"CATHOLIC VOTE"

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 80, 1 October 1938, Page 11

"CATHOLIC VOTE"

EXISTENCE DENIED

FREEDOM OF INDIVIDUAL

The existence of any such thing as a ♦'Catholic vote" in the General Election

or at any. other time is emphatically

-ctehied/in an editorial in this week's /issue of "Zealandia," the journal con-'.-'ducted-..by Bishop Listen, says the /♦•ivew Zealand Herald." / The' article, states that "a familiar organisation emerging from its well- . deserved, obscurity" has been endeavouring,; by chain-letters, pamphlets, cir- .: culars, and rumour, to attach "some .elusive commodity^ described as 'the • Catholic. vote'" to'one of the major political parties. It continues: "The ■Catholic voter records his vote freely as a citizen, without any interference or direction from the ecclesiastical authority. That situation which is "commonly' understood as 'religion in •v politics' has never been countenanced ~ by the Church.

"As the list of the Dominion's Parliamentary candidates shows, both political parties have Catholics among their nominees; which fact should be a sufficient indication, if such were needed, of the freedom of choice which Catholics hold and exercise ... In exercising their political rights, Catholics do so each in his own individual capacity, and not as representing the Church."

In a later passage the article states: "We would remind Catholic electors that the leaders of both political parties have emphatically repudiated any connection with the sectarian campaign that is now in being. More than that, they have expressed the strongest condemnation of both the "spirit and the methods of this unscrupulous strife-mongering."