CARDINAL CULLEN'S MANIFESTO ON THE EDUCATION QUESTION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume V, Issue 260, 26 April 1878, Page 7

CARDINAL CULLEN'S MANIFESTO ON THE ED UCA TION Q UESTION.

His Eminence Cardinal Cullen, together -with Bishops Morau. Warren, M'Cabe, Welsh, and Lynch, as episcopal representatives of Ireland, issued a Pastor.nl Letter to the clergy and people, the document beiug read in all the chapels throughout the country. The letter deals, in a most comprehensive way, with, the whole question of education. The Bishops announce that they believe the present to Ixs the moment which seems more urgent than ever. Her Majesty having, within the last few days, informed Parliament that the Ministry intend to introduce a Bill on intermediate Education in Ireland. They regret that the Ministers have not undertaken to redress the grievance in Primary, Intermediate, and University education. They hope the Government will bring forward some substantial measure capable of restoring, in no inconsiderable degree, the rights they have been unjustly deprived of, giving Catholics equality in educational matters with their non-Catholic fellow-subjects, hitherto systematically refused. The pastoral deals with the rights of educational resources, of which, as they say, their fathers were deprived, and referring especially to the reigns of Heniy VIII., Elizabeth, James 1., and Cromwell, and afterwards to Mr. Gladstone's Educational Bill, which they describe as a scheme for fixing upon Ireland the system of mixed education, condemned by the Holy See, dangerous to the faith and morals of Catholic youth, a system the Catholics of Ireland have refused to accept for the last thirty years in the Queen's Colleges and model schools, by which refusal those educational establishments have been deprived of all vitality in this country, and consequent upon which they have become a signal failure. The Pastoral then refers to Trinity College, enjoying two hundred thousand acres of laud ; Proi testant Endowed Schools, £40,000 per annum ; and the Queen's Colleges. £;}O.OOO a year, while the higher education of Catholics receives nothing whatever from, the State. The letter, in conclusion, asks for prayers to inspire those who sway the destinies of this great empire with thoughts of justice, so that they may repair the past injuries inflicted upon Ireland. The Pastoral argues that all the knowledge that the ablest professors can impart, that all the sciences that the most renowned universities can communicate, that all the distinctions and honours that this world can give will be of no avail to them on the great accounting-day if they lose their faith. The Bishops further urge the clergy and people to use their legal rights to the utmost of their power in order to obtain a full redress of their educational grievances, together with a sound system of education in all its branches, of which Catholics may he enabled to avail themselves with a safe conscience. " Let them keep before the rulers their admitted disabilities until they have been removed. Let them also avoid secret societies and associations which hate the light, and conspire in daikuess against the State and their religion. Such societies can never be blessed. They are, and always have been, a frightful source of crime, of dissension, of treachery, of ruin, and of misery to individuals and their country."'