THE 'GUARDIAN' ATTACKS CATHOLICS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume I, Issue 35, 27 December 1873, Page 6

THE 'GUARDIAN ' ATTACKS CATHOLICS.

In the ' Otago Guardian ' of the 23rd inst., there is a leader which is for the most part a reprint of a violent attack on the Roman Catholic Church, taken from the ' Saturday lleview.' Every one knows that the ' Saturday Review ' is unscrupulous, and, in reference to the Catholic Church, utterly hostile and unreliable. This popular English journal habitually misrepresents and distorts facts, and not unfrequently speaks untruths when abusing the Church, which is a pastime of frequent occurrence. We are sorry to see our contemporary engaged in the disreputable work of reproducing the false* hoods of English bigotry and intolerance of Catholicism. In this instance, the Church is adjudged guilty of the dirt, ignorance, and vice of the Italians, and these are exaggerated, in order to make the charge more telling. Mediae cura teipßum. Would it not be more decent and more reasonable for the ' Saturday Review ' to try and put an end to the dirt, starvation, ignorance, and vice so rampant in England ; or if his philanthropy must burst the limits of his native island, would it not be natural for him to confine his attention to the Protestant countries of Northern Europe, in any one of which he will find more dirt, ignorance, hunger, and vice than in even the most neglected country of the south 1 And would it not be better for the ' Guardian ' to turn its attention to the extirpation of dirt, drunkenness, and larrikinisni in Otago than call off people's attention to Italy. But the writer in the ' Guardian ' has an object in view which is dear to him. He is probably a schoolmaster, or some one having a pecuniary interest in upholding the sectarian and inefficient system of education established here by Government, and he thinks, in his folly, that to show up what the veracious ' Saturday Review ' is pleased to designate the vice of the Italians is a conclusive argument in favor of the Otago Presbyterian system of education, and evidence of the wickedness of Bishop Moran in endeavoring to save the faith of the children for whose salvation he is responsible. Truly, we have every day striking instances of the scholarship, learning, and logical acumen of the upholders of our Government system of education ! It will be necessary for these people to give us some stronger proofs that they understand something about education before they will be able to induce many to put confidence in the system they recommend.