"A TRAINING FOR LIFE"

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 11, 12 July 1930, Page 11

"A TRAINING FOR LIFE"

(To the Editor.)

.Sir,—"Old Territorial" evidently is- angry because liis iiiei:n of War ..Office-.; propaganda has not been, allowed, to., pass unchallenged. His letter is .an .excellent specimen of the ''irreTevaiici.cs'.'.with ivhich he charges me, and accordingly I propose to l;6ep him strictly to the point,"though if he. wants historical 'examples '-of the Church's: attitude towards war, I am his mail; I stated (1) that for'-1500''years past the Catholic clergy and religious have been interdicted by Canon Law from bearing arms; '(2) .that the Church.'Jaw. was respected under the .Concordat...concluded between the Holy See and Napoleon; (3) that that Concordat had•been denounced by the Waldcck Rousseau-Combes Bloc, and that legislation had been passed making the clergy and members .-of .religiou* orders liable to military service; (4) that Pope Leo XIII. protested in the strongest terms against the legislation; and.(s) thai French anti-Clericals boasted that theif policy was dictated by their.desire to d* stroy Catholicism in 'France. • These amj indisputable matters of fact,, and it' wa* perfectly proper to cite them in rebuttal of a mere obiter dictum such as thai quoted by your correspondent.- : Unabtf to deny their accuracy, he insults, the iw» telJigence of your readers.by describing mfc statement as "a farrago of irreleyaneies. • To that "farago1' I will dare to add on» more "irrelevancy." If your correspondent has time or interest enough in the -subject, he might-read the Life of that illustrious Frenchman, Blessed. John Vianney. the Cure of Ars, and there he will find that a'priest eminent for holin'essactually evaded conscription!1 In other, words, he was a mail whom patriots like your correspondent denounce as a "shirker," -"a man who refused to do Ills bit."—l am, etc., P. .T'-.O'B-EOAN. Wellington, lltli July,, 1930... '~..