THE PRIESTS AND PEOPLE OF IRELAND

New Zealand Tablet, 30 August 1906, Page 12

THE PRIESTS AND PEOPLE OF IRELAND

SLANDERERS SCORED (Concluded from last week.)

We now come to the last and most awful injustice. If there was one thing the Irish Catholics particularly hated, it was the new religion. Many had died most cruel deaths rather than embrace it, yet they were taxed to support it. The severity of the lantl-lor-d was mild compared to the exactions of the tithe proctor, whose claims were always enfoiced. For some years £2,000,000 were annually taken from an impoveilshed people by one-ninth of the population. So great was the strain of paying the tithes that a general strike ensued. The tithe war followed, and many a tragic encounter marked its course, numfoeis of peisons 'being shot down. Disestablishment followed in 1569, and the Irish Protestant Church received back somewhat over £10,000,000 as compensation for invested right. This alone would have erected twice as many churches as weie built in Ireland in one hundred years. The Very Rev. lecturer then referred to the Irish Parliament at the end of the eighteenth century and the industrial progress made during its eighteen years of existence. A tribute was paid to the memory of Michael Davitt, who inaugurated the Land League and fought and suffered for the piinciple of the land for the people, with the lesult that he lived to see enacted by the British Government a revolution, which all men then in power had declared to be impossible of realisation—of peasant proprietors on the land. Mention was also made of the King's sympathy with the Irish people and Irish cause. The Very Rev. Dean then referred to the prominent part taken by the Catholic clergy in settling the people on the land and helping to start co-operative societies and industriesassistance given in spite of legal restiictions placed upon the priests' usefulness in secular affairs In England a priest may be elected to the County Council and the Board of Guardians ; in Ireland he is inelieible. & Reference was then made to the charge that nuns are unreproductive in the economic sense. A lady may marry or not, as she pleases ; she may spend her days in the hunting field, dawdling ia a drawingroom, or gambling ; she may become a mahatma, or a Christian scientist, and no word of reproach, is ever uttered against her, but if she exercises her imprescriptible right to lead a life of celibacy, prayer and mortification, the world sheds crocodile tears on the loss of her liberty. The Very Rev. lecturer then went on to show what the nuns were doing in their Schools, Industrial Institutions, Reformatories, and training colleges, often erected at their own expense The Government Inspector as early as 1884 wrote of the industrial schools of Ireland, under the care of devoted nuns and Brothers: 'The industrial schools of Ireland need no comment. They are considered by the most distinguished publicists of Europe who have visited them to be models on which a general system of techirical instruction may well be founded.' T3ie nuns have schools of fine needlework, crochet, hosiery, cooierv laundry, dairy, poultry, bees, etc. These schools give employment to large numbers, and in some cases they have been turned into co-operative societies so that the workers, besides their wages, receive a share of the profits. The village of Foxford was instanced This place had been placed among the congested districts The Sisters of Charity started a school there Then they erected a woollen factory, bought the farmers'

wool and sold the woollen goods, having from this industry a turnover of between £8000 and £9000 » w«rw Cy Starl^ d a co-operative creamery, and nest LSo m , M ft ere slrls are bus ? making shawls, stockings, and other woollens. Such is the progress nL? VG ars - « Are the nuns of th « unproductive class, and are the Irish without thiift and industry wl^en the opportunity is offered to them ? rr w ™ kll ? g -n °f illiterac y the Dean quoted Stephen Crwynne s ' 1 o-day and To-morrow in Ireland.' 'If to be literate is to possess a knowledge of the language, literature, and historical traditions of one's own Tf UI VK T ~ „ th ! s is uo ver y unreasonable application of the word-then the liish-speaking peasantry had a ™ f uCIu Cl t lm \° the tlUe lhan can "be shown ty most bodies of men. I have heard the existence of an Irish literature denied by a roomful of prosperous educated gentlemen; and within a week I have heard in the same country the classics of that literature recited by an Irish peasant who could neither read nor write On which party should the stigma of illiteracy set the uglier brand ? The Very Rev. lecturer then referred to the moralYnnni ft? We \ ar 'v' <l uotil 'g i™™ Mr. Filsom nJ? T g V * Edinburgh Review' of April, 1901, and Dr Leffingwell, proved that Ireland was the most moral country m the world, and that the Catholic counties were moie moral than the non-Catholic. ilfL+f™™? i, a ?, ln Ireland at leas V saitl he, ' that 10-d^es ™ chl l d rcn are in proportion to the Orange Referring to the charge that the Irish people are P" e i nd f n ' he said there were 3,301,1,66 Catholics ww q? Cr i y 354 ? Pliests ' lhat is one priest for eveiy 904. If pnesis disabled from work by illness or old age be deducted, t-heie remains ore to 1000 ■ if members of lcligious Orders and priests engaged in teaching be left out, it leaves one for every 1206 Why priests are more numerous in New Zealand in proportion to population, and a few more would he of great service. The following table gives the proportion of clcigy to the difU'tent denominations •—

If priests were pioporlionate to 'the number of parsons, they ought to be lU,OOO instead of 35 io Hence the number oE priests cannot be looked upon as a cause of poveity in Ireland. Dr. Barclay, on behalf of the .Piotestants and others present, moved a hea.rty vote of thanks to the Dean for his instructive and eloquent speech He joined those who depn-catod the thrusting; under' people s noses of books that led to sectarian bitterness and hatred. 'When they left the Old Land they had hoped to cast aside this class of religious strife The desire for knowledge of New Zealand Catholics seemed ceitam disproof of the statement of priesthood did not want their people educated Ho referred to the charge laid against Sir W. Stewaid and the Government that favoritism was shown Catholics in the public service. While he had had official connections with appointments made he said that no suspicion could be at the door of the priesthood of a denomination using undue influence to get such positions. Mr. Wells seconded the motion, and Mr Corxigan in an amusing speech, supported it, which was carried with much enthusiasm. In replying to the vote -of thanks Dean Reenault expressed his indebtedness for much of his matter to the admiiable work of the Very Rev Dr O'Riordan, ' Catholicity and Progress in Ireland ' which he cordially recommended to his hearers. ' An orchestra, consisting of Miss Dooley Messrs Cheyne, Hamilton, Stephens, and Rev. Father Tymons' played national aiis efficiently during the evening '

Population last Number of Clergy. Proportion of Cierg-y to People. Census. Catholics Fpiscopaliaus Presbyterians Methodists ... 3,301,666 581,089 443,276 62,000 3,542 1,600 800 250 1 in 934 1 in 363 1 in 554 1 in 248