CHRISTIAN BURIAL,

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IX, Issue 457, 13 January 1882, Page 19

CHRISTIAN BURIAL,

(Sydney Express. Dec. 17.)

The rather remarkable dicussion on the circumstances attending the interment of the late Mr. Fi'zpatrick, which took place in th« Legislative Assembly on Tuesday evening last, calls for some comment at our hands. We should be unworthy of our position as an exponent of Catholic morality if we hesitated for one single instant in placing the true st&te of the case before the public As conscientious writers we feel that we should be highly culpable if we allowed the erroneous opinions enunciated by Sir Henry Parkes and others to pass without contradiction, or if we in any way attempted to blink our own responsibility in the matter. We shall then place before our readers a plain statement of fact. We shall discuss the matter with perfect calmness, and shall carefully avoid auy direct rsference to the unhappy contingency which called forth the unseemly discussion which took place in the assembly. Every Catholic knows that he is bound to obey the Church if be wishes to be a participator in the spiritual benefits which she affords. So long as he keeps carefully within the lines laid down by the teaching of the Church on faith and morals he may hold what opinions he pleases on politics. It may indicate a certain amount of rashness certainly for anyone to oppose the dicta of, not only the Archbishop of Sydney, but the Bishops of the whole Catholic world, and, indeed, of the Holy Father himself —on the subject of the best mode of educating the people. Nevertheless, a man does not cease to be a Catholic unless be obstinately maintains erroneous doctrine, or refuses to obey that Canon of the Fourth Lateran Council which ordains that a man shall frequent the Sacraments of Penance and the Holy Eucharist at least once a year. Anyone who deliberately disobeys this Commandment of the Church ia by immemorial ecclesiastical law excommunicated, and must, consequently, be deprived of Christian burial. It is, therefore, incorrect to say that Catholics are ever refused the rites of sepulture. So long as they remain in full communion with the Church no power on earth can deprive them of the usual exequies. The test of goodness or bad* ness — in the Church sense — is the dup use on the one band, or neglect on the other, of those Divine means of Grace instituted by Christ our Lord for our salvation. Foolish, and even erroneous political utterances have naught whatever to do with the question, which it will be at once seen, is one between the individual members of the Church of the one part and the Ordinary of the other part. A man is undoubtedly free to believe and act as he pleases, but' he must not expect to go unpunished if he reviles by his' life and conduct all Church discipline, any more than he could imagine that he would be allowed to go scot free if he persistently infringed the law of the land.