HOCKEY GIRLS AND PRIESTS.

Southland Times, Issue 19553, 18 May 1925, Page 7

HOCKEY GIRLS AND PRIESTS.

To the Editor. • Sir.—The report published in your columns some days ago that the Crown had withdrawn the charge of a breach of the epidemic restrictions against a country Roman Catholic Priest on the ground that the restrictions have now been removed has caused a good deal of comment, and in view of subsequent events, it certainly calls for some explanation. In the same issue of the paper, if I remember rightly, there was the report of a conviction in the North Island for allowing or inducing young people to attend some function in public gardens, though the same reason for withdrawing the charge would have been equally valid in that case. But what excites question is the different treatment in different cases in our own province. Last Monday the captains of the Nightcaps and Ohai girl’s hockey teams were made to pay over three guineas costs each for allowing girls under sixteen to play in the teams on April 1. Only a few people were present; and the presiding magistrate said that he supposed there was not much harm in it, though he rightly held that the regulations must be observed. The question that calls for answer is, if the lifting of the regulations did not prevent the conviction of girls who committed a breach which the Maristrate regarded ns comparatively harmless, why is it regarded as an adequate reason for abandoning the prosecution of a priest who deliberately defied the regulations, who, according to the evidence submitted, slammed the door in the Health Officer’s face and told him to mind his own business, and who sent word that he was too busy to attend when summoned to Court. There may be some good and sufficient answer to this question. But so far the public is in the dark about it. I do not think that anyone who knows me will accuse me of any violent anti-Romanist feelings. Though I disagree with many of the beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church, I strongly deprecate the abuse of beliefs that are sincerely held or the imposing of disabilities on those who hold them. And I habitually stand aloof from organisations or propaganda that cause people to see red. In a case like this I would agree with most moderate people that there might be a lenient view taken regarding the penalty to be imposed in the case of conviction now that the trouble is happily over. But unless some satisfactory explanation is given for the withdrawal of the charge in this case, where the defiance of the regulations seems to have been so flagrant and contemptuous, there will be added strength given to the deep-rooted suspicion that in some mysterious way the Roman Catholic Church is immune from the ordinary ©Derations of justice. That the restrictions have been lifted does not alter the fact that the offence was an offence at the time of its commission. And the subsequent case makes the reason put forward for abandoning the prosecution in this case appear strange to the unsophisticated reader.—l am, etc., J. W. COLLIE. North Invercargill. May 14. 9