest at Seville. He had lived under sentence of death for fourteen years, and was executed without fresh trial. They w^ere drawn on the same hurdle, where they heard each other's con- fessions, and were hanged simultaneously on the same gibbet amidst great demonstrations of popular sym- pathv.

GiLLOW, Bill. Diet. Eng. Cath., Ill, 36; V, 437; Challoner, Missionary Priests, II, nos. 166, 167; Pollen, Acts of the English Martyrs (London, 1891), 339-43.

John B. Wainewright.

Roennond, Diocese of (Rur.emundensis), in Holland, suffragan of Utrecht. It includes the Prov- ince of Liinburg, and in 1909 had 3.32,201 inhabitants, among whom were 325,000 Catholics. The diocese has a cathedral chapter with 9 canons, 14 deaneries, 173 parishes, 197 churches with resident priests, an ecclesiastical seminary at Roermond, a preparatory seminary for boys at Rolduc, about 70 Catholic primary schools, 2 Catholic preparatory gymnasia, 1 training college for male teachers, 24 schools for phil- osophical, theological, and classical studies, 35 higher schools for girls, about 60 charitable institutions, 45 hou.ses of religious (men) with about 2400 members, and 130 convents with 3900 sisters. Among the orders and congregations of men in the diocese are: Jesuits, the Society of the Divine Word of Steyl, Brothers of the Immaculate Conception, Redemptor- ists, Marists, Reformed Cistercians, Dominicans, Benedictines, Oblates of Mary Immaculate, Brothers of Mercy, Poor Brothers of St. Francis, Conventuals, Calced Carmelites, Missionaries of Africa, Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Brothers of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Brothers of St. Francis, Brothers of St. Joseph, the Society of Mary, the Congregation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Congregation of the Divine Spirit, and the Congrega- tion of Missions. Among the female orders and con- gregatioruj are: Benedictines, Brigittines, Ur.sulines, oifiters of St. Charles Borromeo, Sisters of Tilburg, SiHtcrH of the Child Jesus, Sisters of St. Francis, Sii5t/Ts of the Divine Providence, Sisters of Mercy etc.

llu! Dioc('K<! of Roermond was established in 1559, during the reign of Pliilip II, when after long and difficult negotiations with the papacy the dioceses of the Nftlicrlands were reorganized. By these negotia- tions all juri.s<liftion of foreign bishop.s, e. g. that of the Archbihhoi* of Cologne, came to an end. In this way the Dioces*; of Roermond, the; boundaries of which were settled in l.jOl, became a suffragan of Mechlin. 'Ilie reorganization of th(? dioceses, how- ever, met with violent opposition, partly from bish- ops to whotw; territories tlie new diocescw haiscopal see remained vacant until 1591; at later periods also, on account of the political turmoils, the see was repeatedly vacant. In 1801 the diocese was suppressed; the last bishop, Johann Baptist Baron van Velde de Melroy, died in 1824.

When in 1839 the Duchy of Limburg became once more a part of the Netherlands, Gregory XVI sepa- rated (2 June, 1840) that part of Limburg which had been incorporated in the Diocese of Louvain in 1802, and added to this territory several new parishes which had formerly belonged to the Diocese of Aachen, and formed thus the Vicariate Apostolic of Roermond, over which the parish priest of Roermond, Johann August Paredis, was placed as vicar Apostolic and titular Bishop of Hirene. In 1841 a seminar}^ for priests was established in the former Carthusian monastery of Roermond, where the celebrated Dionysius the Carthusian had been a monk. Upon the re-establishment of the Dutch hierarchy in 1853 the Vicariate-Apostolic of Roermond was raised to a bishopric and made a suffragan of Utrecht. The first bishop of the new diocese was Paredis. In 1858 a cathedral chapter was formed; in 1867 a synod was held, the first since 1654; in 1876 the administration of the church property was transferred, by civil law, to the bishop. During the Kulturkmipf in Germany a number of ecclesiastical dignitaries driven out of Prussia found a hospitable welcome and opportunities for further usefulness in the Diocese of Roermond; among these churchmen were Melchers of Cologne, Brinkmann of Miinster, and Martin of Paderborn. Bishop Paredis was succeeded by Franziskus Boreman (1886-1900), on whose death the present bishop, Joseph Hubertus Drehmann, was appointed.

Gallia Christiana, V, 371 sqq.; Neerlandia catholica seu provinci(e Ulrajeclensis historia et conditio (Utrecht, 1888), 263- 335; Albers, Geschiedenis van het herstel der hierarchie in de Nederlanden (Nymwegen, 1893-4); Meerdinck, Roermond in de Middeleeuwen; Onze Pius Almanak. Jaarboek voorde Katholiken van Nederland (Alkmaar, 1910), 338 sqq.

Joseph Lins.

Rogation Days, days of prayer, and formerly also of fasting, instituted by the Church to appease God's anger at man's transgressions, to ask protection in calamities, and to obtain a good and bountiful harvest, known in England as "Gang Days" and "Cross Week", and in Germany as Bittagc, Billivochc, Kreuz- woche. The Rogation Days were highly esti^emed in England and King Alfred's laws considered a theft committed on these days equal to one committed on Sunday or a higher Church Holy Day. Their cele- bration continued even to the thirteenth year of Elizabeth, 1571, when one of the ministers of the E-stablished Church inveighed against the Roga- tion processions, or Gang Days, of Cross Week. The ceremonial may he found in the Council of Clovcsho (Thorpe, Ancient Laws, I, 64; Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, III, 564).

The Rogation Days are the 25th of April, called Major, and the three days before the feast of the Ascension, called Minor. The Major Rogation, which has no cf)nn('xion with the feast of St. Mark (fixed for this flate much later) seems to be of very early date and tf) have been introduced to covmteract th(! an(i(?nt Rohujalia, on which the heathens held processions and supplications to their gods. St. Gregory the Great (d. 604) regulated the already exist- ing custom. The Minor Rogations were introduced by St. Mamertus, Bishr)p of Vienne, and were after- wards ordered by the Fift h Council of Orleans, which was held in 511, and then approved by Leo III (795-