The Archbishop of Melbourne on Sectarianism

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 32, 10 August 1905, Page 3

The Archbishop of Melbourne on Sectarianism

His Grace the Archbishop of Melbourne blessed and opened new schools at South Melbourne on Sunday, July 16, in the presence of a very large assemblage of people. The schools are to bte conducted by the Christian Brothers, and his Grace in acknowledging a vote of thanks took the opportunity of protesting against the abuse and misrqpresentation indulged in at the Orange gatherings during the previous week. Such an education as the Christian Brothers give (said his Grace) aims at directing the physical powers of the body, the faculties of the mind, the refinement of the manners, the discipline of the whole man. But while the Brothers attend to the development of the bodf and the cultivation of the mind, they do not forget, the spiritual side of man's nature. On the contrary, they make the practice of Christian virtue the grea<, aim and object of all their teaching. They know that it is not on bread alone that man lives, huh in every, word that proceedeth from the mouth cf God. They know, too, that in a well-regulated school secular and religious instruction should be commingled as to become tbe warp and woof of a perfect education. The resMlt is that when the boys leave school they arc splendidly equipped to make their way in the world as well-educated, broadminded, upright and solidly virtuous men and citizens. How needful all these qualities are for Catholic boys at the present time anjd in the circumstances in which we live must have been brought home to any impartial Observer by events which haive occurred within the last week. If 1 refer to these events, humiliating as they are, not to us, but to those who ha^ e taken part in them, it is certainly not in anger, But in Sincere Pity that I glance at them. I verily/ believe that such sad exhibitions of unprovoked hostility are to us a source of "union and strength, to their authors a source of shame, and to nine-tenths of the general public a source of annoyance and regret. What are the facts of tbe case ? At this part of the year a number of people assemble nominally to commemorate a Wattle which was fought in Ireland more than two hundred years ago. In that battle the Irish, fighting, as they believed for an English king and against a foreign invader, were defeated. No one denies tibat the tfrislh atj that time did theii duty towards the English king, who led them In person, and claimed the'r alleo-iance. There is absolutely nothing;, therefore, in the event itself which oan ex-plain or justify the passionate and uncharitable feelings which its commemoration provokes year aftei year. The occasion is made use of to heap all manner of obloquy not on Irishmen alone, but, on all who profesis the Catholic faith— that is, of 240 or 250 millions, or a number far exceeding all Protestant denominations put together. And those who offer these insults are -not all renegade Irishmen, but men of other nationalities, who for their own purpose 1 )

affect to be) greatly interested in the event. In t&at event, as I have stated, there is no foundation lor religious rancor. ;= "~ But it is said that not the event itself, but the principles of Civil and Religious Liberty, for which it stands, are duly honored aoid celebrated. Let us see. Bow is civil and religious liberty honored by these celebrations ? Were the Irish Catholics at that time in full possession of their civil and religious liberties, and were they oppressing their Protestant fellow-countrymen ? Or were Catholic. Irishmen at that date the victims of an oppression,. as diabolical, to use the language of Edmund Burke, as the perverted ingenuity of the human mind could devise ? Let anyone read ' Edmund Burke on Irish Affairs,' edited by Matthew Arnold, and say whether the cause of civil and religious liberty is honored by commemorating the battle of the Boyne. ' If, 1 he writes, ' the Irish resisted King WilJiam, they resisted him on the very same principle that the English and Scotch resisted King James.' And, referring to the results of the battle of the Boyne ami subsequent battles, he writes : ' All the penal laws ol that unparalleled code of oppression, which were made after the last event, were manifestly the effects of national hatred and scorn towards a conquered people, whom 1 the victims delighted to trample upon, and wem not afraid to provoke. . , Their cries served only to augment their tortures.' Lord Chancellor Clare, in his remarkable speech on the Union, referring to th« Williamite confiscations, said : 'So that the whole o# your island has been confiscated with the exception of thu esitates of Awe or six families of English blood. . .. and, no inconsiderable portion of the island has been confiscated twice, or perhaps thrice, in the course of a century. The situation, therefore, of the Irish nation at the revolution stands unparalleled in the history of the habita'tye world. . . The whole power and property oT the country have been conferred by successive monarcha of England upon an English colony composed of three sets of English ad venturers. . . Confiscation is their. common title ; and from their first settlement they have been hemmed in on every side by the old inhabitan's of the island, brooding over their discontent in sullen indignation.' But the crowds that gather at Orange demonstrations know little of Irish history, or o< the event and its results wßich they are celebrating. M they did, they would'be filled with shame and sorrov rather than with exultation. Reverse the picture, and suppose that Irish CatholiCß assembled annually to celebrate, say, the battle of Benbtirb, and took occasion to revile'all that was dearest to Protestants, what an outcry oair prominent bigots woulrt raise- ' But bigotry is blind, illogical, and Pharisaical, It will lead i(s victims to any lengths. Of old thn j harisees, in the cause of civil and religious liberty, crucified their Redeemer. The .interests of religiom, they declared, required the sacrifice. Their civil rights, too, were at stake. If they allowed the iNazarene to :livo and spread His doctrine, the Romans would come and take away their place and nation. How like the modern pharisees ' Towards the close of the eighteenth century manifestations'of bigotry similar to those recently exhibited amongst ourselves led to The Gordon Riots in London. There were not wanting expressions in recent speeches tv suggest 'that a similar result would be acceptable to sorai* of the party leaders. But the authors of the Cordon riots are now looked on with contempt, and their deed* are attributed not to religious zeal, but to intolerance begotteai of besotted bigotry. 'It is unnecessary,' say* Dickens in ' Barnabv Rudge,' ' to say that those shamsful( tumiults, while they reflect indelible disgrace upon th«» time in which they occurred, and all who had act or park in them, 'teach a good lesson. That what we falsely call a religious cry is easily raised by men who have no religion, and who in their daily practice set at naught the commonest principles of right and wrong ; that it is begotten of intolerance and persecution ; that it is sens**loss, besotted, Inveterate, and unmerciful, all historf teaches us. But perhaps we do not know it in out: hearts too well to profit by even so humble an example as the " No-Popery " riots of seventeen hundred and eighty.' The Gospel of Love. But suptpose for a moment that we were all that theso mem allege,, suppose that we were intolerant an 3 superstitiousf, and everything else their heated imagination!* can picture, how are we to be converted ? Is it by violv

ence amd evil thinking and speaking? Is it by inciting against us the passions of a crowd little verst-d in the facts of the case, but willing to take their ideas from vehement speakers ? Is that their Christian rule (if conduct ? Is that thc-ir idea of Christianity ? Is thai their application of- the gospel of lo\e to the practice of hate ? Is that "the example they feel bound to put before us benighted Papists and to ask us to follow ? Is that the result of their reading of the Bible ? If they succeed in getting the BiWe introduced into the State schools, is that the effect in regard to Catho!i> s they wish it shall prcdace on tha minds cf non-Ca.thohc children? They are prepare.! to sacrifice themselves in defence of their eiul and religious liberties. But it is not a sacrifice of passion, "but a'sacrifice of justice and charity and truth which the case demands. Let them learn this elementary truth, that all are chl Iren of a losing Father, and that it should be their e'fort, as well as ours, to unite all the citizens of the State in the bonds of reace and fraternal charity.