Archbishop Carr Speaks.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 2, 8 January 1903, Page 1

Archbishop Carr Speaks.

The true inwardness of the insidious proposal given above was ably set forth on the following day (December 17) by the Archbishop of Melbourne in the course of a speech delivered at the Athenaeum Hall in connection with the closing exercises of St. Patrick's College. His Grace dissected the Council's vote in a manner that ought to appeal with irresistible force to fairminded people of every creed, and, in view of the possible and even probable, attempt to work off such a scheme of religious instruction upon us in New Zealand, our readers would do well to pigeon-hole his words in their memory. The ' Argus ' reports his Grace to have said that 'if anything came of the vote in the Legislative Council on the previous night, Catholic boys should in future, to borrow a phrase from the cricket field, fag for their Protestant companions. It appeared that there was considerable difficulty in getting the latter to attend the religious instruction doled out to them in the State schools after school hours. It was therefore proposed to make use of

the Catholic boys to reconcile the non-Catholics to the hour's or half-hour's religious instruction they received. This was to be done by keeping the Catholic boys at secular studies, not for their benefijti but for the solace of their companions. And there was much more than this involved. The Catholic children would, without doubt, in many cases be morally compelled to attend the religious instruction given to the Protestant children. That was done at present. It would be done more frequently under the proposed arrangement. Now a Catholic parent must formally declare in writing that he does not wish to have his children become Protestants by attending Protestant religious instruction. From the uncontradicted statement of a Catholic parent, published a short time ago, it was not enough for the parent to sign a printed form sent to him by the head teacher declaring his unwillingness that his children should attend. In addition, it was required that the children should have with them a letter stating the same fact, otherwise they were required to attend religious instruction. Nothing could show the spirit in which the system was worked more clearly than the defence made by a lav reader lately for detaining children known to be Catholic. The defence was that he was only giving an orthodox exposition of the Lord's Prayer. But the next day his subject might be the number of the sacraments, or the Lord's Supper, or Justification by Faith. To reverse the picture, suppose a Catholic teacher gave an exposition of the Hail Mary or the seven Sacraments, and addressed his remarks to Protebtant children, and then defended himself by saying that such orthodox doctrine could harm no child. He was not surprised, however, at such a defence being urged by a lay reader. A leading Protestant divine, in discussing this question with him (the Archbishop) a few days ago, had said, after all, there are not many points of difference between Catholics ; in fact, he added, if you took away the adoration of the Blessed Virgin nothing else would exist. (Laughter.) It was shocking that a gentleman in his position should not know that the Catholic Church absolutely repudiated the " adoration of the Blessed Virgin " as being one of its dogmas, and that it should be thought that there were no other points of difference between Catholicism and Protestantism. If the proposal which was suggested by the Legislative Council were to become law, the State schools would become places for proselytising Catholic children. But he relied upon the general — indeed, he might say the generous — public to prevent anything of the kind happening.'