THE PRIESTHOOD OF THE PHILIPPINES.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVI, Issue 10, 8 July 1898, Page 28

THE PRIESTHOOD OF THE PHILIPPINES.

NAILING A CALUMNY.

The W. A. Record has effectively taken to task one Mr. Sydney Halifax, -who contributed an article to the West Australian reflecting on the virtue of the Catholic clergy of Manila. After having pointed out that Mr. Halifax had had no experience of the priesthood of Manila, and that, in an interview accorded him by Cardinal Moran, he misrepresented his Eminence's attitude towards the '98 Centenary celebrations, the W. A. Record continues :—: — But we are informed by a member of the Catholic clergy now present in Perth, and who has had a considerable experience of the Manila men engaged in the pearl fishery of this colony— we allude to the Rev. Father Duff — that the natives in question bear the highest possible testimony to the devotion and worth of the Catholic priesthood of their country. Their reverence for a priest, based on what they have known of the clergy of their own islands, is, the Rev. Father tells us, extreme. Here, too, is non-Catholic testimony to support and explain what Father Duff testifies to. It is indeed some fourteen years old, but the classic axiom holds true : Kettio repent e fiat titrpixshnus. What the priesthood of the Philippines then were no doubt they still remain. We quote from the Quarterly Review of April, 1881. The writer describes the dwellings of the islanders as, like those of tne Malays generally, neat and orderly. They were adorned with coloured prints of the Madonna and the saints, and musical instruments abounded in them. There was no village without its band — ready for Sunday or festival, Mass or Vespers :—: — 1 While the annually-recurring processions, illuminations, and merry-makings, untarnished by drunkenness or rioting of any sort, at Eastertide, on a patronal festival, or the like, far excel, both for spontaneity and brilliancy, anything now to be witnessed in Western Europe. Nor less noteworthy is the courteous, orderly, law-abiding demeanour of the working townsman or peasant at all times and everywhere. A happy condition of things, for which in part thanka are undoubtedly due to the Spanish administration as such, more yet to the intrinsic goodnebs of the Malay nature ; but most to the benign and judicious rule exercised by the clergy, Spanish, or island-born, and the humanizing influence of their life and teaching on the laity around. It will perhaps surprise a large number of our readers that it is to the Catholic clergy, and especially to the monasteries, richly-endowed and thickly dotted over all the larger islands, that the inhabitants of the Philippines chiefly owe their happiness and content. Yet so in truth it is. Identifying their own interests with those of the people, the Philippine clergy, regular and secular alike, has constantly stood forth the true and provident protector of the flocks under its charge ; and in requital for a very moderate share of the wool has kept the sheep from the too close clipping shears of the civil administration, .and from the ravening wolves of alien speculation and deadly ■u&ury. Under the sheltering care of the ' cura ' (parish priest) and the ' f rayle ' (brother), the land, no less than the labour, has -throughout the Philippines remained the property of the culti■vatora • and while Spain and the merchants of Europe have the one •directed the administration and the others reaped a fair share of its pronto, the natives have been left the sole masters and owners of Here is * passage that may well he contrasted with that we ■have quoted from Mr. Sydney Halifax. If it throws a sinister light •on that gentleman's veracity the fault is his own. It may further, jperhaps, tend to illustrate the sincerity of the admirntion professed toy Mr. Halifax for the priesthood elsewhere — in places where their ■devotion has been honoured by his personal experience. We also the pertinence of an appeal that has just been made by tthe Spanish commander in the islands to the natives in favour of •Spanish role, by which the different usage bestowed by the Ameri-

cans on the aborigines of the country they had occupied was pointed out. There the natives had been exterminated. The Archbishop of Manila is also cilling upon the natives to remain loyal, and the writer in the Quarterly shows us the right his Grace possesses to make such an appeal. It is certainly not, as represented by Mr. Sydney Halifax, that of a prelate presiding over a priesthood corrupt, immoral, and living on the proceeds of gaming tables — and conniving at, if not sharing in, their infamy. The appeal of a prelate like that would obtain but little regard among a community of faithful Catholics. Nor indeed could such a prelate fir such a priesthood escape the condemnation of the Holy See. The charge, so lightly brought by Mr. Sydney Halifax:, affects the Pope himself.