A ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP ON THE OUTLOOK.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12281, 27 May 1903, Page 3

A ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP ON THE OUTLOOK.

At the. ceremony ot blessing and opening the Mount St. Patrick's Convent of the Sisters of Charity, Sydney, the Bishop of Lismore said matters were coming to a serious pass here, and he thought that -the nex* I generation would find the great battlefield : of this country would be between agnosti- ! cism pure and simple and the ' Catholic religion. He said that, ; looking at matters as they were. Ho i Lad discussed it with serious menPres- ; bvterians, Church of England, and others, and they had very grave apprehensions for the future, in Scotland and England they taught their religions, but what had these Churches here? On the occasion of the passage of the Public Instruction A,ct a politician gave it out: "This Bill, in my opinion, will be death to the calling of the Catholic clergy." Of course he was applauded. The Catholic clergy to-day were very much more alive than they were then—(loud laughter and applause)and they were very much more numerous, and so were their convents and their schools; but he would tell them what that Bill had done. Many of them were in a moribund condition, ana it Mould be the death of the parsons of the . country. That would ba just the result of it."