BISHOP CLEARY AND THE ‘OUTLOOK’

New Zealand Tablet, 6 March 1913, Page 15

BISHOP CLEARY AND THE ‘OUTLOOK ’

The following letter from his Lordship Bishop Ueary appeared in the Outlook of February 25: Sir,—l thank you for the sentiments of ' greatest respect' and ' highest admiration ' which you have been good enough to express editorially towards me in your issue of February 4 received by me (remailed) this day (February 14). You have, however, inadvertently fallen into the following important errors: , • 1 i You state that Bishop Clear y 'has constituted himself the champion of the Roman Catholic Church in this matter of the Bible in.schools.' I really have no more constituted myself ' the champion of the Roman Catholic Church' in this matter than does that staunch Presbyterian, Mr. John Caughley, M.A who has presented 'the Roman Catholic difficulty' much more ably than I. Moreover, it would be an arrogant and unpardonable breach of ecclesiastical custom and etiquette for me to sail under false colors by 'constituting myself' the champion of the Roman Catholic Church in this matter of Bible in schools.' I have throughout, written and spoken of the Bible-in-schools proposals merely as a much-interested citizen and taxpayer, as an individual replying to attack and misrepresentation, and (in the case of one pastoral letter) as the spiritual head of one small section of ' the Roman Catholic Church ' in New Zealand, representing about one-fourth of its numerical strength. .i.^'J^-, say: We have no hesitation in declaring that, did the Churches supporting the Bible-in-State Schools League agree to help Bishop Cleary in securing the coveted subsidy, the Roman Catholic opposition to the Bible-m-schools movement would immediately vanish.' So far as I am personally concerned, I emphatically declare that no amount of subsidy for Catholic schools would reconcile me to several important planks in the League's platform. I will here mention only three of these, (a) Subsidy or no subsidy, I would protest, even with my dying breath, against the wrong which the League proposes to inflict upon the vast body of conscientiously-objecting teachers— Catholics among them to violate specific and oft-stated principles and laws of their Church, and facing all such objectors with the following alternatives:—Proselytism to League views, hypocrisy, or dismissal, (b) No possible subsidy to Catholic schools would ever reconcile me to the League's conscience clause, which was devised in Ireland for the purpose of ' weaning the Irish from the abuses of Popery.' The League's own literature sufficiently shows how this wretched conscience clause has been operating against dissidents in Australia; and the organising secretary of the League declared, before .the Presbyterian Assembly, that 32,000 Roman Catholic_ children, with hardly any exception, read the Scripture lessons in the schools' of New South Wales in other words, that they have been successfully proselytised into violation of the faith and discipline of the Church of their Baptism, (c) No possible subsidy to Catholic schools would reconcile me to the principle of deciding vexed questions of religion and conscience by a count of voters' heads. 3. You gravely misrepresent 'the Roman Catholic Church' when you say that it ' is striving to exclude from the public schools' lessons based on the Bible. Such an attitude is contradicted by the official pronouncement of the Catholic Hierarchy of New Zealand (1904). The thing objected to by Catholics is, not the Bible or Bible lessons in the public schools, but the several unjust and oppressive conditions (oft-stated) under which it is now proposed to introduce such lessons into the public schools. Let the league abandon these, and the more Bible they can teach to their children in the schools the better pleased Catholics will be. May I remind you once more that—three months after the repeated publication of its official contradiction— league is still circulating the grossly untrue and unfair statement that Tasmanian Catholics accept the Bible-in-schools system ' as a happy solution of the religious difficulty ' ? Seven times in the public press, and several times on the public platform, I have done justice to the league in the matter of the real authorship

/of that foolishly-fabricated assertion as to the attitude of the Catholics of Tasmania. The official character of the fabrication makes it all the more misleading and unjust. In regard to its continued circulation, I shall watch to see if your editorial artillery will thunder as loudly as it did when directed against me on January 21.—1 am, etc., • * Henry W. Cleary, D.D., Bishop of Auckland.