MARIST BROTHERS

Evening Post, Volume XCIII, Issue 90, 16 April 1917, Page 2

MARIST BROTHERS

SHOULD THEY BE EXEMPTED FROM MILITARY SEBVIOE? (»! TBLBOSAPH.—PRESS ASSOCIATION.) CHRISTCHURCH, 14th April. Before the Canterbury Military Service Board to-day, Bishop Brodie, Catholic Bishop of that dioceae, appealed on behalf of James Lee Tracy and James Edmund Butler, Marist .Brothers teachers. The Minister had not issued certificates in these ca*>es, but the chairman of the board said they would not depart from their precedent of adjourning the cases sine die. Captain Spratt said that since the last c?se the position had been" somewhat altered, as messages from England said that" these exemptions to religious ■workers had been terminated owing to the need for men. Captain Spratt pointed out that all the argument* advanced for Brothers applied also to teachers in State' Schools. On the point of tha vows' which were made, Captain Spratt asKed .where the difference lay between an anti-militarist who vowed he would not go into camp and a Marist Brother who made a tow that he would devote hie life to teaching, or between a Quaker, who made some;'religious vows and a Marist Brother. The (Mr. H. W. Bishop, SM.)' said his view -was-that the antimilitarist's vow was an individual one, while the other was made publicly and with the discipline of the Church behind it. . -, . . ' , Bishop.Brodie agreed that public vows made by any. person should- be equally binding, and entitle those making them to be placed on the same footing-. The Chairman: Well, they won't be put on;tHe.same footing by this board, I can,tell you. We would have every anti-militarist in the country coming here and saying•- he had: made a. vow. The Chairman added that this matter had been, considerably on his mind, and at a. conference of Chairmen of Military Boarda to be held on 27th April he intended bringing it up, and asking for a definite • settlement of the policy to be adopted towards Marist Brothers. His own opinion was that these men should receive exemption, but other members did not think so, and they should have uniformity. The cases were adjourned till after' the'conference. • • -