THE CLERGY AND THE BALLOT

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3019, 5 March 1917, Page 6

THE CLERGY AND THE BALLOT

4 ADDRESS TO THE CATHOLICS OP NELSON. In tho course of a spirited address to the Catholics of Nelson on tho subject of tho clergy and the ballot, tho Rev. Father M'Grath said two priests ivero working the- vast district / of |felson, and wore now threatened with, inclusion in tho "combing out" at tho end of tho First Division. Two priests wore, begrudged the scattered' Catholics of that parish. Three orphanages and schools and a religious _ community were threatened with spiritual neglect and barrenness while Second Division clergymen of other denominations in abundance, ministered to their flocks. And then thero was a clcrical'shout for equality. "Treat all religions in exactly tho samo way. Treat all First Division men iii exactly the samo way." Starve the Catholic community because on conscienco grounds it refused to accept tho ministrations of Second Division men, whose title to that division was the tio of marriage. Conscript First Division priests; thero must be equality. That was the cry. _ If tho community viewed this as fair or not then equality was an abortion; it was liberty smitten to death. They would not credit that their loaders_ would pursue the policy advised by miserable anonymous correspondents of newspapers and urged from behind their tussocks, nor that which small-minded Appeal Boards might devise. They would, moreover, tako every means consistent with tho duties of loyal citizenship to save their clergy from the disaster'threatened. Lord Derby knew the needs of to-day. He did not scoff at tho policy of tho clergy. He did not call them shirkers; he had told the Archbishop of Canterbury his mind upon tho matter. Sir William Robertson might, by chance, know tho nation's need, and he had declared that this war would bo won by making the nation religious. If we in New Zealand wero going to insist on loading tho world—and wo had led it in much Labour legislation, in old ago pensions, in Public Trustee Acts, and so forth—then in the name of the God of battles through Whom alono wo wero going to triumph in tins righteous war, why did wo not first of all trv to lead it in sanity! We flattered'ourselves that Germany was in extremis, but never so sorry was her plight as to cause tho conscription of her priesthood. Wero we going to extend the crusade of kultur? Australia had presented a draft Conscription Bill. Tho clergy were exempt from its provisions. Surely tho Homeland could tell us the Empire's needs! Well, England had not conscripted her clergy. She had told them in their tens of thousands they could be snared; that the war might bo won without their aid. What a compliment (?) to tho New Zealand clergy to be told that a handful of them would mean the Empire's triumph. All precedent, all sane precedent, demanded the abandonment of a campaign wlricb a section of tho community would regard—and with reason—as an outrage and frightfulness. The speaker's brother had fought 'for two years in France to save the married clergy of other denominations for their p.eople, and in the last letter he ever penned declared the suggested conscription" of theological students even as "a crime against civilisation." Ho, the preacher, called on the peoplo to federate, to form themselves into serried ranks, and see to it that Christ's command to preach the Gospel waso fulfilled, and that to God should bo given the things that were God's.'