BISHOP MORAN FUMES.

Evening Star, Issue 8771, 11 March 1892, Page 2

BISHOP MORAN FUMES.

At Inveroargill last week Bishop Moran was the recipient of an address from his flook, and we learn from the ' Tablet' that in replying to it he made some pungent remarks on the refusal of the Southland Eduoation Board to giro a few maps to Father Vereker for one of his sohools. The Bishop remarked that the Education Board did not refuse to freely use the money contributed by Catholics under Act of Parliament for eduoation purpoßeß and to appropriate this money to their own purpoßes and the maintenance of godless education, but not a shilling or shilling's worth would they give Catholios out of their own money. The Catholics of Inveroargill, by their adherence to principle and generosity, bad saved the Government the expenditure of more than a thousand a year for several years, not to speak of the expenditure in the oreotion of school buildings, and now not even a map for these sohools will be given them, although these maps have been purohased by public funds to whioh they have largely contributed. So muoh for justice, fair play, common honesty, and even common decency. He was particularly severe on one member of the Board who, in voting against Father Vereker's request, Btated in his speech that this request waß in accordance with the practice of Catholics to take everything from the Government. What, the bishop asked, did this man—this ex-member t>f Parliamentmean? What, he continued, do Catholics take from the Government, or get from the Government? The answer was simply nothing. The Government had never done Catholics a favor, but on the contrary, had done them a grievous injustice, in which they persevere. No, the Government had never done them a favor, and Catholics have never asked either Government or Parliament for anything but justice—they have asked the State to give them back their own money for their schools. Why, the man who indulged in this talk has given a striking proof of his common sense and his qualifications {or the position of a legislator, from which honor he has been removed, and to whioh it is to be hoped he shall never again be elected. This member of the Southland Education Board hesitated' not to calumniate, injure, and insult the Catholic body, and very probably the Catholic body will not soon forget this. The bishop then referred to another part of the proceedings of the last meeting of the Board. The newspaper, he said, which contained a report of these proceedings had been put into his hand at Gore as he was coming to Inveroargill, and he was rather surprised to learn that the Southland Education Board declined to bell the cat for the Queens town School Committee. This committee, it appeared, had written to the Board to ask him (the bishop) for his authority for some statements he made when he was last in Queenstown. The bishop continued: No one has written to me on the subject, but 1 have no difficulty or hesitation in giving my authority. I was informed in Queenstown that Collier's British History was used as a class book in the public school there. lu speaking to the Catholic people I denounced this, and told them that this book contained vile calumnies in reference to the Catholic Church, This, it appears, has given offence, and the Queenstown School Committee feel aggrieved, and have invoked their Education Board to call me to account. Well, I hold in my hand a copy of Collier's British History, and in page 160 (Nelson's school series) I find the following three sentences :—"To raise funds for the building Leo X. had sent out monks to sell indulgences. They were first invented by Urban 11. in the days of the Crusades. The people thought that this money paid for these pieces of paper or parchment would bay for them the righteousness of saints." Now, here are three shoit sentences containing three notorious falsehoods and grievous oalumnies on the Catholic Church. And I must go further and declare, since theso falsehoods and calumnies have been thousands of times denied, repudiated, and refuted by Catholics, that these falsehoods are deliberate, and consequently lies. Yet these are the lies about the Catholic Church taught with the sanction of education boards in the public schools of this country. The gentleman who handed me the Inveroargill morning paper containing this report informed me that Catholics in the Queenstown school district were not compelled to read or learn these calumnies, and that they could, if they wished, absent themselves from the school during the lesson. Indeed! Little timid children, fearing the rod and ecowl of the master, are likely, are they not, to absent themselves from class whilst the learned teacher is inculcating this traeh? But are we Catholics to be for ever compelled to pay towards the expense of teaching nonCatholic ohildren the most bare-faced lies about the religion of their Catholic neighbors? Many of our children, thank God, are not subjected to thia odious state of things. We take care they shall not be. But you, their parents, are compelled by an inquicoua law to contribute towards the expense of inculcating these calumnies in the minds of non-Catholic children of this country. Let us see a litle more fully how th*s matter really stands. In tho public schools, to the maintenance of which we are forced to contribute, children are taught that the Catholic Churoh sells indulgences. No, nothing of the sort takes place, or ever took place in tho Catholic Church. On the contrary, the Catholic Church teaches, and always haß taught, that to sell indulgences is a most grievous crime. In the second place, we are compelled to pay school teachers to teach their pupils that indulgences were first invented by Urban 11. Indulgences are as old as the Catholio Church—as Christianity itself. In the third plaoe, the people did not think that the money paid for these pieces of paper or parchment would buy for them the righteousness of saints; on the contrary, the Catholio Churoh teaches, and has always taught, that a person in the state of sin or unrighteousness can derive no benefit from an indulgence. And Catholios are, and ever have been, taught this. All this has been explained and pointed out thousands and thousands of times, and yet here in one of the school books, sanctioned by our highest school authority, the Minister of Education himself, the very opposite is taught; and under the sanction of the Minister of Education, the Catholic Church and all Catholios are belied, calumniated, and vilified. And this is the system, and these are the sohools, which we Catholios are oompelled to pay for, while our own excellent Catholio sohools are refused even a map, although we have contributed to the purohase of all maps used in publio sohools. Is it any wonder I should, in season and out of season, raise my voioe in opposition to such a system, and demand justice for my own people ? For this opposition I been denounced as an obscurantist, whatever that may mean, and as an enemy of eduoation. But who are they that have thus denounced me ? I am now in a position to inform you that the majority of my assailants are ex-schoolmasters and others, whose axe is secular eduoation. What have these done in reference to education further than to pocket the good things going ? What contribution have they made towards the erection or support of schools ? What sacrifice have they made for education ?. And yet these men, who for the moat pari! have grown fat at the public expense, are not ashamed to charge me with being the enemy of eduoation! No, I am not the enemy of eduoation, but I am its ardent friend, But the men who have inaugurated this system of godless education—observe, I am speaking of the system itself and its originators, not the men who are now working it here—do not care a straw for the education of the people. This system came hot from the infernal regions; had its origin in the secret societies of the Continent of Europe, and has for its primary object the destruction of Catholicity and Christianity. As a Christian, a Catholic, and a citizen of this country I am opposed to it; I denounce it as un-Christian and utterly godless. I have been told more than once that it is not godless. Uot godless I Why, it is godless by Act of Parliament—it cannot possibly be anything else, No man may dare to teach in any publio school the existenoe of God or of Christ, and yet men dare to be found to say that this is not a godless and antiChristian system. What nonsense; what folly I It is godless, anti-Christian, and the law of the land oompels it to be snob, and does net tolerate anything else. This system insults, calumniates, and

{landers as. For all these reasons am pleased to know from yourselves that we are one on this question, that yon are determined to co-operate with me, to move as one man, to pledge yourselves to one another and to me, to give a bloek vote on the first opportunity for faith and for the well-being of society. This is one doty, and this duty calls upon us to be cautious, and to take care not to be deceived and played upon by canning candidates. Here in Invercargill your present representative was returned mainly by the Catholic vote. Had the Catholics voted against him he should have been at the bottom of the poll, not at the top; and yet no sooner was he safely within the walls of Parliament than he has turned round to nse his position to vote against aid to your schools. lam convinced you will not help him to do this a second time. I am convinced that ao Minister or party can long resist the united vote of 20,000 determined men, who are intelligent, reaolute, and bent on respecting themselves.