Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 1 September 1910, Page 1391

Current Topics

The Wanganui Controversy The editor of the Wanganui Chronicle must by this time bitterly rue the hour in which he cribbed that unlucky leader from the Melbourne Age. Ever since it appeared his life has been made a burden to him he has been routed right, left, and centre ; and he" is now explaining apologetically that he was only expressing his opinions— ‘ his opinions’ ! and that he didn’t mean them to be ‘ the theme of a religious controversy.’ The Catholic apologists— D. Gaffaney, ‘ G.J.F.,’ ‘ Civis Romanus,’ and ‘Catholic’— are, in sporting parlance, good stayers, and are fjping steadier and stronger now than when they began. Two of the correspondents who rallied to the help of the worried editor— ‘Reformer’ and ‘ C.H.P.’— depended wholly and solely on McCabe for their material. The utter untrustworthiness of this ‘ authority ’ has been thoroughly and effectively exposed in the course of the controversy ; and as these two writers have between them used up pretty well the whole of McCabe’s short chapter on ‘ The Church in Spain ’ they are now, intellectually speaking, just about stranded. In response to signals of distress, a third anticlerical— signs himself ‘ Liberty ’ has appeared on the scene with three ‘ snake-yarns ’ regarding alleged horrors committed by the authorities in Spain, These fairy tales are put forward as ‘ extracts from a letter ’ (writer unnamed) which ‘ recently appeared in the London Daily News’ (date unspecified). The statements are obviously from a biassed source; they are entirely ex parte; and even the names of the parties concerned —to say nothing of their addressesare in no case supplied. The man who came before any reasonably constituted tribunal with ‘ evidence ’ of this sort would be simply laughed out of court. ‘ Liberty ’ reminds one of the incident in Through the LooldngGlass : —- ‘ I can’t believe that I’ said Alice. .‘Can’t you?’ the Queen said in a pitying tone. Try again: draw a long breath and shut your eyes.’ Alice laughed. ‘ There’s no use trying,’ she said one can’t believe impossible things.’ ‘ 1 daresay you haven’t had much practice,’ said the Queen. ‘ When I was your age I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.’ ‘ Liberty ’ may possibly believe the tall tales he has toldif he does, he must have had long practice in credulity. 9 One point regarding the situation in Spain in respect to which there has been very general misconception, even among otherwise well-informed press writers, has been brought out with admirable clearness by the Catholic writers in the controversy. We refer to the action of the Vatican in protesting against the Spanish Premier’s proposal to grant full religious tolerance to the handful of members of non-Catholic bodies (numbering 7000 in a population of 20,000,000). Freedom of worship was already granted by the Constitution; but the right to use outward signs and to make public manifestations Avas —by a clause in the Concordat which had been inserted by the Government and not by the Vatican—denied. ‘With regard,’ says ‘ G.J.F.,’ ‘ to the prohibition of outward signs and public manifestations by those Churches other than Catholic in Spain, 1 pointed out to you that this was purely a Government law and was actually protested against by Cardinal Antonelli, Secretary of State to Rope Pius IX.’ And ‘Catholic,’ dealing with the same subject, writes more fully: ‘There has, I think, been a little misunderstanding as to the attitude of the Vatican in its protest against the action of the Spanish Premier in granting full religious tolerance to nonCatholics in Spain. The portion of the Concordat prohibiting the non-Catholic exhibition of ecclesiastical signs, etc., was inserted against the wish of Cardinal Antonelli but as it was passed into law surely it is decidedly unconstitutional for the Premier of Spain to make the highly desirable concession without first arriving at an Agreement thereon with the Holy See. Senor Canalejas has, seemingly with a desire to rupture diplomatic relations with the Vatican, taken this step, and accordingly the Vatican has

protested not against religions tolerance being granted, but against the Concordat being altered without an agreement being arrived at beforehand. Surely this is reasonable? I may say that negotiations had been in progress for some time for a modification of the Concordat, and, doubtless, there would have been an agreement arrived at before now had it not been for the frequent changes of late in the party in power in Spain. To show that the Holy See is in favor of complete, religions tolerance, you have only to notice the Argentine, an intensely Catholic State, where complete religious tolerance reigns, specified for expressly in the Concordat between that State and the Vatican.’ On every point the facts are absolutely as stated by these writers; and Senior Canalejas’ action in making it appear that the Pope was opposed to the extension of religions tolerance has been a clever, and, we are afraid, partially successful attempt to place the Holy Father in an utterly false light in the eyes of the outside world. » hoi the lest, wo congratulate the Wanganui controversialists on the excellence of their defence. Their facts and arguments are strong, while their language is studiously moderate—and that is a combination which will always command respect. The anti-Catholic material has been quarried almost exclusively from McCabe. But if Protestant controversialists decline to accept him as ait authority on the Bible and Christianity, how can they consistently put him forward as an authority on Spain? Church Expenditure in Spain Mr. McCabe, in his no-Popery gossip about Spain, is very fond of quoting the llcvista■ Cristiana —not because the little ‘ Christian Review ’ has any particular standing, but because it is a violently anti-Catholic publication. A few years ago in the course of an article in the Contemporary Review, Mr. McCabe said: ‘The editor of the Revista Cristiana some years ago calculated that the Church of Spain spent 29,200,000 pesetas a year on candles and incense alone.’ This works out at about £1,210,000. It is impossible even to guess on what principle such an estimate could have been arrived at; and Mr. McCabe vouchsafed no information on this interesting point.. But even assuming the correctness of the estimate the statement admits of a neat and effective reply, and this our contemporary, Austral Light (Melbourne) promptly administered. * Dealing with the question of candles and incense, Austral Light said; If the unsophisticated Spaniard spends freely in the service of God, and for the beautifying of Divine worship, the Spaniard, though poor, can afford it, because he spends but little on intoxicating drink. Therein he differs from his English Protestant fellow human. • The candles and incense will not make his head ache, or cause him to beat his wife, and starve his family, or to hang himself from a rafter. “ The Spaniard,says Mr. Scott, a Protestant writer, “looks upon a drunkard with the most undisguised horror and contempt. There are few mortals more abstemious and less given to excesses of any kind than the people of th# Peninsula.” The Spanish nation is so sober that Spain does not seem to appear in the world’s statistics of death from drunkenness, while another Catholic country, Italy, gives one death from drunkenness in every 10,000 deaths to Protestant England’s 21, Stockholm’s 90, and New York’s 75. The Quarterly Review (October, 1875) calculated that 60,000 die annually in England from the effects of drink, and that there were no less than 600,000 habitual drunkards in England and Scotland. One out of 19 of the adult male population of England, between the ages of thirty and sixty dies of drinking. Drunkenness in England has extended to women. And the conditions of living in London and the other large centres of population are fearful in their horror. . . The drink bill of the United Kingdom is £189,000,000, or over £4.10 per annum per head of the population. The incense and candle bill of Spain, translated into our money, is, roughly (allowing McCabe’s figures to be correct), £1,210,000, or less than Is 6d per annum per head of the population. That is, the Englishman spends on drink in one week more than the Spaniard spends on candles and ' incense in a whole year. The Australian spends (per head of population per annum) as much on, intoxicants in. 10 days as the Spaniard

spends on candles and incense in 365. The flourishing totals of Mr. McCabe dwindle to very mean proportions under analysis.’ Ireland and Scotland The twelfth of July functions in New Zealand this year have passed off so quietly that the great date has come and gone almost without the public being made aware of the existence of the well-known fraternity. Not that the effervescing Orangeman has ceased to effervesce but the more influential and reputable dailies have learned to appraise him at his true value, and his 1 celebrations ’ are now for the most part dismissed with the most inconspicuous and briefest possible par. He still occasionally, however, finds a friend among the journalistic lesser lights. A little Wanganui weekly, for example has been forwarded to us by a correspondent — the hospitality of its columns to a somewhat lengthy report of an Orange whoop uttered by one Rev. Bailey at the Dublin street Primitive Methodist Church in Wanganui. Bro. Bailey, with protruded chest, calls upon his hearers to register ‘ a great emphatic ‘No’ to all the beguiling assumptions of the Pope or priest ’; and then proceeds to deliver the usual ranting rhodomontade which does duty as Orange ‘ argument.’ The ‘arguments’ are all of equal worthlessness, and any one sample will serve as a specimen of the rest. We take the first in order in Bro, Bailey’s oration: ‘ They had only. to contrast Catholic Ireland with Protestant Scotland. Scotland’s liberation from priest-craft and obedience to the word of God had made her what she was, whilst Ireland had made herself the miserable, pitiable spectacle she was to-day.’ By all means let the comparison be made between the two countries; and it will soon be seen that in matters of moralityin respect to that righteousness which alone exalteth a nation Catholic Ireland stands head and shoulders above the country about which Bro. Bailey so ignorantly vaunts. * According to Dr. Leffingwell, the statistics of illegitimacy are a good test of the morality of a people, and some singularly complete and instructive figures in point appear in his work on Illegitimacy, one of Swan Sonnenschein’s' ‘ Social Science Series ’ (published in .1892). We quote the following significant passage: ‘ln 1881 the census of Scotland showed that there were then living in that portion of the kingdom 492,454 unmarried women (that is to say spinsters and widows) between the ages of fifteen and fortyfive. During the ten years 1878-1887 there were born in Scotland 105,091 illegitimate children, or an annual average of 21 to each thousand unmarried females at this spec’fied age. In England and Wales the corresponding number (f the unmarried females was 3,046,431 and the number cf illegitimate births during the same period was 426,184, tr 14 to each thousand of the possible mothers. In Ireland, the number of unmarried women at this age was a third larger than in Scotland, or 731,767. Yet to each thousand of these were born every year less than 5 illegitimate children during a ten-year period, 1878-1887. Here again we are perplexed with the problem why Scotia and Hibernia should present such Avidly different contrasts. Every year in Scotland there are five times the proportion of bastards that see the light in Ireland!’ Dr. LeffingAvell does not trouble to break the matter gently to his Scottish readers; but, ugly as the fact is, it is indisputable. The significance of the returns of irregular birth in Ireland becomes more manifest when we compare province with province the rate increases as the proportion of Catholics in the population diminishes. The following table is compiled from the Registrar-General’s returns for 1908 and varies very little from the figures given by Dr. Leffingwell for 18781891:

All this gives Mr. J. A. Fox, a Protestant writer, occasion to make the following remarks in his Key to the Irish Question : ‘ Ulster, it is sad to tell, is primus amongst the Irish provinces in immorality only; Antrim, Armagh, London-

derry, Down, and Tyrone being the plague-spots of the most moral country in Europe. These countries, the Pall Mall Gazette says, are the only ones “ returning Orange members to the present Parliament,” and, somewhat unkindly adds: “It seems that Orangeism and illegitimacy go together, and that illegitimate children in Ireland are in proportion to Orange lodges.” ’ . Scotland and Religious Belief And in addition to moral irregularity the unsavory preeminence which it has undeniably attained in the matter of illegitimacy— Scotland seems to be drifting also into confusion, if not into chaos, in matters of faith. To this, even that staid and solid champion of respectable Protestantism—the Scotswan bears unwilling witness. Referring to the efforts made by the Church of Scotland during the last five years v to frame a new and up-to-date formula of subscription to the Confession of Faith—i.e., to the official creed of Presbyterianismthe Scotsman says that the latest formula proposed, even if adopted, will only be the merest stop-gap—is, in fact, already only ‘ a straw in the flood’ of doctrinal change and revolution which is now overtaking the country, l lt cannot be said,’ says Scotland’s leading paper, ‘that the new Formula is altogether satisfactory; but no formula can be devised which can be fully satisfactory. For no Formula can express the revolution which has taken place in the whole outlook of the Church since the Confession of Faith was drawn up.’ a ‘ But the Church cannot rest at the stage which it has now reached. It cannot go on demanding of its ministers that they subscribe the “fundamental doctrines” of the Christian faith, and when they ask what these doctrines are, reply: “They are a conundrum which we have not solved yet.” It is useless to say that the fundamental doctrines are the “living voice” of the Church, for the Church of Scotland has no such audible voice. . . The full freedom of the Church to deal with the formulating of its own — when it can make up its mind what these are— be acknowledged as the essential heritage of the future Church of Scotland. There is no doubt that it is the interest of the Church of Scotland to finally pass the new Formula; but it will only tide over the interval which must necessarily intervene before the foundations are laid for the Church of the future. Already the Formula, which was once deemed a matter of such importance that a committee of 100, under the guidance of Lord Balfour of Burleigh, toiled at it for a year, has become a mere straw in the flood.’ From this it is evident that Scotland stands no longer where it did in doctrinal matters. The Catholics of Ireland at least know what they believe, and practise it. Can the same now be said of Protestant Scotland ? An Interesting Decision A recent issue of our esteemed contemporary, the Philadelphia Catholic Standard and Times, contains the report of an extremely interesting decision—relating to the validity of bequests for Masses— the other day by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The importance of the judgment lies not so much in the fact that the validity of bequests for Masses was upheld, as in the grounds on which the decision was based, the principles laid down and adopted by the court in this case being of practically universal application. The case was an appeal from the Circuit Court, which had sustained the judgment of the County Courta judgment which had declared invalid a provision of the will of James Kava'naugh, whereby he left all his property for Masses for the repose of his soul and the souls of members of his family. The decision of the lower court was based on McHugh v. McCole, 97 Wis., 166, where a bequest for Masses was held invalid because the court there determined that a private trust was attempted to be made by the testator which did not conform to statutory requirements. The administrator of the Kavanaugh estate appealed, setting up the contention that in providing for Masses no private trust \vas attempted because the saying of Mass is a charitable act and that the will created a charitable trust enforceable in equity. This view was upheld by the Supremo Court in overruling the Circuit Court.

The court explained very clearly how it was that in the McHugh case a different decision had been arrived at. Iso proof/ it says, was made in the McHugh case that Masses were not private in their nature, and for the sole benefit of the souls of the giver and others specifically mentioned. No evidence was offered as to the nature of Masses, whether public or private, and the court rested its opinion upon the idea that the trust was purely private. Had the court started with the proposition that a bequest for Masses is a public charity, a different conclusion, doubtless, would have been reached in the McHugh case.’ The court then holds that if a private trust had been intended the decision of the Circuit Court would have been correct and the provision could not be upheld because of indefiniteness. » It then devotes itself to the discussion of the question whether a bequest for Masses is, or is not, a public charity; and it is the court’s decision on this point which constitutes the special significance and importance of the Wisconsin judgment. ‘We are brought to the question/ says the court, ‘whether a bequest for Masses is a public charity . . There is much conflict in the early and some of the late cases as to what is and what is not a public charity. Many of the bequests in England were held void as being to superstitious uses; but no such rule or principle obtains in this country, hence the decisions declaring gifts or bequests void as gifts to superstitious uses have no application here. The doctrine of superstitious uses under the statute of 1 Edw. VI. Ch. 14, under which devises for Masses were held void has never obtained in the United States, where there is absolute religious equality. Proof was made m the present case that Masses are public in their nature and of benefit to mankind in general. It was shown by competent evidence that the sacrifice of the Mass is a public service, not only for the repose of the soul of the deceased members mentioned, but for the benefit of all mankind, and so understood by all members of the Catholic Church. So while the Masses may be intended to benefit the souls of the departed mentioned, the benefits are public as well, therefore come within the designation of a public charity. Masses are religious observances, and come within the religious or pious uses which are upheld as public charities. . . . According to the doctrine of the Catholic Church as established by proof in this case, the whole Church profits by every Mass, since the prayers of the Mass include all the faithful, living and dead. The sacrifice of the Mass contemplates that all mankind shall participate in its benefits and fruit. “ The Mass is the unbloody sacrifice of the cross and the object for which it is offered up is in the first place to honor and glorify God; secondlv, to thank Him for His favors; thirdly, to' ask His blessing; fourth, to propitiate Him for the sins of all mankind. The individuals who participate in the fruits of the Mass are the person or persons for whom the Mass is offered, all of those who assist at the Mass, the celebrant himself, and all mankind, within or without the fold of the Church.” So it seems clear upon reason and authority under the doctrine of the Catholic Church as established by the evidence in this case that a bequest for Masses is a charitable bequest and valid as such, although the repose of the souls of particular persons be mentioned.’ In conclusion the court adds- ‘ln so far as McHugh v. McCole, 97 Wis. 166, conflicts with anything said in this opinion, it must be regarded as overruled. It follows that the bequest for Masses is valid, and that the judgment of the court below must bo reversed.’

Provinces. Per Centage'of Catholic Population. Per 100 births Illegitimacy. Connaught % 07 ■Munster 93 21 Leinster 83 2.6 Ulster 50 3-4