CATHOLICS AND POLITICS

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 260, 3 August 1928, Page 13

CATHOLICS AND POLITICS

THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS PRIMATE’S REPLY TO BISHOP CLEARY’S LETTER “INSINUATIONS REPUDIATED” Archbishop Averill has replied as follows to the letter sent him by Bishop Cleary and published in ‘‘The Dominion” on Wednesday:— My Lord Bishop,—l duly read in the paper this morning a copy of a letter purporting to have been sent to me yestered by yourself regarding certain state meats made by Cation James concerning die Roman Catholic Church, the Dabou

' Party and the Ilible-in-State Schools •■ League. Several hours , after rending your letter in the newspaper I received the one U addressed to myself, for which I beg to thank you. All the information for a which you ask would readily have been - forthcoming had you given me the opportunity of furnishing it in response 1 to a personal application. I-note that you stated in a discourse . delivered in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Auckland, on July 1. 1928, “his (i.e., Canon James’s) utterances may' therefore, ' not unreasonably be assumed to express the considered view of that organisation” ■ (i.e., the Bible-in-State-Schools League). - I note also that in your letter of July ■3O, published in this morning’s “Het'nld,” , you state “Your Grace’s high-placed dig- - nitary has written and spoken in terms ■ perfectly consistent with the supposition • that he has been acting nil along on behalf of the league as such. In view , of all the circumstances of the ease, it is> uot surprising that your vicar-canon’s quoted charge of traffic in Labour Party votes has been widely interpreted ns coming before the public with the open or ■ tacit approval, or at least with the , connivance, of the league executive. I

cannot associate myself personally with this as a conclusion, following naturally or necessarily from the facts narrated.” As president of the Bible-in-State Schools League I can afford to ignore your insinuations as far as I personally am concerned, and .on behalf of the . league I utterly repudiate the suggestions made in your statements. The league, as a very large body of honourable citizens, has no need to resort to “connivance,” and its aims and objects are all perfectly open and above board. Before receiving your letter this.morning I received the following one. from Canon Janies, which sufficiently answers all your inquiries Your Grace,—-A letter addressed to you by Bishop Cleary appears in the public Press to-day. It is, I ■ think, unnecessary, but it will certainly be sufficient for me to assure Your Grace that, in my recently-published interpretation of the relations subsisting between Roman Catholics and others who are actively’ opposing the Religious Exercises in Schools Bill. I have made no claim nor the suggestion of a claim, that I have “been acting all along on behalf of the (Bible-in-Schools) League as such.” In what I have actually written or said on this subject during the past few weeks, I have exercised my right as a citizen to comment upon a matter of public importance. The public must judge the value" of my comment. —I am. Your Grace, your obedient servant, Percival James. At your own request I run sending a copy of this letter to the Press.—Believe me, yonrs faithfully. A. W. NEW ZEALAND. Bishop of Auckland. BISHOP CLEARY REPLIES The following is Bishop Cleary's reply, dated August 1: — “His Grace the Archbishop of New Zealand, “Bishopscourt, Parnell. “Your Grace, —I thank you for your letter of July 31, which has been reproduced in to-day's Auckland Press. I note with interest that you have made two affirmations: (1) Your Cathedral vicar (Canon James, is responsible for his I widely-published statements that, as matters of ‘fact,’ the spiritual heads of my Church in this Dominion arc the ‘masters’ of the Labour Party, and have successfully’ ordered them to oppose your league’s Bill as ‘the price of Roman Catholic support at the polls’; and (2) that the executive of the Bible-in-Schools League has neither approved not connived at the publication of the above-quoted dishonouring charges. So far, so good. - “Your letter seems to me (subject to correction) to suggest that I ought to have applied by private letter for the information, now supplied b.y you, as to whether your vicar-canon’s calumnies came from him personally or' as representing the Bible-in-Schools League. If such a suggestion is really intended, I am quite unable to agree to it, for the following reasons:— . “1. Until the receipt of your letter of yesterday (July 31), the clear. reasonable, and moral .presumption—which, however, did not. as I said, amount to logical proof —was that, in his stated accusations, your vicar-canon represented the league. He is chairman of the Auckland executive, and a member of the central executive or ruling body; in all his active propaganda (including these accusations) he never once suggested that he was merely expressing a private and personal view; the whole tenor of his attacks on our episcopate throughout was perfectly consistent with the supposition that he represented the league, as he clearly did (according to a- verbatim report in my possession) at. a gathering of the league’s Orange allies on July 14, ‘co-operating,’ as the advertisement said, ‘wjth the Bible-in-Stnte-Schools League.’ The principal speaker was your vicar-canon. He thanked the chairman .for the moral assistance he had given in the cause of the Bible in schools, described the fanatical Irish Secret Society ns ‘the spear-head at the gates in this fight,’ repeated ns ‘facts’ his accusations against our Church leaders, added a fresh one of ‘subterranean intrigue,’ and assailed my personal veracity. That was the position up ,to my receipt of rYour Grace's letter of July 31. “2. In the whole history of religious life in New Zealand, as far as it is known to me, there has never yet been, so flagrant and groundless and widely-publish-ed an attack upon'the personal and corporate honour of the collective heads of any Christian body. If we,were, as

charged in effect by your vicarcanon, a gang of bullies, carry- - ing on a noxious underground trade-in sordid and venal votes, and so li on, we should be enemies to our conn- U try, and a disgrace to our sacred calling, i The whole of this scurrilous attack by t your vicar-canon appeared to many to s be part and parcel of the • “gloves-off” I: campaign Of strife (presumably like that t of 1911-14) by the league, which was i lately announced in Press and pamphlet r by another reverend clerical politician. 1 who is now also associated with Your a Grace in the supreme ruling body of that t organisation. It is needless to point out i how highly all these calumnies and ap- c peals to sectarian rancour are calculated a to prevent the calm and judicial consid- a eration of your league’s Bill for a State- i; conducted, State-established, State-en- a dowed State school religion for the exclusive benefit of one set of the people/at f the cost of all. Your Grace’s letter of t July 31 has left the worst part of that v bad business practically where it was. t “3.1 am expressing the opinion of many 1 people of many faiths (including your q own) when I say that the lamentable i situation thus created simply screamed i to Your Grace for at least this minimum s of action: That, in some way or other, the Church and the league . should, if ( possible, be promptly dissociated from a these vicious and untruthful and an- s Christian attacks upon the beads of an- c other Church in this Dominion. It need- i ed only a little word from Your Grace to a do so.' Your long silence aud inaction a

have done a grave wrong to us by leaving us for weeks on end needlessly weltering in your vicar-canon’s calumnies. . You thereby placed this matter far outside the scope of friendly private correspondence between you and me. You forced us into the open in necessary self-defence. I am informed that my letter of July 30 was mailed to you several hours before it was handed to the Press. Herein, I did all—ami, in the circumstances, much more that all that Christian comity or journalistic or controversial usage demanded of me. As things were left by you, it was quite open to me, without violating any accepted convention, to have published an “open letter” to you, without previous mailing or notification. “Your Grace’s references to the ‘perfectly open and above-board’ character of tiie league and its ways renews in me the vain hopes of many waiting years that, at long last, I may receive the league’s answers to the ninny important questions which I have submitted to it in registered letters and other forms during the past seventeen years. We shall see.

“In conclusion, may I point out to Your Grace that I fail to notice in your letter any suggestion that your vicar-canon should conform to the moral and sorin' obligations of either proving or withdrawing his calumnious assertions. For this aii expectant public is still watching aud waiting.”