Fiat Justitia. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1877. OUR POLICY AND THE NEWSPAPERS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume V, Issue 240, 7 December 1877, Page 11

Fiat Justitia.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1877. OUR POLICY AND THE NEWSPAPERS.

♦ TJR contemporaries, Prat least some of them, are not at all satisfied with our policy in reference to the treatment of Secularist Members of Parliament, and others who have refused justice to Catholic Schools. We recommend Catholics to vote against these gentlemen at all future elections of Members of Parliament, no matter avlio may be their

opponents. Our reason for this recommendation is* obvious, and has been stated by us again and again. Experienced politicians know -well the inevitable result of such a bVk vote, and that a perseverance in such a course can not fail in the long- run to obtain and secure justice to Catholics on the education question. For this reason the enemies of such justice try to intimidate or cajole Catholics so as to befool them into the adoption of a course of proceeding which -would reduce them to the degrading- and humiliating popiticn of being made the tools of the very men who had" spumed and trampled on them. ►Some of our contemporaries threaten us. saying- that a block vote on our part will provoke a block vote against us. Our answer is, on the edncat ion question there has always boon a block vote against us, and always will be, and surely it is not reasonable to expect ourselves to join our enemies in their efforts against ourselves. ]mt this is precisely what these contemporaries seriously recommend us to do, or at least are trying to frighten us into doing. Catholics, however, it is to he hoped. 23H11 prove to them that they are neither idiots nor cowards, neither to be cajoled nor bullied. Our policy does not attempt to appeal to the senseless secularist bigots," as it regards these as simply incorrigible, but to every intelligent mind, manly heart, and just-minded man in the community. And we are thoroughly convinced that an appeal such as this will not, can not. be in vain. For no man appeals in vain to the truth' and justice to be found in honourable breasts. True, time may l>c required to produce the hoped for result ; but, at last, such an appeal n.ustbe successful. One journalist in particular, not satisfied with this throat, which he also holds before our affrighted imagination with a view of inducing us to give political support to the men who hove laboured so hard to enslave and degrade us, assails us also on the side of our religious instincts and principles. We are invited to meditate on the conduct of our fathers in the faith, particularly on that of the first Christians, who permitted themselves to be even slaughtered without making the least effort in opposition to the politicians wiiu

persecuted them so horribly. This means, of course, that we are not acting a Christian's part if we refuse to vote j'or the men in order to secure their return to Parliament, who have done their best to rob our children of their faith ami morality, and ourselves of our money ; who have laboured hard to drag us bound by a vile educational chain after the triumphal chariot of secularism and godlessness. Unless wo consent to submit to be dragged down to this depth of infamy, we are not, in the estimation of the contemporary to whom we allude, true Christians at all, but degenerate sons of meek and truly Christian fathers, who, without a murmur or an effort, submitted to be despoiled of everything, and then not only kissed the hands that smote them, but helped them into positions in which they would have the power to repeat their persecution of themselves and inflict terrible wrongs on their children. We know not whether it was really in jest, or in malice, or in sheer irony, that our contemporary wrote when he penned the leader to which we refer, but serious he could not have been in asking us to tamely submit to gross injustice and vote for the men who had inflicted this injustice on us. A genuine Christian's view of his duty, both as a follower of Christ and a member of the state,* differs altogether from that set forth by our contemporary. Some time ago we were reading the celebrated Dr Newman's " History of the Arians," written before he became a Catholic, and we came across a passage bearing on this subject. It is to be found in pages 264-o-G of the third edition, sec. h, eh. m., and as it expresses our view in powerful language, we hero give the passage in its entirety. "Strictiy speaking, the Christian Church, as being a | visible society, is necessarily a political power or party. It may be a party triumphant, or a party under persecution -, but a party it always must be, prior in existence to the civil I institutions with which it is surrounded, and from its latent [ divinity formidable and influential, even to the end of time. | The grant of permanency was made in the beginning, not to I the mere doctrine of the Gospel, but to the Association itself | built upon the doctrine ; in prediction, not only of the indestructibility of Christianity, but of the medium also through: which it was to be manifested to the world. Thus the Ecclesiastical Body is a divinely-appointed means, towards realising, the great evangelical blessings. Christians depart from their duty, or Income in an offensive sense political, not when they act as members of one community, but when they do so for temporal ends or in an illegal manner : not when they assume the attitude of a party, but when they split into iniinv. F.f the primitive believers did not interfere with the acts "of thi» civil government, it was merely because they had no civil rights enabling them legally to do so. But where they have rights, the case is different ; and the existence of a secular spirit is to be ascertained, not by their using these, but their I using them for ends short of the ends for which they wore I given. Doubtless in criticising the mode of their exercising ; them in a particular caso. differences of opinion may fairly \ exist : but the principle itself, the duty of using tlieir civil | rights in the service of religion, is clear ; and since there is a. ' popular misconception, that Christians, and especially the ! Clergy, as such, have no concern in temporal affairs, it is | expedient to take every- opportunity of formally denying th« position, ami demanding proof of "it. In truth, the" Church was framed for the express purpose of interfering, or (as irreligious men will say) meddling with the world, ""it is the plain duty of its members, not only to associate internally, ; but also to dcvolope that internal union in an external war- | fare with the spirit of evil, whether in Kings' courts or among ! the mixed multitude ; and, if they can do nothing else, at ; least they can suffer for the truth, and remind men of it. by ■ inflicting on them the task of persecution."