The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, JANUARY 25, 1912. RELIGION AND POLITICS: A CHRISTCHURCH CONTROVERSY

New Zealand Tablet, 25 January 1912, Page 29

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, JANUARY 25, 1912. RELIGION AND POLITICS : A CHRISTCHURCH CONTROVERSY

""■■■- 11 " " %l - ** . ■—■ l ' —- IST tNfr HERE were two main questions at issue in tW 1 J)\U the controversy just ■ concluded between j L'ri' the Rev. Father Coffey and the. editor of w the Christchurch Press question of fact and a question of principle. The question of fact was clear and simple, and one which y r admitted of definite and final settlement. g** It was whether or not—as the Press had stated on the authority of a reliable correspondent in Dunedin every Roman Catholic in Mr. Millar’s constituency (Dunedin West) was, seen on : his behalf two days before the election.’ The context clearly showed that the Press meant to suggest that it was the priests who had ‘ seen ’ the Catholic electors in Mr. Millar’s interest. The Rev. Father Coffey, as Administrator of . the Dunedin parish, promptly and emphatically denied r the allegation, and challenged the Press to produce its proof, offering £lO to either the editor or his '•* reliable correspondent ’- if -between them they could prove that a single elector, in Dunedin West had been ‘ seen ’ or spoken to or in any way influenced by a priest in connection with the election. .The Press

editor wobbled in respect to his allegations regarding the priests, and hazarded the conjecture it was nothing but conjecture from start to finish—that ‘ doubtless the work (of canvassing for Mr. Millar) was done by lay representatives of the Roman Catholic Church.’ * Pressed harder and harder, however, by Father Coffey in each succeeding letter, and pinned down to either prove or withdraw the offensive statement, the editor of the Press in the end capitulated. He accepted Father Coffey’s denial 1 without; the slightest qualification or reserve,’ and admitted that the statement of his obviously prejudiced and imaginative correspondent ‘ was based on a misapprehension and was not correct.’ Father Coffey’s victory was decisive and complete. * The question of principle involved was not made specially prominent in the controversy, but it was there all the same. Back of all the Press’s criticism lay the notion, clearly implied if not expressed, that clergymen have no right to take part in political matters, and Father Coffey was careful from the first to repudiate any such idea and to assert and claim for the clergy their full right, as citizens, to use their influence when and where they might think it necessary. We are not discussing the question of expediency must be determined by the individual or his Church authorities—-but that of right and so far as the citizen right is concerned, the claim advanced by Father Coffey is incontestable. There are many public questions—such as education, temperance, divorce, etc.that have their religious as well as their political side. On such it is not only the right, but oftentimes the duty of churchmen, in the highest public interest, not merely to speak, but even, on occasion, to take an active and aggressive part. For are they not placed as watchers on the towers of Israel ? And even in mere everyday politics, the clergy of various creeds have the same right as other citizens to follow the bent of their personal choice. The position was admirably and tersely expressed by Archbishop Blenk, of New Orleans, a few months ago in a sort of ‘test’ case that was submitted to him. ‘I have to announce,’ said his Grace, ‘ that " the affair presented and discussed by you does not come within my jurisdiction as Archbishop of New Orleans. The priests of my diocese are under my authority only in matters of religion and of church discipline. They are and remain free men and American citizens, entitled to exercise, independent ,of me, all civil and political rights.’ The claim is clearly recognised, also, by the statute law of the Dominion. Aliens, persons under twenty-one years of age, persons of unsound - mind, and criminals, are the only classes debarred by law from' the political life of the country, and as Father Coffey bluntly remarked : ‘ Clergymen as a rule are neither infants, imbeciles, lunatics, or jail-birds, that they should be deprived of the right granted to every ordinary citizen.’ * , An interesting incidental feature of the'controversy was Father Coffey’s refusal to allow himself to be bluffed or brow-beaten into withdrawing his strictures on the Press for its ‘ uncalled-for attack on the Catholic Bishop of Christchurch.’ In order to ‘save his face’ and cover his retreatif we may be allowed to mix our metaphors Press editor professed to ‘ have a grievance against the reverend Father;’ and, giving ‘an absolute denial ’' to the statement that it had made ‘an attack ’ on the Bishop of Christchurch, called upon Father Coffey - to either prove the charge or to withdraw it. Doubtless to the editor’s -surprise, and certainly to his discomfiture, Father Coffey accepted the former alternative. There is no doubt that in referring to Bishop Grimes as one ‘ who, by reason of his learning, his culture, his urbanity, is a distinguished figure in the great Church to which he belongs, and adorns the community in which he lives,’ the editor of the Press was expressing both his own personal sentiments and those of the public of Christchurch generally. At the same time when the Press makes a general charge against the Catholic Church of bringing ‘.ecclesiastical pressure ’ to bear on electors to induce them to cast their votes on religious grounds, and when it makes a

particular application of the charge by referring to ‘ the remarkable spectacle of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Christchurch on the Sunday before the second ballots delivering addresses to his congregations in which he compared the Prime Minister to Aristides the Just,’ and alludes Jo his ‘ impassioned appeals,’ it cannot be questioned that such action may be justly and fairly described as an 1 attack.’ This view of the matter Father Coffey, in his fourth letter, pressed home in .a way, which, if it was not conspicuous .for the suaviter in modo, was certainly not lacking in the fortiter in re. * By this time the Press editor had had enough; and, instead of attempting to answer Father Coffey’s contentions, he threw up the sponge in the following feeble footnote: ‘We regret to find the Rev, Father Coffey straining and twisting our remarks in regard to Bishop Grimes in such an obviously unfair and unjustifiable manner. However, we are quite content to leave the whole matter to the judgment of our readers.’ Father Coffey may very safely do the same, assured that the verdict of the great body, of unbiassed readers will be that the honors rest with him on all points in the controversy.