CATHOLIC SCHOOLS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 195, 19 July 1937, Page 9

CATHOLIC SCHOOLS

VISITORS’ SILENCE. PRIEST’S COMMENT. Per Press Association. CHRISTCHURCH, J uly 18. Criticising delegates to the New Education Fellowship for not making reference to the work done by Roman Catholic schools, Rev. Father Timoney, in his sermon at the Roman Catholic Cathedral to-day, claimed that they had said nothing on the subject, because they had been told not to.

- Religious orders in New Zealand had gone to considerable trouble to attend the lectures given by members of tho Fellowship, Father Timoney said, and great interest had been taken in the new aspects of education sot out by the visitors in their addresses. The delegates must have been impressed with the high standard of education in New- Zealand.

“They kept quiet about it, because they had been told to do so,” said Father Timoney referring to the work of Roman Catholic schools. “One redeeming feature is that, towards the end of the conference, they admitted that religion was the supreme ideal of education.” He added that, if the delegates carried on their noble work of educating all nations, they would do more for peace than was being done by the League of Nations. CATEGORICAL DENIAL. Per Press Association. CHRISTCHURCH, July 18. “f must make complete and categorical denial of the suggestion,” Rektor L. Zilliacus, leader of New Education Fellowship Conference, said when he was told this evening of Father Timoney’s statement. “Nobody made the slightest suggestion to us that we should adopt such an attitude. We haye been aware and been greatly pleased to see so many men and women in holy orders attending meetings and taking an extremely intelligent and active part in them. The other delegates must also have noticed their presence as 1 have. “We have not mentioned the work of any group of schools in particular in our remarks, because we have not regarded it as our function to pass comment on any group of institutions or, indeed, on any part of the system ot education here. If any of our delegates had been asked a direct question on this or any other subject, we would have been quite willing to go into it.

“Possibly Father Timoney has misunderstood a comment I made in one interview when I remarked that we had been warned by our New Zealand hosts that the question of the Bible-in-Sehools movement was at tho moment highly controversial, but so far as I am aware no one of us has received any suggestion that we should not speak of the work of Roman Catholic schools.

“Unfortunately, except for one member, none of us has had an opportunity of following the work in any of the schools since landing in New Zealand, owing to lack of time. Under these circumstances it is still more obvious that wo would not comment.”