BIBLE-IN-SCHOOLS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 17, 21 January 1927, Page 5

BIBLE-IN-SCHOOLS.

THE CATHOLIC STANDPOINT.

REPLY TO MR. BURTON

Rev. Dr. Buxton, St. Patrick's, re plies as follows to Mr. Norman Burton

Mr. Burton admits that lie does not represent the Bible in Schools League in this discussion. His personal opinions and contentions therefore carry no authority here. The only authoritative justfication of the league's scheme of an exclusive and endowed, and proselytising religion must come from the league itself. Every taxpayer and citizen is entitled to demand that the league, the league, the league, shall come out in the open. if and when its archiepiscopal, episcopal and other leaders do so 1 take it lor granted that they at least will not attempt to side-track the controversy; that they are too scholarly to base arguments on mere guesses, or on secondhand quotations given as lirst-hand, or on assumed and unproven similar school schemes in Poland or elsewhere; and that they will be too courteous to come to our doors with abusive speech and yet demand that we treat them as polite and friendly inquirers. If the league desires to open the question of the Vatican and school systems in Italy, Poland or elsewhere, their representations will be authoritatively dealt with.

I have already pointed out the generous but badly treated offers of our bishops to aid our friends of other faiths to provide, on fair conditions all round, religious exercises in State schools for Protestant children. I now desire to focus special attention on the Irish proselytising conscience clause which has been embodied by the league in every one of its contradic-tory seaemes. "A fair conscience clause," our bishops say, '"is one that would permit attendance at worships only to children whose parents request it in writing." That was the first conscience clause under the so-called Irish national system. It was quietly and adroitly changed into the league's clause by two men who were long in supreme and calamitous control of the Irish State schools. One was the Rev. Mr. Carlile; the other was Archbishop Whatelv, the active head of a notorious proselytising organisation. The shameful story of intrieue and duplicity was unfolded in Whately's biography, by his daughter. He avowed using the national system for the purpose of '"'unde-mining the vast fabric of the Roman Catholic Church" and weaning the Irish from the abuses of Popery. '"But," he added. "I cannot openly support the Education Board as an instrument of conversion. I have to fight the battle with one hand, and that my best, tied behind my back."

I have already indicated the grounds of doctrinal and moral principle by which '"Catholics, loyal to their religion, can never, ill any circumstances whatever, take an active part in the i-eligi-ous exercises of other faiths." The scandalous history of the league's Whately-Carlile proselytising conscience clause was condensed by Bishop Cleary, from authoritative and stated sources, in his evidence before Parliament in 1914 (pages 10-12) and 192 C (pages 6. 8-9). In Ireland it set up a very riot of open, shameless and -wholesale proselytism. "At least 16.000 children in Ulster alone" were subjected to proselytism in the one year, 1862. The situation created by the league's proselytising conscience clause reached a point of such utter outrage that it had to he abandoned for very shame. The old conscience clause, favoured by our bishops, was then restored and it is still in force in Ireland.

The League's Irish proselytising conscience clause was introduced into New South Wales "along 1 with convicts «=nd other undesirable immigrants." Its proselytising operations there created much * bitterness. Before me I have official pamphlets, issued by the League, boasting of the success of the Xew South Wales system as an instrument of proselvtism by tampering with consciences as already indicated. Bishop deary's evidence before Parliament in 1914 '(page 12) shows that the League's proselytising conscience clause had a bad record in Tasmania also. It was introduced illegally into the secular State schools of Victoria (Australia); and further scandals of the Xew South Wales type are recorded in the report of the Victorian Royal Commission oil Religious Instruction in State Schools, a copy of which is hero. These proselytising activities were cited by our bishops in 1904, when the league tried to get the Victorian proposals of that period introduced here. The same kind of "wily and insidious proselvtism" was wrought in New ZeaI land by the same lack of "an honest j conscience clause." The bitter facts are stated, from official sources, in Bishop Cleary's "Secular versus Religious Education" (Dunedin. 1909, pages 91-93). In consequence of repeated and I bitter complaints, strong protests were 1 made from time by Dr. Cleajy to at [least four Ministers oi the Crown against the illegal and improper use of the League's Irish proselytising conscience clause in secondary State schools. In July, 1925, all our bishops published a joint and solemn protest against this abuse. "The Month" for August, 1926. records how 28 Catholic winners of junior and senior State scholarships in two Catholic schools in Auckland city alone forfeited those valuable financial benefits, their parents being unwilling to expose them to the League's proselytising conscience clause in operation in the supposedly "neutral" State secondary schools. "There must," said Dr. Cleary, "be hundreds of these striking forms of protest within the Dominion." Copies of that exposure of the League's proselytising conscience clause in this Dominion were mailed to his Grace the Primate, Canon James and manv others.

The shameful history of the league's [ Irish proselytising conscience clause lias been before the public of New Zealand for the past 23 years. To this day the league has never dared to face the "facts or to call them in question. The league leaders' insistence on the Irish proselytisers' conscience clause in the face of its scandalous history and of our strong and continued protests, and the above-stated boasts and figures in their official literature, force upon us the conviction that they are out not alone to pick the pockets of conscientious objectors for the proposed new. exclush e and endowed State religion, but also to make the Government schools centres of legalised proselytism of the highly objectionable type described above. (This correspondence is closed.—Ed.)