P.P.A.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 17934, 30 July 1920, Page 8

P.P.A.

AND ARCHBISHOP O’SHEA. ] . I REPLY’ TO PRELATE’S ADDRESS, j Mr H. Sydney Bilby, Dominion sej cretary of the P.P.A., writes from I Wellington as under: In his attack on the P.P.A. as reported in your issue of the 26th inst., Archbishop O’Shea displays either an absolute lack of knowledge of that association or such a disregard for facts as to make some reply io his diatribe by the association necessary. At the very commencement he i states: “I tell you that the P.P.A. is] I nothing more or less than the Irish i 1 Secret Society, etc.” Wheh he says ' I this, the Archbishop states what, is ] obviously contrary to fact. Does a (secret society hold public meetings at which its purposes are fully explained? Does it chronicle all its doings I in Jhe Press as does the P.P.A.? Does jit publish its constitution and ns i political platform?—surely the ■ charge that the P.P.A. is a secret society is childishly absurd. • Immediately after hurling charges i of a most serious nature at the leadI ers of the nation and prophesying the ! nation's dissolution, fresh from charging the Peace Conference with belt raying lhe ideals for which the war was fought and of unnecessarily delaying peace, the Archbishop must surely have smiled to himself when he imputed “disloyalty” to the P.P.A. If there is one thing for which ,4he P.P.A. stands more than any other it is for King and Empire. During the whole of its existence, while Rome's official journal has heaped opprobrium and calumny upon the British Government, the (British soldiers and everything British, the P.P.A. has lost no opportunity of supporting the Government’s “win the war” policy and the Empire. I I challenge Archbishop O’Shea to prove one act of disloyalty on the part of the association he now maligns or that we have ever made our loyalty to King and Empire contingent on the Government’s “hostility to Catholics.” Such a charge is utterly false. “The Tablet,” the official organ of the Church of Rome, which can reasonably be supposed to reflect the mind of the hierarchy, on the other hand, teems \vitli the' rankest disloyalty. For instance, the “Tablet” for (June 17th contains a paragraph on I the “women and children we starved |by the most inhuman blockade in l history.” A week later this journal states: “The British Government today is exposed before the world as a tyrant and a perfidious liar,” and again “What a shameful thing British despotism is and how right it is to support Ireland's demands to be forever freed from the lying, nturi dering, thieving gang,” and finally, I “In all the worst senses of the words I New Zealand is the most British part iof thb British Empire.” In view of (the fact that this has been the lone of this Roman journal lor the past live years, surely it is a travesty on (common-sense for a member of the ■hierarchy to prate about loyalty, j I will go further and challenge the j Archbishop to. prove that the charge he so glibly lays at the door of the P.P.A. is not in point of fa’ct the policy of the Roman Catholic hier-archy—-to make their support of any Government contingent on the promise of concessions to Rome. The doings of the various P.P.A. deputations that have waited on Ministers have been duly reported in .the Press and there is no need to traverse them again, but surely there is more than a touch of sublime egotism in the Archbishop’s suggestion that we arranged these “during his absence.” The P.P.A. stands absolutely for the State system of education, and we oppose strenuously anything that is calculated to impair that system —that is one of the main planks of our platform. We oppose State aid to any school outside of the State system, and to suggest that our efforts on behalf of education are purely anti-Catholic is puerile in the extreme. The concession to “Rome” that we ! are alleged to have “stampeded” the (Minister for Education into withdrawing, no doubt is the issue of free | railway passes to Roman Catholic (school teachers. The position was I that the Roman Catholic teachers travelling daily from one town to another on the West Coast to teach school travelled free. State school teachers travelling daily between the same towns, for the same purpose, and by the same trains, were compelled to pay. Archbishop O’Shea evidently considered this just and right, but any unbiased mind will agree with me that it was not; the position now is that as a result of the B.R.A.’s representations both parties pay. The Archbishop says “it is useless to appeal to reason or logic when you are dealing with people who are blinded by religious hatred and rancour.” I do not know what the expression means. If it can, then I most heartily with his statement for, while reason and logic are absolutely against Rome’s attitude to the world’s politics to-day, it were useless to argue with her,'for .“Semper eadem” is still her watchword. The Archbishop bewails the fact that “Catholics are but a seventh of the community.” and alleges that “they do not attack Protestants or seek to infringe their rights.” The Roman Catholic leaders have attacked Protestantism and' do attack it the world over. In this Dominion the Catholic Press carries on a campaign against Protestantism. The assault on Protestant Ministers at Feilding, the breaking of windows in a Protestant home in that town, the destruction of a Protestant Hall, and the injury of many Protestants attending a meeting at Greynyouth, and many other such incidents must be admitted by the Archbishop, unless his judgment is hopelessly warped, “to infringe Protestant rights.” At the mild threat to “hit back” we can afford to smile. Rome has been hitting her hardest, as she never fails to do, and we welcome every such attempt, for the harder she “hits back” the more surely she proves herself to be guilty of those very things of 'which the Archbishop in his wild attack on the P.P.A. has so ineffectually sought to prove that association guiltv of. H. SYDNEY, BILBY, Dominion Secretary, P.P.A., Wellington.