BISHOP CLEARY ON BIBLE-IN-SCHOOLS

New Zealand Tablet, 17 April 1913, Page 23

BISHOP CLEARY ON BIBLE-IN-SCHOOLS

A FURTHER CHALLENGE. The following letter, with further challenges from his Lordship Bishop Cleary, appeared last week in the N.Z. Herald. The final paragraph is in further reply to the allegation that Catholics are out for subsidies, this being merely for the obvious purpose of creating a prejudice— if the specific question of moral or immoral conduct hung by the Catholic demand for subsidies. His Lordship writes: .' Sir, —The burden of justifying its scheme falls upon the League. It is admitted that there is "a strong theoretic objection " to it. The objections really relate to practical moral conduct. The League dares not face them. Let two local examples suffice. (1) As shown in my letter of March 12, not a scrap of "proof" has been advanced in support of the sectarian doctrine that it is the practical "moral right" and "duty" of the Government to teach —much less a sectarian view of religion at the expense of conscientious objectors. My position stands unchallenged and unassailable. No such doctrine is taught in the Bible. No Christian Church I know of teaches it. The Presbyterian Confession of Faith denies to the Government "the administration of the Word." There has been literally "no proof." (I did not, as misquoted, here say "no reply.") (2) How is it "morally right" for the New Zealand Government to compel the vast body of publicly objecting teachers to impart a form of "religious instruction" which their conscience forbids? It is obviously no "reply"—and no "proof" of such "moral right"—to assert that all teachers conscientiously acquiesce in such compulsion in parts of Australia 1 This last assertion is demonstrated fiction. And when did tyranny in one country make tyranny "morally right" in another? 'Such persistent evasions are easy in newspaper correspondence and in "replies to Bishop Cleary" from the safe cover of "private meetings" and gatherings of "friends" and "sympathisers." They would be promptly exposed in the two public "question nights" to which I again invite the League's picked representatives— night for them to answer my relevant questions, the other for my answers to questions by the League and all comers. Well organised "question nights" are of great practical value in missionary work and in debating and mutual improvement club?. All my lecture nights have also been public "question nights." Question and answer were invariably conducted with faultless courtesy, and proved intensely interesting and illuminating to Protestant-majority audiences, who readily grasped this subject. We have everything to gain by open discussion. The League has everything to lose. It dares not thus face the public. Its representatives would have either to refuse replies to fair, relevant questions or to make most damaging admissions in regard to the League's , sundry antiChristian principles and its proposed active proselytism and persecution of conscience. No Leaguer could defend the League's pamphlet and other misrepresentations, including the alteration of a New South Wales Government return, for controversial purposes, by striking out one set of words and substituting another set ("Methods of Opposition," pp. 2-3). ' Gifted League electioneers wisely decline the perils of public questioning. I will furnish my list of past questions and demands; will they "discover" their invisible "proofs" and "replies" thereto, and submit them to arbitrators expert in evidence, selected in the customary way, the verdict to be published ? ' The question of a subsidy to Catholic schools is not in issue here. (1) We never follow the League's

example by demanding State teaching of our view of religion at State cost; nor would we tolerate it. (2) We have not asked for a penny from non-Catholic taxpayers for our schools. (3) We demand only a fair proportion of our own paid taxes for State-certified secular results. Herein, we ask for less than is done for denominational schools in New Zealand's Cook Islands; for less than is done for the Salvation Army's Homes on Rotoroa and Pakatoa; and for the Anglican Girls' Friendly Society ; for less than is demanded by the Young Women's Christian Association. (4) We would gladly agree to any reasonable scheme of Biblical instruction in the public schools —with equal treatment and freedom of consciencequite apart from subsidies to our schools. ' * Henry W. Cleary, ' Bishop of Auckland. ' April 5. ' P.S.— Now South Wales Minister of Education informs me there is no foundation for the story aoout the over-proportion of Catholic teachers there.'