RELIGION IN SCHOOLS.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume III, Issue 73, 10 March 1913, Page 5

RELIGION IN SCHOOLS.

PASTORAL BY ARCHBISHOP KELLY. “FREE TUITION CAN GO TO PERDITION." [PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT.] (Received 10. 11.0 a.m.) Sydney, March 10. A pastoral letter by Archbishop Kelly, dealing with the responsibilities of parents in connection with State school scholarships was read in the Catholic Churches yesterday. Reviewing the position Archbishop Kelly declares a compromise upon the religious character of a school used by Catholics is out of the question. An indignant rejection then is our only self-respecting attitude towards the present departmental insiduous proposal. We say: Your free tuition in your newly fangled higher shrine of indifference tnay go to perdition so far as Catholics are concerned. BISHOP CLEARY ON BIBLE-IN-SCHOOLS “PROSELYTISM.” TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —A correct- statement of mine was (in a form not used by me) denied in your issue of February 26. I stated textually that the rev. organiser of the Bible-in-Schools League boasted before the Presbyterian Assembly that “32,000 Roman Catholic children, with hardly an exception, read Scripture lessons in the schools" of New South Wales. The quoted words are from verbatim reports in the “Dominion" of November 16th and the Presbyterian “Outlook” of January 21st. I have before me numerous similar statements by the organiser.

This (I said) means, “in other words,” that these children “have been successfully proelytised into violation of the faith and discipline of the Church of their baptism.” This is also quite correct. Catholic faith is opposed to the sectarian doctrines of “private judgment” and of the moral right of the Government to teach religion—or (as the law terms it) to impart “religious instruction” and “general religious teachings." Catholic ecclesiastical la.w is also against Catholics reading or explaining unapproved Bible versions, or taking part in the New Suoth Wales sectarian instruction and worship described in a league pamphlet by Rev. f A. Don.

The league has adopted, in aggravated form, the conscience clause devised by astute Irish proselytisers for the declared purpose of “weaning the Irish from the abuses of Popery.” That conscience clause legally embodies the following cunning falsehood: “That all parents—Protestant, Catholic, Jews, etc.,—who fail to protest in writing against this State ‘religious instruction,’ thereby demand or approve that ‘religious instruction’ for their children in the public schools 1 And, without consulting parents, the Government requires the children to accept this ‘religious instruction.’ ” That disreputable Irish conscience clause is, on the face of it, clearly intended to capture for sectarian instruction among others, the children of objecting parents who (as formerly in Otago) are unaware of the right of withdrawal; the children of objectors who cannot. write, or who merely neglect or put off yriting, or who are naturally shy ‘about exhibiting their bad spelling and bad writing to critical teachers, or who belong to the fairly numerous claSs who would write a letter (so to speak) only at the point of the bayonet. The Irish proselytisers’ conscience clause is also plainly intended to capture children who (even with written protests) forget or neglect to deliver them, or who (in the usual childish way) “do as the rest do,” or who (in one-roomed schools) have either to attend “religious instruction” or to stand outside, exposed, perhaps, to rain, snow, or sleet.

If parents want State “religious instruction,” they may be presumed to ask for it. There is no evidence that Catholic parents in New South Wales either asked for or approved such “religious teaching.” That false and cunning conscience clause provides legal machinery for proselytising the children of non-approv-ing as well as approving Catholic, Jewish, and other parents. No wonder indignant New South Wales Catholics are year by year so eagerly demanding more and ever more Catholic schools to save their children from proselytism by Act of Parliament. There, as here, Catholics arc strong advocates of Biblical and religious instruction in the public schools,—but not on the league’s unjust terms. —I am. etc., HENRY W. CLEARY, Bishop of Auckland. March 6th.