MAORI DIOCESE

Gisborne Times, Volume LXIV, Issue 10490, 15 October 1926, Page 5

MAORI DIOCESE

apthintaient of bishop

UNCERTAIN

NATIVE SYNOD VOTES AGAINST

PAKEHA

CASE TO BE STATED- BEFORE GENERAL SYNOD.

AUCKLAND, Oct. 14.

The difficulties which confront the Church of England in the proposed provision of a diocese for the Maoris were referred to by Archbishop Averill this morning in the course of his presidential address to Synod. “Contrary to expectations,” he said, “when the, special session to General Synod passed a canon to provide for a diocese for the Aiaoris no further progress has as yet taken place in the actual creation of a diocese or the appointment of a bishop. The Bishops of the province have twice met the Maori Synod in conference as required by canon, and twice the conference .has proved abortive. At the first conference held in AYeUington immediately after the conclusion of the special session of General Synod, tho 'Aiaoris strongly ui'ged that the new Bishop should be a member of the Maori race. The Bishopis, with a full knowledge of the proceedings of the conference of North Island Bishops, Maori clergy and European superintendents, held in Rotorua in June, 1925, when the plea for a Alaori diocese was first- mooted by representatives of the Alaori clergy without any insistence upon the nationality of the Bishop, could not see their way , to hand over their sacred responsibility for their Alaori people to any of the Alaori clergy at the present time. “The Bishops, too, just fresh from the debate in General Synod, when the statute To provide for the organisation of church work amongst members of the Alaori race, and the episcopal supervision thereof wtis passed, were alive to the fact that many members of the Synod supported the bill on tho understanding that the first Bishop at any rate should he a nakeha.

“If the action of the b shops needs any justification,” continued the Archbishop, “I would say that the Bishops were not in any way influenced by what is called the color question, and would gladly have appointed a Alaori to the position if in their judgment a Alaori of sufficient standing, erudition and administrative ability had been available. A second conference was held in Wellington in August last, and, though a considerable change had taken place in the attitude of many members of the Alaori Synod, yet there still .remained a majority of *one against appointing a pakeha as the first bishop, it seemed then as if the whole movement for the creation of a diocese for the Aiaoris would fall to the ground, and that General Synod must be asked to repeal the statute. The Maoris, however, requested that they might be allowed the privilege of stating their case, to the next General Synod, a privilege which 1 am* sure General Synod wall grant.”—B.A.