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attached to the "padroado" church at Poona. There
are twenty-two churches and twenty chapels served
by twenty-one Fathers of the German province of the
Society of Jesus and twelve secular priests assisted by
the Nuns of Jesus and Mary and the Daughters of the
Cross. Besides military stations (Poona, Kirkee,
Ahmednagar, Deolali) and churches for railway people
(Lanowli, Igatpuri, Bhusaval, Sholapur, HubU, Dhar-
war) there are three mission fields: the Ahmednagar
group founded in 1878 with a total of 5880 Christians;
the Gadag group founded in 1868 with 300 recent con-
verts besides other Christians of old standing; the
newly established mission at Kuna near Khandalla.
The bishop's residence and cathedral are at Poona.
There is no diocesan seminarj-, candidates for the
priesthood being sent to the papal seminary at Kand}',
Ceylon.
From 1637 to 1854 the districts comprised in the dio- cese formed part of the Vicariate Apostolic of the Great Mogul, which in 1720 became the Vicariate Apostolic of Bombay. But except for occasional attendance on the followers of the Sultan's Court at Bijapur, no missionarj' work seems to have been at- tempted in these parts — the only Christian stations known to exist in the eighteenth centuiy being those of Tumaricop in the south (ministered to by Carmelite tertiaries from Goa) ; Poona (where a chaplain from Goa was paid by the peshwa), and it is said Bagal- hot, once visited by the Jesuits of Pondicherry(?). There was also a Goan chapel at Satara in the early part of the nineteenth century, and perhaps one or two besides, but none of them worked by the ^'icar Apostolic of Bombay. The gradual growth of stations for British troops in the finst half of the nineteenth century, and the laying of railways later chiefly caused the growth of stations within this district. When in 185-4 the Carmelites resigned the Vicariate of Bom- bay, the mission was divided into two halves (Bombay and Poona), and the Poona portion was taken over by the German Jesuits. In 1858 the Capuchins, who had received the Bombay portion, also resigned, and thus the whole of the Bombay-Poona district was taken over by the Jesuits and re-united into one mission. Although the two vicariates remained nom- inally distinct, no Vicar Apostolic of Poona was ever appointed, the administration being in the hands of the Mcar Apostolic of Bombay. In 1886, when the hierarchy was established, Poona became a diocese, suffragan to Bombay. The boundaries between the two vicariates were then readjusted, and afterwards those of Poona were curtailed by the transfer of part of the Belgaum coUectorate to Goa, since when the arrangement has been stable.
For administrators from 1854 to 1886, see Bombay. The first bishop was Bernard Beider-Linden, S.J., 1886-1907; the present bishop, Henry Doering, S.J., from 1907. Among its educational institutions are: St. Vincent's High School, Poona (matriculation, Bom- bay), with 296 day-scholars; St. Joseph's convent school, Poona, under eleven nuns of Jesus and Mary, with 192 pupils, also European orphanage and St. Anne's school with 16 boarders and 36 day-scholars; convent school at Igatpuri with 76 pupils and a poor school with 47 children; also a convent school at Panchgani with 40 pupils, both under the Daughters of the Cross; English-speaking schools at Bhusaval, Igatpuri. Lanowli, Sholapur, Ahmednagar, Dharwar, and Hubli, with a total of 483 pupils. In the Ahmed- nagar mission districts 80 village schools attended by 2400 children; in the Gadag mission districts 5 ele- mentary schools with 110 children.
Madras Catholic Directory (1910); Church History of the Bom- bay-Poona Mission in The Examiner (1905 sq.).
Ernest R. Htjll.
Poor, Care op, by the Church. — I. Objects, History, and OnnANizATioN. — A. The care of the
poor is a branch of charity. In the narrow sense
charity means any exercise of mercy towards one's
fellowman rooted in the love of God. While numer-
ous classes of persons are fit objects for charity, the
chief class is constituted by the poor. By the poor
are meant persons who do not possess and cannot
acquire the means of supporting life, and are thus de-
pendent on the assistance of others. In accordance
with Christ's command (Matt., xxv, 40), the care of
the poor is the duty of all the members of the Chris-
tian body, so that by the works of each the welfare
of the whole community may be promoted. As, how-
ever, success is most readily attained by the sys-
tematic co-operation of many, we find, since the
earliest days of Christianity, side by side with the
private exercise of charity, strictly concerted meas-
ures taken by the Church for the care of the poor.
The Church's care of the poor is by no means a sub-
stitute for private efforts; on the contrary, it is
intended to supplement, extend, and complete the
work of individuals. Modern moralists distinguish,
according to the degree of need, three kinds of poverty :
(1) ordinary, such as that of the hired labourer, who
lives from hand to mouth, has no property, but whose
wages suffices to afford him a livelihood becoming his
station; as applied to this class, the care of the poor
is confined to preventive measures to keep them from
falling into real poverty; (2) real want, or beggary,
is the condition of those who do not possess and can-
not earn sufficient means to support life, and depend
on charity for what is lacking; (3) extreme want, or
destitution, is a state in which the means of support
are lacking to such a degree that, without extraneous
aid, existence is impossible. The latter two classes
are the object first of curative, and then of preventive
remedies.
The object of ecclesiastical provision for the poor is, first the removal of their immediate need, then the nullification of the demoralizing effects of poverty, encouragement, the fostering of a desire for work and independence, and thus the exercise of an educa- tive influence on the soul: "the care of souls is the soul of the care of the poor". There is in addition the social object of promoting the public welfare and of procuring for the greatest possible number of persons a share in the goods of material and in- tellectual civilization. From this object arise the general duties of ecclesiastical reficf of the poor: to prevent those able to earn their living from falling into poverty, to assist with alms the sick and the ])oor, to raise the religious and moral condition of the poor, and to render social life a blessing for needy man- kind. The relief of the poor includes also to-day a immber of important tasks arising from the injurious influences of capitalistic forms of production, the modern system of interest and usmy in general, and the neglect of the moral foundations of social life based on Christianity. The Church seeks to fulfil the objects and duties of poor-relief by means of the corporal and spiritual works of mercy usually in- cluded under the name of alms.
B. The object of ecclesiastical poor-relief deter- mines its relations to social politics and state pro- vision for the poor. Social politics and ecclesias- tical relief of the poor have both for their object the removal of the material, intellectual, and moral needs of the poorer classes of the community. They are essentially distinct in three points: (1) the chief motive of social politics is justice, the chief motive of ecclesiastical relief is Christian charity; (2) social politics considers whole groups or great classes of the people; ecclesiastical relief concerns itself es- sentially with the needs of the individual; the object of the former is to abolish pauperism, while the latter aims at removing individual poverty; (3) social politics aims rather at prophylactic measures, seeking to prevent the continuation and increase of poverty,
