Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 10.djvu/466

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Mocissns


412


MOCOVI


whon ho assumod control ami its existing admirable stale.

Statistics. — 1S97 (year of Bishop Allen's arrival). — Churches with resident priests, 22; parishes with parochial schools, I.t; children under Catholic care in coUejtes, acailomies, and schools, 2.521); hospitals, 2; orphanages, 2: baptisms, infants, S20, converts, (10; marriages, Uili; Catholic populaiion, 17,000; priests, secular and religious, 4S.

1910.— Priests, secular, 49, religious, 62, total, 101; churches with resilient priests, 43; missions with churches, 31; total churches, 74; stations, 149; chapels, 25; brothers, 41; religious women, 274; children under Catholic care, ,5039; colleges, 3; high school, 1; academies ; 7, schools, 3 1 , and orphanages, 3 ; hos|)it als, 4; home for aged poor, 1; bai)lisins, infants, 147S, converts, 552; marriages, 302; Catholic population, 38,000.

Bishop Allen takes a lively interest in the Negro Missions, and is largely responsible for the good work being done by the .loscphite Fathers in jilobile and vicinitv, Birmingham, and .Montgomerv. Near the latter city is .'^t. .loseph's College, founded (1901) by the Very Rev. T. B. 1 )on(>van. lately deceased, the ])ri- mary object of which " is to educate young colored men to be catechists and teachers." With Bishop Allen's sanction a colored fraternal organization was insti- tuted in Mobile, 1909, by the Rev. C. Rebescher, which gives promise of universal good.

Benefactors. — The chief benefactors of the diocese were ^Icssrs. Felix and .\rtliur McCall — the McGill In- stitute, a high school for boy.--, l)e:irs their name. The Hannan Home for the aged poor is a tribute to the generosity of Major P. C^ Hannan, who built it along the lines of Bi.sho[) Allen's choosing.

Religious Orders. — In the Diocese of Mobile are the Jesuits, Benedictines, Josephite Fathers, and Broth- ers of the Sacred Heart. Also the Sisters of the Visitation, Sisters of Charity, Sisters of Mercy, Sis- ters of Loretto, Sisters of St. Joseph, Sisters of St. Benedict, Little Sisters of the Poor, and Sisters of Perpetual Adoration. There are three Catholic cemeteries, one in Mobile, one in Birmingham, and one in Montgomerj'. The intrepid Admiral Semmes and Father Ryan, the poet-priest, are buried in the Catholic Cemetery, Mobile. By a .singular coin- cidence the first priest who came to labour in the new Diocese of Mobil(> and the last and ruling Bishop of Mobile were .students of Mt. St. Mary's College, Emmitsburg, Md., while the first Bishop of San An- tonio, Tex., the Rt. Rev. Anthony D. Pellicer, and its present coadjutor, the Rt. Rev. John W. Shaw, were native priests of the diocese, both having been con- secrated in its cathedral (the former, 8 Dec, 1874, the latter, 14 April, 1910), of which each in turn was pastor.

Hauilton, Colonial Mobile (Boston and New York, 1897); Shea, HiMory of the Catholic Church in the United States (Akron, O., New York, Chicago. 1S86, 1892); Idem. Defenders of Our Fail* (New York. Chicago, 1880, 189.3); Motheb Acstix. A CatholicI I itiorii of Alabama and the Floridas, I (New York, 1908); Mdropoliian Catholic Almanac and Laity's Director;/ (Baltimore, 1850 sqq.); Official Catholic Directory (Milwaukee, New York, 1910); Reger, Die Bencdicliner im Slaale Alabama (Baltimore, 1898).

Thomas J. Eatox.

Mocissus, a titular metropolitan see of Cappado- cia. Procopius (De a^dif., V, iv) informs us that this fortified site, in norf h-wcstcm Cappadocia, was con- stituted metropolis of Cai)padocia Tertia by Justin- ian, when he divided that province into three parts. The emperor gave it the name of Justinianopolis. Nothing is known of its history, and its name should perhaps be written Moees.ius. There is no doubt that the site of Moci.ssus, or Mocessus, is that occupied by the modern town of Kir-Sheir, chief town of a sanjak in the vilayet of Angora, which possesses 8000 inhabitants, most of them Mussulmans. In the


■ neighbourhood of Kir-Sheir there arc some important ancient ruins. This metropolis figures in the "Noti- tiic episcopatuum " until the twelfth or thirteenth cen- tury. Only a few of its titulars are known: the earli- est, Peter, attended the Council of Constantinople (r)3l)); the last, whose name is not known, was a Catholic, and was consecrated after the Council of Florence by Patriarch Metrophancs of Constanti- nople.

Lb QniEN, Oriens christ., I, 407; Smith, Did. of Greek and Roman Gcog.. s. v.; Ramsay, Asia Minor, 300.

S. Pkthidios.

Mocovl Indians. — The name is also written Ma- ooiui). .Miioc'oni, MocoBio. They are a warlike and pn'(l:ilciiv (ribe of Guaj'curan stock, and are closely related linguistically to the Toba, Mbaya, and Abi- pon, their usual allies, settled principally along the middle and ujiper Vcrmcjo River, in the Chaco region of northern .4rgentina, although the}' formerly ex- tended their forays as far south as Santa FC' and even to the gates of Buenos Aires. In habit of life and general characteristics they resembled the rest of the tribes just mentioned, but were distinguished even beyond them, as DobrizhofTer says, "in atrocity and steady hatred to the Spaniards. They seemed to conspire to ruin Tucuman, proving themselves foi^ midable, not to solitary estates merely, but to whole cities". They entirely destroyed the town of Concep- cion and massacred its inhabitants.

This special hostility to the people of Tucuman was due to the fact that years before a large number of Mocovi, who had been induced through the efforts of the .Icsuif Fathers Altamirano and Diaz to come in from 111!' war-put h and had been organized into the mission iif .S;in Xavier, had been treacherously seized and distributed as slaves by the governor of that prov- ince. They received a temporary check in 1710 from Governor Urizar, who led a great expedition of over three thou.sand men against the Chaco tribes, with the residt that several tribes made peace, while the Mo- covi retired to the south-west and continued their raids in that quarter. Thirty years later, during a period of truce, some of the Mocovl became ac- quainted with the Jesuits of the College of Santa F6, through whose influence they were won to friendship with the Spaniards, and the chiefs Aletin and Chitalin consented to receive Christian instruction together with their people. As a result the Mocovi mission colony of San Xavier was established in 1743 by Fa- ther Francisco Burges Navarro, thirty leagues from the city, and from a small beginning increasetl rapidly by accessions from the roving bands of the tribe, who were, from time to time, won over by the persuasions of the new converts. Prisoners captured in the various expeditions were also brought into the new mission, while many voluntarily took refuge there to escape pursuit.

The Mocovl proved devout, tractable, and willing workers, and particularly competent musicians under the instruction of the German Father Florian Pauke, who organized a band and chorus whose services were in demand on church occasions even in Buenos Aires. With bell in hand, the chief himself, Aletin, acted as crier every morning to call his people to Mass, and took the lead in every task of difficulty. A third chief, who had long held out against the Spaniards and made war upon his mission kinsmen in revenge for their abandonment of the old life, finally came in vol- untarilv. In 17G5 a second Mocovi mission, San Pedro y Pablo, was established by Father Pauke with another portion of the tribe which had until then con- tinued hostile.

At the time of the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767 the two ini.ssions contained about 1200 Mocovi. of whom all but a few were Christians. Deprived of their accustomed teachers, most of them finally re- joined their wild kinsmen in the forests of the Chaco.