AMAZING POSITION

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 130, 26 February 1929, Page 10

AMAZING POSITION

CATHOLIC CHURCH AND . ROTARY “MESSAGE INEXPLICABLE”

“We in Wellington are amazed; we find it difiicult to understand such a position,” said the president of the Wellington Rotary Club (Mr. D. J. McGowan) in an interview’ with a “Dominion” representative yesterday in regard to the cabled announcement that the breach between the Roman Catholic Church and the Rotary movement had widened to a chasm. “We have Roman Catholic members in our club here, the same as have the other Rotary clubs in New Zealand,” Mr. McGowan added. “In our movement here the sectarian question has never arisen, and not the slightest trouble has ever been experienced in that respect. Neither religion nor politics is allowed to enter into Rotary. We have carefully avoided its admission in any shape or form, particularly in regard to the selection of subjects for our regular addresses. The cable message is the more inexplicable in view of its statement that the president of the international movement is a Roman Catholic.” “UTTERLY ASTONISHED” VIEW IN CHRISTCHURCH Dominion Special Service. Christchurch, February 25. “I am utterly astonished and can hardly believe the message is true. The Pope should be one of our keenest supporters, and if the movement repoxted in the cable comes from the head of the Catholic Church then the objects of Rotary cannot be understood there.” This was the opinion expressed by Mr. C. H. Hewlett, president of the Christchurch Rotary Club, when the cable message to the effect that attacks were being launched on Rotarianism in Italy, on the ground that it was subservient to Freemasonry and that Spanish Bishops were prohibiting Roman Catholics from belonging to Rotary clubs, was brought to his notice. “Religion and politics are barred from our discussions,” continued Mr. Hewlett . “Our branches in over 40 countries include nearly 50 religions. To say that Rotary is subservient to Freemasony is ridiculous. I myself am not a Freemason, and in our club I don’t know who is and who isn’t. I’ve never heard a whisper of this sort of thing in any part- of New Zealand, and it shows how much there is in the suggestion, when we, as Rotarians, are not sufficiently interested to find out who’s a Freemason and who’s not.” Dr. P. S. Foster, who was president of the Christchurch Club last year, returned recently from a trip abroad, and during his holiday he attended the world Rotary conference at Minneapolis, America. Dr. Foster met all the heads of the movements in the United States, and did not hear a word about the attitude of the Roman Catholic Church. “I cannot understand the message,” he said. “We are not concerned with Freemasonry or religion, and our members are of all denominations. There are flourishing clubs‘in Latin America and Italy, where the population mainly is a Roman Catholic one. In our work wc are not concerned with religion, but with people and their conditions. Why the Roman Catholic Church should disapprove of a body which exists for humanitarian purposes I cannot understand.”

Other prominent Rotarians were reluctant to make any statement on the question, considering it a matter of policy which should be considered, if at all, at the Rotary conference which is to open this week in Christchurch.

ATTACK OFFICIALLY SANCTIONED

(Australian Press Association.)

Rome, February 24.

The Catholic attack on Rotary was officially? sanctioned by the Vatican organ, “Osservatore Romano,” to-day, by the- reprinting of the article from the newspaper carrying out a lively campaign against Rotary. The reasons for the attack are summarised as follows: —(1) Rotary is Masonic in its origins. (2) The close relations between Rotary and Freemasonry in many countries. (3) Rotary is openly anti-Catholic in some countries. (4) Rotarian morals are merely a camouflage for Masonic morals.