An Ex-priest's 'Work'

New Zealand Tablet, 12 July 1906, Page 10

An Ex-priest's 'Work'

Our , great national system ' of public instruction has not been quite so successful in dispelling ignorance as its most enthusiastic admirers might suppose. There are still in the backwoods of the country's thought unillumined depths where sundry-white Troglodytes imagine that great questions are settled by an abusive let, and that the defection of aai obscure ex-priest affects vast principles and shakes the religious world as the re\jent earthquake shook S?.n Francisco. Some of these primitive folk have lately teen sneaking an abusive publication among Catholics in a district in Southland. A copy of it lien before us. 'It is described as a 1 work 'by an ex-priest named Connellan. The ' work ' consists of a tawdry, slipshod pami-h'et of 68 pageswretched in type and paper, and smudged with glaring errors in spelling. The printer of this slovenly pamphlet enjoys (if we mistake not) the patronage of the Orange lodges of Dublin (Ireland). And the ' work 'is published in a small den or sanctum in the same city by an organisation which is known to Irish Catholics by the execrated name of • soupers.' Their ostensible object is the ' conversion ' of Irish ' Romanists '—the most moral, the most crimeless, the most intensely spiritual people on our Manet— to the sort of ultra-Protes=* tantism that is inculcated at the ' Bird's Nest.' There has, perhaps, never been a more barren and (in proportion to reuults) more costly mission. The means adopted by the ' soupers ' are not those of Christ and Eis Apostles. But let that pass. Are they not written in the hear thriving records of Black 'Forty-seven, and in the story of the DubJin sllums, aftd the Limerick ' medical mission,' and the « Bird's Nest ' at Kingstown ? Now it costs money to ' uplift » Irjgh Papists from dogmatic certainty to dogmatic doubt, from ecclesiastical unity to religioiiis discord, from indissoluble marriage to the * blessings ' of divorce. Ihe salaries of ' soupcr » pflU cials and agents must be paid if the sky were to fall. And ' souper ' soup, and ' souper ' blankets, and 'souper' medicines, and ' souper ' papers and pamphlets and pos^ ters cost money. And in the year of grace 1906, as m the days of the famine and famine-fever, the ' soupers must go f a r afield for funds. England is vow, as it wae - then, the chief source of supply. The appeal is made in part through a little monthly paper. This is, in effect, the advertisement of a money-raising society, of which Connellan is a paid employee. The diminutive monthly is chiefly intended for ' friends in England,' And (on the cover of the pamphlet before us) it promises them ' many thin-s ' that vill ' startle ' and 4 interest ' them— for which, no douVfc, they will be prepared to pay the ' aoujj^rs ' so much per ' startle.' The 'work' now under notice is also evidently intended for circulation chiefly among ' friends in England.' It has little to say as to results achieved in • Irish Mission work.' But the poverty of achievement is balanced by a wealth of vague ' hope ' in impalpable ' movements ' and imperceptible ' undercurrents,' and in larger « conversions ' that are to take place • some day '—perhaps -when funds improve, perhaps in the sweet by-and-by, but most probably in the fairy-tale milbnium, when the cow jumps over the moon-. But, as in all 'souper' literature, jiames of actual or prospective ' converts ' are carefully, withheld. The whole thing furnishes an admirable example of the sort of • conversion. ' literatu-e that was satirised in the early seventies by Lynam in th« broad farce of c Mick McQuaid, Evangelist. 1 * Side by side with Connellam's ' work,' the ' souper ' - association advertises. for sale the No-Popery publications of Blakeney (one of the most violent and unscrupulous controversialists of the last century) and others. And they are not ashamed to add to their funds by the

sale of the noisome and disgusting literary garbage of the wretched Chitaiquy, a nutshell biography of whom appeared a -few weeks ago in the columns of the • N.Z. tCabiet.' All these productions are advertised in the Ipa-mphlet of Cc\mne|lan. This is -midehtfy an case in \vMdtt a book may be judged by its company. We know <of ho more sweeping condemnation of a ' work r than to find it placed by Irish 'soaipers ' side by side with the productions of Bagot and Blakeney and Chiniquy as a fit and proper instrument for the ' conversion ' of Irish ' Romanists,' or for ' startling ' ' friends in England ' into further donations of minted coins. A perusal .-of the ' work ' sufficiently justifies the implied censure. Its contents will be summarised in next issue. Here we merely remark that there are two classes of No-Popery gullibles to whom it will prove "a disappointment. The first are the gofcemouches who are accustomed to look to 4 ex-priest ' pamphlets for gory, horrible, monstrous, and impossible accusations against Catholics. The others are the tewd characters of the baser sort who are attracted to such ' literature ' by the hope or promise of prurient * revelations ' or ,' disclosures,' Vart altogether from their objective truth or falsehood. Connellan deserves the negative credit that he does not (at least in the pamphlet before us) descend to the 'utter' 1 literature 'of the stye. Hence this particular 'work' will never find much favor with the Orange lodges. To some extent, however, he ' mak>es it up in the trimmings.' He, too, launches accusations. But they refer lo what may be called the natural, and not to the.monstrous and diabolical, forms of human frailty. The unpardonable feature of his accusing is, however, this : In matters libellous, he adopts the coward's resort, so dear to the ex-priest both real and bogus, of carefully concealing names of persons and -any and every circumstance that might afford the public an opportunity of seeing bis veracity tested in a tourt of law. By this unworthy and unmanly resort, he may indeed ' startle ' gullible " friends in { England' 1 sufficiently to touch their shekels for ' Irish Mission work.' But he is particularly «c&,reful to save his own bacon. And to do so, this minister of the ' pure ' Gospel descends to methods of attack from which even a fair-mindc-d pagan Cherokee would recoil. The reader will duly note the significant of those studiously anonymous accusations, about which we shall, have more to say later on. They j-.oit bofih the accuser and his audience under the microscope and in ?, peculiarly odious light. A still greater significance attaches to the personal details of Connellan' s autobiography. For lack of space we must defer publication of our remarks thereon until next week.