ROMAN CATHOLIC SCHOOLS

Southland Times, Issue 23255, 19 July 1937, Page 6

ROMAN CATHOLIC SCHOOLS

WORK “NOT MENTIONED” AT EDUCATION CONFERENCE (United Press Association) CHRISTCHURCH, July 18. Criticizing the delegates to the New Education Fellowship conference for not making reference to the work done by Roman Catholic schools, the Rev. Father Timoney in his sermon at the Roman Catholic Cathedral today claimed that they had said nothing on the subject because they had been told not to. Members of religious orders in New Zealand had gone to considerable trouble to attend the lectures given by members of the fellowship, Father Timoney said, and great interest had beer, taken in the new aspects of education set 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 the nations they would do more for peace than was being done by the League of Nations. ‘

SUGGESTION DENIED EXPLANATION BY REKTOR ZILLIACUS (United Press Association) CHRISTCHURCH, July 18. “I must make a complete and categorical denial .of the suggestion,” said Rektor L. Zilliacus, leader of the New Education Fellowship Conference, 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 have been aware of and have been greatly pleased to see so many men and women in holy orders attending the meetings and taking an extremely intelligent and active part in them. The other delegates must alsd have noticed their presence as I 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 of 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 the 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-schools movement was at the 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 the Roman Catholic schools. Unfortunately, except for one member, none of us had the opportunity of following the work in any of the schools since landing in New Zealand because of lack of time. In those circumstances it is still more obvious that we would not comment.”