A WARM EXCHANGE

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7047, 8 February 1910, Page 1

A WARM EXCHANGE

ATTACK AND DEFENCE CARDINAL MORAN AND EDUCATION MINISTER. SPIRITED REPLY BY LATTER. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. SYDNEY, February 7. A spirited reply has been made by tho Minister of Education, Mr J. A. Hogue, to the attack made upon him by Cardinal Moran when distributing the prizes at a church school. Cardinal Moran declared that Scripture lessons given in the public schools were not only irreligious, but were defective in literary merit, while ho charged tho Minister with “a barefaced falsehood,” in saying that the lessons wore the joint production of Anglican and Roman Catholic prelates. Non-sectarian education, added tho Cardinal, was nothing more than a nondescript system of irreligi,ous belief, which might be more or less 'conformable to Protestant principles and consistent with Protestant tenets, hut as viewed by Roman Catholics was a stereotyped system of infidelity and agnosticism. HEARD it before.

"The Cardinal has broken out once again, breathing out denunciation of myself,” stated the Minister. “After a fortnight or so of muffins and meditation, ho has oome forth spiritually refreshed from his beatified retreat, and .as a result of his oommunings with saints .and tho prince of peace ho Ims invited -me to tread on the tail of his episcopal coat. He keeps on damning" our education, system with all tho renewed strength his cloister training can give him, referring to out system of non-sec-tarian education as the stereotyped brand of infidelity and agnosticism. But we have heard nonsense of this kind before. It has, however, been sufficiently convincingly answered, and it is now enough to say that the system of education is based on the deliberately expressed will of thepeople.” Referring to the charge of deliberate falsehood, the Minister said that ho had scarcely expected such language from one who had come clothed in the special sanctity ot spiritual retreat, and he supposed, if he were to tell the Cardinal that such language was * anti-Christian, the latter would reply that that was a matter he (Mr Hogue) knew ■ nothing about. He doubted whether people would accept Cardinal Moran as an authority on qualifications of an Education Minister. NO SECTARIAN EDUCATION. ‘The Cardinal will wait many weary days,” continued tho Minister, “and take many more! prayerful retreats, before he sees th-o Australian Legislature so fast in the grip of hie or any other church as to hand over tho work of education from the State to the religious denominations. The Cardinal found faults with the books used. It might he very agreeable all round if ho would say how the history of Europe could be treated without reference to the Reformation and Martin Luther, the Huguenot massacres, sales of indulgences, the Armada, the Inquisition, and such things, but it would not Re histoiry. It might bo agreeable if it were solemnly taught that the Reformat tion was unnecessary, that Luther -was a crank —a sort of discontented strike agitator—that tho sales of indulgences were myths, and that the Catholic priesthood of the sixteenth century was as pure and spotless as those who, go into retreat in tho twentieth; that the Armada, was a defensive act, that the church had nothing to do with tho massacre of St- Bartholomew-, and that the Pope never ordered the striking of -a medal to commemorate the butchery.

“Cardinal Moran declares that he has no fear of Catholic children being proselytised. Then what does he complain of? He is constantly attacking our schools. If hie accuse tions against the schools were true, would Catholic teachers remain in the service, or Catholic parents allow their children to attend? Assuredly not. They know that tho fulminations against the schools are not justified. _ Such attacks do no service to Christianity, and they do no harm to our schools.”