THE LONDON ECHO ON THE LATE BISHOP OF DUNEDIN.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXII, Issue 14, 2 August 1895, Page 29

THE LONDON ECHO ON THE LATE BISHOP OF DUNEDIN.

The following letter was forwarded on Wednesday, July 24, by the Direct Mail to tbe London Echo and tha Dublin Evening Herald :•— " Dunedin, July 23. " Sib, — The Dublin Jhening Herald of June 5 has quoted aa extract from your columns relative to the late Bishop of Dunedin. Tbe writer is described as a Colonial. Ido not know what Colonial is so intimately associated with the Vatican at to obtain from tha Holy Father minate details of what may pass between hit Holiness and a Bishop to whom he grants an audience. Ido know that no Colonial had obtained, or could obtain, from Dr Moran any each details. As a matter of fact yoor contributor has given you ft false account of Dr Moran'i action at the time referred to, Dr Moran showed no each resentment as th»t described. • He had no personal motive, and do personal ambition. Tbe part taken by him was on behalf of a body of Irish pries' s and a population of Irish settlers. He had reason — aa we all had reason, arising from oerUin information—to believe that English Catholic Tories bad busied themselrai in the matter. What is more, our conviction has sine* been confirmed by an article in tha Spectator advocating the appointment here of English Tory Bishops aa a check on Iriih Nationalism. Of one thing, however, let English Catholic Tories and all Tories be assured : they are not going to control or influence Colonial Catholics through such appointments. On the contrary, should they succeed in persuading tha Pupa to make them, the results would ba the humiliation of the Bishops and tha injury of religion. Take, for example, an extreme case :— English Catholic Toryism had for many years bad it all its own way in Sydney. Irish Nationalism wai discouraged and discredited there as much as it could be by any Catholic Bishop. The late Archbishop Vaughan, nevertheless,', when he founded a Catholic newspaper there, was obliged to have itoonduotad on Irish National principles. The Catholics of ji these Colonies are democrats, and will renain bo. A Tory Bishop will be out of touoh with his people, and the accommodations|th%t he will be forced to make must be as disedifying to tham as they are painful >nd humiliatiag to himself. Insincerity in a Bishop tends little to tbe promotion of religion among the paople. Your contributor also refers to Dr Koran's having, at one time, stood aa a caniidtta for Parliament. He did so under exceptional circums'ances, — when he saw that tha interests of Catholic education were betrayed and that there was no one but he ready or fit to defend them. Bat way should not a Cdtholio Bishop «nt«r a British Parliament ? la the Housa less dignified than those of other peoples I It the See of Dunedin, for example, removed, comparatively, further from the Parliament at Wellington than that of Angara from the Parliament at Paris? Bishop Mor»u had ba a n accused of giving offence at the Vatican by bis action in this matter. To me tbe accusation b is A*r iya second taatamouitjto ona of aj. special contempt for British institutions brought against the Pope. Finally, your contributor accuses the Bishop of having written in the New Zealand Tablst sametimos with a "vitriolic pea." There wjg no vitriol in Bishop Moraa's methods of fighting. He s'rack out l.ks a mau, anljnever dealt a blow beneath the belt. But your contributor's s'atetnent, that the Bishop invariably signed the articles in wrote, butraya his qualification. The Bishop wrote leaders for ths Tablet weekly for som* 21 years. In all those years he hardly sigaad his articles a duziri ticoia, When he did soj it was because, on somo special occasion, i he bud written aa Bishop, and not aa editor. One such occasion was tbe course of a controversy, victoriously sustained by him, in defence of tin Jesuits and their moral theology. Otherß were Bpscial appeals to the Catholic people in support of Catholic education. Your contributor's statement in regard of this matter plainly shows that he knows nothing whatever about the New Zealand Tablet or the character of the articles written for it by Bishop Moran :— I am, etc., John P. Pjebris, Ed., N.Z. Tablet." [Our reason for publishing this letter in the Tablbt is the chance that it may be rejected by either or both of the newspapers to which it has been sent— or that sjrna accident may prevent its reaching them. Th 3 necessity for defending the venerable^memory attaoked we need hardly explain. By publishing this letter we can provide sufficiently for this object. As to the reference made in tbe letter to the interference of English Catholic Tories, or any Tories, with Catholic affairs ia these colonies— their ill success so far, if they have interfered — is manifest. The political sentiments of the Arohbisbop of Wellington are well known to be those of Yonrg New Zealand — and Toung Naw Zialand, we ara proud to i*y, is anything rather thin opposed to Irish Naiijnahsoo, or in sympathy with Toryism. It is, in fact, the other way.— Ed. N.Z. Tablet.]