RELIGION IN SCHOOLS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19970, 11 December 1926, Page 6

RELIGION IN SCHOOLS.

IRISH CONSCIENCE CLAUSE. A SOURCE OF DISCONTENT. PROTEST BY BISHOP CLEARY. (Special to Daily Times.) AUCKLAND, December 10. Reference to a statement made in the Legislative Council last session by the Hon. L. M. Isitt to the effect that the Irish conscience clause for children embodied in the Religious ; Exercises m Schools Bill had not caused trouble or protest was made by Bishop Cleary at the prize-giving ceremony of Sacred Heart College. “A considerable number of Roman Catholic pupils have won junior and senior national scholarships since these have been made available only in State secondary schools,” Bishop Cleary said. “In a great number of instances Catholic parents have forfeited the valuable financial benefit of these scholarships. They have paid or are paying their fees in Catholic secondary sclmols rather than expose them to the sectarianism of the State instituti ms, aggravated enormously as it is by the Irish proselytising conscience clause which Mr Isitt’s Bill now seeks to inflict by Act of Parliament upon this Dominion. ‘T have before me names of no fewer than 21 winners of junior and senior national scholarships in the Sacred Heart College. The parents of these boys retained them in the college as a matter of conscience. They refused to accept the free places and monetary grants rather than expose their hildren to the sectarianism of the supposed neutral State secondary schools and the odious trickery of their Irish conscience proselytising clause. “For the same reasons seven winners of State scholarships ir St. Mary’s Convent, Auckland, were not allowed by their parents to take either free places or monetary grants. These are only two schools in one city. There musl be hundreds of these striking forms of protest within the Dominion.” . Bishop Cleary stated that the working of the conscience clause had given rise to numerous complaints and bitter feeling on the part of both Catholic parents and pupils, and these had been voiced to him on many occasions.