Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 19 January 1911, Page 99

Current Topics

More Spread-Eagleism Americans are the greatest nation on the face of the earth—and the best of it is they know that they are. The latest—and certainly not the least striking—illustration of this 'guid conceit o' themselves,' for which no American need ever pray, is to be found in the utterance of a Methodist bishop at the last November meeting of the Methodist ministers of New York. Several Methodist Episcopal bishops visited the meeting; and, according to the newspaper reports, one of them, with an arrogance bordering on blasphemy, asserted that Our Lord, not Thomas Jefferson, ' wrote the Declaration of Independence, because He wanted to make the experiment of creating the biggest, the best, and the grandest nation the world has ever seen.' After this it was only natural that he should go on to add We must make good Americans of the Foreign-born citizens, and making good Methodists is an economical way of accomplishing this.' It would be a pity even if it were possible disturb such complete self-complacency. These good people fill themselves up with wind, and then think they are great just because they happen to feel big. The Jews and Signor Nathan Out of evil has come forth goodand the ill-mannered and insulting reference to the Pope, made by the Mayor of Rome in his now notorious speech of September 20, has evoked protests from both Catholics and Jews, from places as far apart as Boston and Berlin. As opportunity offered, Catholic organisations everywhere have given expression to their sympathy with the Holy Father, and to their enthusiastic affection and loyalty towards the Holy See. And Mayor Nathan's own co-religionists have taken active steps to disassociate themselves from the Syndic's rude attack on religion and on the Catholic Church. The Chicago Israelite, in a lengthy and vigorous article on the subject, concluded bv declaring that 'it would be a very advisable step if the whole Jewish press should protest against the tactless utterance.' The protest desiderated by the Chicago paper has been made, with emphasis, bv thoroughly representative gatherings of Jews. Thus from a special correspondent of America we learn that in an assembly of Jews, held in Berlin, on October 6, a resolution was passed condemning in the strongest terms the speech of Rome's Jewish Mayor against the Holy Father. The resolution professed the loyalty of the assembly to Judaism, but recognised that all positive creeds had an equal right to develop and to practise their beliefs, and esteemed the sincere convictions of their adherents. At the same time it disclaimed any sympathy with the attempts of agitators, whether Jews or not, who, under the pretence of being scientific or progressive, take every opportunity in the press and on the platform to attack and besmirch the sacredness of religion. The correspondent adds : ' In the same vein, wrote Dr. Phil. Arthur Sachs, a Jew and a professor at the University of Breslau, to the Schlesische Volhzeitung, paying at the same time a high tribute to the tolerance of the Catholic clergy and laity, and to the magnificence of the works of Catholic charity, and the high grade of learning among Catholic priests and university professors.' By this time hardened and hide-bound though he is— Nathan is probably sorry he spoke. The Control of Children The important judgment given by Mr. Justice Williams last week, on a motion for writ of habeas corpus in respect of two infants, disposes the fact that in one respect at least the law regarding the control of children —in cases where the father and mother are living apartis in a distinctly unsatisfactory condition. From his Honor's clear and comprehensive summary of the law on the question it would appear that while, in respect to the custody of, or access to, the children, the mother has equal rights with the father, in regard to the very vital matter of religion the right of the father is paramount; and no . matter in what religion the children may have been baptised and, so far, brought up, the father —on separating from his wife—can absolutely insist on them being brought up in the particular faith which he professesand that, even if the children are actually in the custody of the Catholic mother. In the case in question the mother was a Catholic and the father a Presbyterian. The couple had been married at the Registry Office, but the children had — with the father's consent, according to the mother's testimony—been baptised in the Catholic Church. Some months after separation the mother recovered possession of the children boys, one six years old and the other four —

and the father now applied to the Supreme Court for an order compelling her to hand the children over to him. The judge refused the application, and ordered that the children remain under the care of the mother until the further order of the court. * With regard to the matter of religion, the judge laid down the law as we have expressed it above, and added that whether the law is to be considered good or bad it is at any rate certain. 'lt is beyond question/ said his Honor, ' that a father has the right to have his children brought up in the religion he professes, and that the Act of 1886 does not interfere with this right. Even when the father is dead the rule applies.' The judge accordingly ordered that the childrenalthough handed over to the custody of a Catholic mother —are to be brought up in the Presbyterian faith. It is a strange mix-up; and — with the best of intentions on the mother's part will hardly be matter for surprise if the boys turn out rather queer Presbyterians. Of course it can be said for the rule that it cuts both ways ; and Father Venning, in a paper recently published in our columns, mentioned a case in which it had worked out with the opposite result. A few months ago three little children were committed (in Wellington) to a Catholic home. The mother (Protestant) wished the children sent to Protestant homes, but the magistrate, on hearing that the father was a Catholic, committed the children to the Catholic institution. The subject has been under the consideration of the Society for the Protection of Women and Children, and in their last annual report (October, 1910) the following paragraph occurs: —'We would again urge an amendment of the laws respecting the guardianship of children, so that it may be impossible for a man, without good cause, to remove his children from their mother's care without her consent, nor to leave them at his death in the joint guardianship of a person to whom she objects; neither should it be possible for him to dictate in his will the religion in which they shall be brought up without reference to their mother's wishes.' While calling for amendment of the law, however, the society do not indicate what form they think the change should take. On the whole it would appear as if there would be less difficulty and less unfairness if a child were committed according to its'baptism rather than according to the religious belief of its father. If a father Catholic or Protestantis so go-as-you-please in religious matters as to let his child be baptised in a faith other than his own, he can hardly feel aggrieved if afterwards it is made compulsory that the child should be brought lip in that faith. The Lodge and the Republic The leaders of the recent revolution in Portugal no longer make the slightest pretence at concealing or disguising the Masonic origin of the movement; on the contrary, the brethren in the Provisional Government now make it matter of open boast. Seiior Bernardino Machado, Minister of ' Justice ' in the new Government, speaking in Lisbon on November 20, said, according to 0 Mundo, a Government organ: 'The triumphant revolution sprang from Freemasonry. It is impossible to forget the important part that Freemasonry played in it. We give a proof of our esteem for the Masonic Order by embracing in the name of the Government the Grand Master, Senor Magalhaes Lima.' * In the meantime it is interesting to note that in America a timely and vigorous protest has been made by Mr. William Michael Byrne, formerly United States District Attorney for Delaware, and more recently an Assistant United States Attorney in New York, against a hasty recognition of the new republic by the United States. Mr. Byrne is described as a staunch Republican, who believes implicitly in the principles of representative government. He maintains, however, that there is grave reason to doubt whether the people had anything to do with the inauguration of the new regime in Portugal, and until this point is cleared up to a certainty he has asked, in a telegram to President Taft, that any action in the direction of a recognition of the new Government be deferred. Mr. Byrne's eloquent and manly message to the President is in the following terms: 'The President, Washington, D.C. — Sir, —New York newspapers report resolutions of Republican Club here asking you to recognise the Republic of Portugal. What's the hurry ? Does the present regime obtain its power to govern from the consent of the governed ? Why not wait for a referendum of this question to the Portuguese people? Is it a reason for recognition that the cabal of doctrinaires now on top in Portugal stained their power in its birth by the blood of priests and Sisters? Are they safe guardians of liberty who make war on Sisters of Charity—a sisterhood that in our hour of civil anguish floated like angels over every American battlefield? I desire to see

self-government supreme the world over but it must be self-government of the American brand, built on the twin pillars of liberty and justice. Such self-government I hope to see extended to Ireland, to Egypt, to India. What the priests and Sisters of Portugal claim is what your ancestors, the Puritans, claimed —the right to worship God in the form of religion which they deemed it agreeable to adopt. The Puritans were persecuted, not because they worshipped God, but because that worship took a peculiar form. Rather than submit to an invasion of their right to follow their own form of worship, your ancestors endured exile and braved the dangers of an unknown land. For insisting on that same right of formal worship in the twentieth century, the Portuguese priests and Sisters are shot to death by the ruling cabal in Portugal. Other nations are pausing before recognition. Millions of American citizens confidently rely in this matter on that equipoise of character which has won for you the admiration of your countrymen. As a citizen, American born, and since my majority a member of the Republican Party, I protest against haste in so grave a matter.' Anti-Clericalism in the South Pacific The chief feature in : connection with the allegations against the Marist Fathers made recently by the French Commissioner of Wallis Islandand to which reference has been made in the Press Association messages appearing in New Zealand papersis the completeness of the way in which the charges have been refuted, and the thoroughgoing discomfiture and exposure of this South Seas representative of French anti-clericalism. Wallis Island, which is about 15 miles long and 7 miles wide, is to the northeast of the Fiji group, and its population of 5000 is entirely Catholic. The charges made by Dr. V. Brochard, the Commissioner, were embodied in a sensational statement made to the Sydney Morning Herald to the effect that the Marist Fathers, who have been in charge of the mission for the past 60 odd years, were to be expelled. He stated that the natives were revolting against the priests that a little while ago Josepha, the native king, ordered them to leave the island, the natives having held a meeting, and decided on their expulsion. 'But,' said Dr. Brochard, 'the priests took no notice. They imported a lot of rifles and ammunition, and distributed them among the natives who. were friendly to them, and then called a meeting of all the natives, and ordered them to elect a new king. "Pateta shall be a king," they said, and Pateta was king. There was no trouble about it. They were all like children, and obeyed. I told the old king not to do anything, but to remain quiet, and France would look after him by-and-bye.' * Dr. Brochard, after telling the interviewer that France, perhaps, might send a warship to see that the priests left, and remarking that in Wallis things would be as they are in France, continued his charges. . ' The natives,' he said, ' have been losing a lot of money this year by working for the priests instead of looking after the copra. They had to build a great stone cathedral for the priests, in addition to the other four churches on the island, and they have just finished building a big house for the priests to live in. It is all made of stone, and the natives had to get the stone from the sea —from the coral reef from the spot where the house was put up, and carry it on their backs. There were 400 or 500 of the natives carrying the stone and building the house. They worked hard at it every day for four months. Two villages were engaged at it, and four villages were kept busy taking food to the native workmen. They got no pay at all for it, and I told them they were very foolish. I said, "Why do you work for the priests for nothing? I don't mind you working for them, but why don't you' make them pay you tor it? Here you are, doing all this work, and neglecting your copra." They're beginning to get very angry with the priests now.' Here, then, are the three charges, arranged in order of time:—(l) That the priests have treated the natives as slaves, forcing them to work for nothing and to carry building stone on their backs for a distance of fifteen miles; (2) that the priests imported and distributed rifles and ammunition among the natives; and (3) that for island enormities the priests are to be expelled from the island. Bishop Olier's reply to these charges-which appeared in the Herald the very morning after their publicationis crushing in its directness, simplicity, and completeness. Bishop Olier who is Vicar Apostolic of Central Oceanica and head of the Marist Missions in the South Seas recently spent four months on Wallis and Fntuna Islands and had come direct from those islands to Sydney a few weeks ago He was therefore in a position to speak from personal first-hand knowledge of the subject. (1) With regard to the first charge, about forcing the natives to

work for nothing, etc., Bishop Olier says: 'The statement that they had to build a big cathedral is false. The natives themselves asked to be allowed to enlarge one of the churches because it was too small for the population. It was done entirely at their own wish, and the old king himself worked with the rest in enlarging the church. In the Islands, as here in Sydney, the churches are not for the priests, but for the people. Here the people give money when they want a church to be built or enlarged; there, instead of paying money, they give their labor. Then as to the statement that the natives were called upon to build a big house for the priests— is also false. It was not a house for the priests, but a college for the people —a college for native students, who receive a good education, and become in some cases assistants to the priests. Some of them even learn Latin and Greek. The natives work very willingly in building such placessome of them working, and others bringing the food to them. And there was no walking fifteen miles for the stone, —only about a quarter of a mile, though some of them might have gone further to get coral for the purpose of making lime.' * (2) Similarly the story of the importation of guns and ammunition is explained, and is shown —so far as its reference to the priests is concerned— be a pure fabrication. ' It is not true,', says Bishop Olier, . 'to say that the priests ever had anything to do with bringing rifles to the islands. It is no part of a missionary's work to import arms and ammunition. A lot of rifles were brought to the island by the French authoritiesabout 400 of —and distributed among the natives for purposes of drill. There was no ammunition, and it was only intended that they should be used for parades on special occasions with drums and bugles. Of course, there are lots of shot-guns on the island, belonging to the natives themselves. There is nothing to prevent them from importing all the guns and ammunition they require. There is a gun in nearly every family, but it is a falsehood to say that the missionaries are at the back of it. Our desire has always been for peace among the natives.'

(3) Finally, with regard to the, alleged expulsion of Father Bazin and the other missionaries, Bishop Olier is able to show that so far from there being any intention of sending a French warship to Wallis to expel the priests, it is Dr. Brochard himself who has been recalled as a direct result of a petition from the native king, Pateta, and his Ministers, to the French authorities at Noumea, where the Bishop has forwarded all documents in connection with the case. It would take up too much of our spacenor is it at all necessary— enter into the details of the intrigues of the unscrupulous Commissioner against the priests and of the way in which Father Bazin flatly defied him, and in the end forced him to apologise. It will suffice to quote the final outcome of the investigation regarding the whole matter made by the Governor of New Caledonia—of which colony Wallis Island is a dependency. 'The Governor of New Caledonia,' says Bishop Olier, 'came down on the Kersaintto investigate the trouble, and he had interviews with the missionaries as well as the Resident. At his first interview with Father Bazin, who explained all the circumstances to him, he told the Superior that he had his sympathy, and that he was to consider the decree of expulsion annulled, stating that not even the Governor himself had power to expel any French mission without reference to France. Afterwards they had a meeting— Governor, the Resident, and the priests. The missionaries placed their side of the case before the Governor—and some of their accusations against the Resident were very serious—and they rebutted the calumnies against them. The Governor rebuked the Commissioner, and asked that he should apologise to. Father Bazin. The proposal for the expulsion of Father Bazin did not emanate from the natives. When the decree was handed to the Superior he went away to some of the villages and discussed the matter . with the natives; and when they were told that the king had signed the decree they became so angry that they marched in a body to the king's house and deposed him, and then elected a new king which election was afterwards ratified by the Governor of New Caledonia. « Evidently the rapidity and vigor of Bishop Olier's reply completely knocked the wind out of the swaggering Commissioner. When asked by a Herald reporter whether he had any rejoinder to make to Bishop Olier's statement, he could only whine: 'My official position prevents my making x an extended reply to the Bishop.' Obviously if his ' official / position ' prevented him from giving an extended reply, it should have prevented him from making the extended charges in the first instance. The net result of the whole business is to place the name and fame of the Marists on a higher plane than ever, and to give their sixty-three years' splendid work in the Island a much-appreciated advertisement.