ARCHBISHOP O'SHEA'S SPEECH

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 14, 16 July 1918, Page 8

ARCHBISHOP O'SHEA'S SPEECH

TO THE EDITOE. ■■ \ Sir, —I felt very much like rubbing I my eyes after I had read and re-read : the report of the recent address ■■ by i Archbishop O'Shea, as printed in your I columns. The prelate said : "The Ca- i tholic Church does not make compacts with any political party. She is above and outside of politics." .Now anyone who has read anything in regard to the history and activities of the-Roman Catholic Church knows that she is not "above and outside of politics." I went to my drawer and took out-my files, and found that Father M. J. O'Reilly, CM., Principal of St. Stanislaus College, Bathurst, N.S.W., said in an . address at Bathurst in 1913 : "We are going to be on the market shortly. We are going to offer ourselves to the highest bidder." In the Catholic Press (Sydney) of 30th October, 1913, there is a display heading running right across the page, ' entitled, " 'We are going to take a • hand.' Father O'Reilly and Catholic j Federation." Then follows a report of j an address given by Father O'Reilly to j the Catholic Federation at Ashfield, in j which he said : "There_ was a hubbub ■ at Bathurst when he said, 'We'll short- ■ ly be on the market! He had voted I for Labour for ■ eleven years, and' now j he was going to vote for the men who would give him the most acceptable terms.' " In the Melbourne Age of 3rd June, | 1914, is found the report of an address j given by Mr. E. J. Hayes, of the Victorian Catholic Federation : "In liis re- ; marks he stated that the federation was : a political one. It would be useless if j it was otherwise. It, however, was not ; ■supporting any party." "He asked his i hearers to drop party for their religion. '. ,The federation intended to spend a large t 'sum of money at the forthcoming elections in about nine, constituencies- in supporting candidates who would give , justice to Catholic claims." : These extracts show that the Catholic -. Church does take a vital part in politics. She. may not join 'herself to any party, except when, perhaps, it may suit her to do so; she rather constitutes herself a party, and will vote for the man who will be a tool in her hands for the attainment of her ends. The solution of. the present Capital j and Labour troubles does not lie in the ; principles of the Roman Catholic Church.- One has only to go to vari- : ous South American countries to see : the baleful and selfish working-out of > those principles. If the Catholic Church ' associates herself with the working man, . it will, "time to her principles and history," simply be to use him as a vaulting pole for the attainment of her own ' ambitions. . Other erroneous and strife-provoking statements of the Archbishop might also be vigorously commented on.— : l am, NO CAMOUFLAGE. 16th July.