THE BIBLE-IN-SCHOOLS QUESTION

New Zealand Tablet, 22 May 1913, Page 51

THE BIBLE-IN-SCHOOLS QUESTION

The following letter has been sent by his Lordship Bishop Cleary to the Executive of the Bible-in-Schools League:

‘ I am under the painful necessity of once more drawing your attention to the official League leaflet. Methods of Opposition. This, is a further reference to the statement concocted by a writer of that leaflet, and falsely attributed to namely, that (among other things mentioned below) , I accused the League of aiming at “ prohibiting the Roman Catholic religion.” As shown in my previous communication on the subject (to which I beg to refer you) seven separate sets of official New South Wales statistics were falsified in order to hold me up to public scorn, as (in the matter of this alleged “accusation”) a prevaricator. In two 'private letters the League’s organising secretary stated that he has “ corrected ” the false assertions referred to above. He has done no such thing. It is true that, over the figure column, he has substituted the words “ children enrolled for the falsified words children instructed” (by “Roman Catholic priests”). But (1) this “correction” has been done in small , thin type ; (2) no attention has been directed to the alteration; (3) in the very next paragraph the original statistical statement has been cunningly left unaltered, in the same heavy black type as before. Thus (a) we have the old statement that the Roman Catholic Church in New South Wales has the “valued” opportunity of “ visiting and instructing annually over 31,000 “Roman Catholic, children” in the public schools; (b) it is plainly suggested that this opportunity, being “ valued,” is therefore actually utilised (as was positively stated before) for thus “visiting and instructing ” those 31,000 odd children ; (c) this is also implied in the following heavy-type lines. (4). Another previous statistical falsification is also cunningly suggested. (5) The alleged “correction” repeats these two former false allegations: (a) that Bishop Cleary treats “as a revival of the penal code the legal opportunities of visiting and instructing” “Roman Catholic children” (as above); and (b) that Bishop Cleary accuses the League of aiming at ‘ ‘ prohibiting the Roman Catholic religion.” (For the facts of this matter I refer you to my communication of April 19.) (6) In an obscure and misleading paragraph in the Dominion , the organising secretary describes as “ accidental ” the alteration of vital Words in seven separate statistical tables, and the building up, on this falsification of an elaborate argument to place an honorable opponent in an odious and disreputable light before the public of New Zealand. It would have been far less dishonorable to have left those amazing misrepresentations as they were. In a long experience of the more odious side of anti-Catholic controversy, I have never met with anything more utterly deplorable. ‘ I have gathered from the letter of an esteemed member of your Executive that this lamentable business is now being dealt with by your Executive. Trusting to the Executive’s honor and to their sense of the

enormity of such misrepresentations, for such a purpose, I have withdrawn, for the time being, the “copy” of a counter-leaflet, of which 30,000 copies were to have been distributed in Auckland during the organising secretary’s present visit, and a vast number throughout New Zealand by the various branches of the Catholic Federation. The matter obviously cannot rest where it is, especially as it is only an incident—though a very ugly onein a long series of hundreds of more or less grave and repeated misrepresentations. ‘ I enclose an oft-published letter dealing with misrepresentations of the late Cardinal Moran that also appear in the League leaflet Methods of Opposition. Since that letter was written, I have received a long .communication (open to your inspection) from the secretary and intimate friend of the late Cardinal, giving facts and quotations which put the Cardinal’s views on the subject in an even stronger light. £ Copies of the present communication have been mailed, registered, to the organising secretary at his ascertained Auckland address. Registered copies of

all my < previous > letters • to; the Executive ■ were : mailed to him to his Wellington address. v ' I remain, faithfully yours, ■'. '* Henry. W. Cleary, -.'■' Bishop of Auckland. ' ' 1 P.S.—Note well the allegedly "corrected " leaflet contains no retraction of the misrepresentations complained of. It does not even so much as hint that there has been any misrepresentation.