St. Joseph's Men's Club, Dunedin

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVII, Issue 19, 13 May 1909, Page 743

St. Joseph's Men's Club, Dunedin

The programme at the meeting of St. Joseph's Men's Club on Friday evening consisted of an inaugural lecture by the Rev. Father Coffey, Adm., who took for his subject freedom of conscience and freedom of worship, and what the Church teaches on this subject. He said that a great many people believed that liberty of conscience and of worship was unknown until the time of the so-called Reformation. The period during which the Church Avas accused of being most intolerant was in the middle ages, and yet Montalembert said that was an age which was bristling with freedom. While man is physically free to act and think, to do right and wrong, man is not morally free ; freedom of conscience does not give him the fight to do wrong, or neglect to do what he knows to be right. The rev. lecturer here quoted the opinions of St.- Thomas, St. Athanasius, St. Martin of Tours, St. Ambrose, and Fenelon on this question, and went on to show that freedom i f conscience has been the guiding principle of the Catholic Church in all ages, and if in given instances her children have acted contrary, it was because they acted not in accordance with her teaching. Father Coffey then dealt with two favorite themes of controversialists — the Spanish Inquisition and the Syllabus of Propositions condemned by Pius IX. in 1864. He showed how greatly these were misunderstood and misrepresented by controversialists, and quoted in support of his statement the opinions of many non-Catholic writers of note. He then dealt with what the Church had done for liberty of worship from the earliest Christian times, and showed how it was only in Maryland, of all the early settlements of what is now known as the United States, that liberty of conscience and worship was proclaimed and practised. In conclusion, he said that all citizens should enjoy the same religious rights in the community; that all should live in peace and concord, respecting and tolerating each others' religious views and beliefs, and never allowing the pestilential blast of religious bigotry to destroy the union which should exisb between the children of the one Father. '

On the motion of Mr. H. Poppelwell, seconded by Mr. E. W. Spain, a hearty vote of thanks was accorded Coffey for his instructive address.

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