BIBLE IN SCHOOLS

New Zealand Tablet, 26 November 1914, Page 15

BIBLE IN SCHOOLS

EVIDENCE BEFORE THE EDUCATION COMMITTEE. CROSS-EXAMINATION OF BISHOP CLEARY.

(Continued.) The following is a, verbatim and official report of the evidence given before the Education Committee by Bishop Cleary under cross-examination by Canon Garland and others.

Canon Garland; May I ask the Bishop where the words ‘ Nelson system ’ occur as suggested, by interpolation ? .

If you come here I will show it to you. (Witness pointed to the words ‘ The Nelson system as a solution has been held up to scorn by Dr. Cleary.’) May I point out that it has not been interpolated as a quotation from the Bishop’s statement? It has been placed there as a heading. The writer having stated his premises now seeks to prove them by his Lordship’s words. He does not interpolate the words The Nelson system’ into the Bishop’s mouth? He declares that I myself made the statement in regard to the Nelson system, and then gives a statement which purports to be a statement in regard to the Nelson system, but in which the Nelson system is not even hinted at. That is a true case of interpolation. There are various ways of interpolating a statement: one is at the head or introduction of a quotation, another in the body, and another at the close of the quotation, and there is not one whit of difference in moral wickedness between the three. I wish to point out one thing more which makes this a more apparently deliberate and a more apparently reprehensible action. It is in the same pamphlet of mine from which he quoted, p. 167. Here is what I say:—‘ln all cases in which the teachers decline to impart Biblical instruction, etc. (as above), arrangements could, no doubt, be made for the same by volunteer or paid helpers at far less cost than Catholics would be willing to pay for the religious education of their children.’ Here you have my assertion of the right of entry, not alone before formal school hours or after formal, school hours, but during formal school hours, and he makes it appear that I am against the right of entry and. scorn the right of entry even before formal school hours. Now, there is one further remark I have to make. This is only one point of misrepresentation which I have brought up in connection with the League’s propaganda, and it is a flagrant case; but it is nothing compared with the points I wish to bring out when I get Canon Garland under crossexamination. I have said in my statement: —‘ We have already had ample premonition of this in the following constant and lamentable features of the League campaign : its vehement denunciations of honorable and God-loving men and women who have dared to differ with it: its persistent misrepresentation of the beliefs, aims, words, and acts of opponents; its bitter and unwarranted personal attacks : and its never-ending appeal to those deplorable oh sectarian animosity which have made New South Wales a warning example to the whole of Australasia. These are strong statements. I am prepared to prove them in detail, and I invite, thereon, the freest cross-examination by those who are most interested in testing the truth or otherwise of my assertions.’ When I get Canon Garland under crossexamination you and your Committee will get a vastly better insight into the methods—the lamentable methods—by which this League campaign is being carried on by Canon Garland, and then the Committee will be in a position to see who have been lacking in straightforwardness in their propaganda. Professor Hunter: You say you are prepared to attempt to settle this question by means of a conference. Am I right in thinking that representatives of those ■who uphold the present system would be invited to attend any such conference ?

I have said in my principal evidence, Mr. Chairman, that we are prepared to attend a conference with only one proviso—namely, the recognition of the proper equal rights of all before the law. That is to say, that all interests should be represented. 1 have stated here in my principal evidence, furthermore, that, although we ourselves arc entirely opposed to any other system for our children, we recognise the position of other faiths who believe in the system being entirely secular and who rely upon the Church and the home doing the work of religious instruction. That is in the early part of my evidence. I have always taken it for granted that all conflicting interests would be represented in our proposed round-table conference, including those who represent the State Schools Defence League, and so long as the principle of proper equality of rights’of Catholics and other peojde are recognised, we Catholics would joyfully meet in conference and assent even to a temporary or partial solution of the question if it did not affect the religious rights or consciences of others. et we are represented by Canon Garland as being an anti-Bible party, an atheistic party, and so on. .We Catholics are the only.real Bible-in-schools party, and we are prepared to help the so-called Bible-in-schools party to get the Bible into the schools—on conditions that will be fair to all users and supporters of the schools.

Canon Garland: I am anxious to ask a question which will allow me to draw attention to the fact that there is nothing in the article by the Rev. Robert Wood referring to the evidence of this Committee. Mr. McCallum : I say there is. Read the statement. It is a deliberate attempt to influence this Committee.

Canon Garland : Here is the only statement referring to the Committee: ‘This championing of secularism on the part of the Roman Prelates ought to be considered very carefully by the Parliamentary Committee at present sitting to hear evidence for and against the Referendum on Bible in schools. It is the duty of that Committee and the duty of every member of Parliament to have an intelligent knowledge of what the Roman prelates have said in the past about our secular system of education, and if they do so they will have no difficulty in coming to the conclusion that there is a lack of straightforwardness in the propaganda of the Roman Bishops, Father Roche, etc., at the present time.’ The extracts are not from evidence before this Committee at all, but are extracts from documents published outside this Committee and prior to its sitting. Bishop Cleary : May I point this out in answer to what the Canon says; The four points mentioned in this League document on which we are accused of a lack of straightforwardness are points on which I have given evidence before tjiis Committee. Moreover, this evidence is traversed by referring back to alleged previous statements of mine on these very same subjects. Yet again : the purpose of doing this is openly declared —namely, to influence the deliberations of this Committee, and to show that in the evidence which I have givei'i before the Committee (representing not alone myself, but the other Bishops and the Catholic body in New Zealand), both they and I have been guilty of double-mindedness, and lack of straightforwardness. That is where this documentaccepted now as a League documenttouches the deliberations of this Committee on a matter which has been brought before the Committee, on evidence which I have laid before the Committee in my principal statement.

Mr. McCallum: This is all matter for crossexamination. It is cleverly put in there to discount Bishop Cleary’s evidence before the matter came before us. That is all good cross-examination, every bit of it. It is most improper that it should be there, but it is proper for you to bring it up and confront Bishop Cleary'with it. Bishop Cleary: May I point out that I and my fellow Bishops are accused of playing a double part and not being straightforward with your Committee ? I am prepared now to stand any amount of cross-examination by Canon Garland or by other members of the League

in legard to our past and present declarations upon this subject, and to give hint the fullest opportunity oij testing whether we are straightforward in. this matter 01 whether we are not; and when the proper .time .comes 1 will compare our fixity of purpose and our fidelity to piinciples with the contradictions and the shifting of positions which have marked the League : and * the -League s propaganda as long as I myself have been acquainted with the League’s methods—from 1893 onwards. ■■ - ... '■''“'V-

Canon Garland: I regret if we have been guilty of a breach of privilege, because we would not deliberately do that. 1 am quite sure that when that was inserted we did not know-that we were doing anything improperfor a- moment. . - . 1

Mr. McCallum: We do not suggest that -for a moment. •

Canon Garland: The only point I wish to make is, that we did not comment there on the evidence given. It was on other statements that were made orior to this. As a matter of fact that article was actually written by Mr. Wood a week or more before this Committee sat. I should now like to ask Bishop Cleary a question arising out of a question which lie has already answered. The Bishop said, if I understood him rightly, that the Roman Catholic ■ Church is the only body which has spent money on Bibligal instruction ? My studied statement on the matter. is that the Catholic Church is the only body which has made continuous and steadily increasing sacrifices for the instruction of children in religion in .primary schools. / • Does Bishop Cleary think that all the Sunday schools of all the other Churches represent no sacrifice of money or labor or energyl refer to the buildings and teachers and the material ?

I recognise The work which. is being done by the Sunday schools. . Apart from , ( this question and apart from my evidence I now recognise, and. have recognised in the past, the work done in the Sunday schools by the people of other faiths, as well as by our own. My answer referred exclusively to what is being done in the primary schools.. I did not refer to Sunday school work at all.

I am anxious to draw attention to the fact that ip is not the Roman Catholic Church alone which cares for the religious welfare of the children, but the other Churches care in their own, fashion—that is, in Sunday schools* the only opportunity that is available to them, they spend tends of thousands of . pounds and an enormous amount of energy. 'I was dealing exclusively with this question of what work is being’done in the primary schools. The campaign that is going on at present, in regard to which you are seeking evidence here, is not a campaign in regard to Sunday schools; it is a campaign in rpgard to primary schools; and I think that in regard to these there has been, apart from the work of a small body of men, gross neglect by the great body of Bible-in-schools clergy. To prove that I have shown their great neglect of the opportunities which they have under the present Act, and I have quoted a Parliamentary return of November 2, 1903, pages 8 and 9. Another thing I. have proved is this, that the clergy’s work in New South Wales under the religious system has simply gone to pieces; that the schools, so; far as the clergy are concerned, might almost be pagan schools—or, as one man said, they are resulting in materialism. May I. ask if his Lordship regards the’ Roman Catholic schools, which are under Roman Catholic control, as part of the State‘school system of this Dominion ?

That question involves a distinction, and the distinction is so obvious a one that I think it might easily have occurred to Canon Garland. It is a public school system in one sense—that we are doing work on the very same lines as the public schools, following the public school programme in every detail and Subject to public inspection. In that respect we are doing a public work and ,our?schools are public schools.; But officially they are : not. : classified as- public schools. . That is ' the distinction; ‘ ’■

• ' What I want to get at is, the fact that the other Chinches outside the Lorn an Catholic Church do spend money for the religious instruction of their children, but they do not spend it by opening schools in opposition to the public school system of the Dominion. May I ask the Bishop another .question ? He spoke of the Roman' Catholic teachers in Australia as violating the pi inciples of their faith by handling these Bible lessons. May 1 ask the Bishop if he has any' evidence that his own Bishops in Australia have ordered the State school teachers who are Roman Catholics not to continue violating their faith 11 do not exactly. know what position the ’League Organiser is taking up in connection with this question. I do not know in the first place whether he is questioning my statement that these so-called unsectarian Bible lessons are opposed to. Catholic principles. * No; I accept that. , Now the question he puts is—Why do Catholics go into the schools in New South Wales?

I want Bishop Cleary’s explanation of the fact that the Roman Catholic teachers do give these lessons, notwithstanding the fact that it is against the principles of their Church?

I have the answer, to that question in this statement that I brought this morning.. It sets out the whole thing clearly, and distinguishes those who-knew our principles and those who do not those who know our principles and carry them out; those who know our principles and defy them—defy them because they are being practically bribed by public funds into, infidelity or disloyalty to their faith. In my statement 1 say this: ‘ Catholics ignorant of Catholic principles and Catholic ecclesiastical discipline on .these subjects may, no doubt, join the teaching profession in New South Wales, Queensland, etc., in good faith. They may also conduct such miscalled ‘ unsectarian ’ Scripture lessons in good faith, being unaware that they are doing what no Catholic, instructed hereon, and loyal to Catholic faith and conscience would dream of doing. A like remark applies to Catholics generally, who enter the teaching profession in New South Wales or Queensland as some frogs exjter wells or as some people enter matrimony, without sufficient thought or consideration of what the plunge may involve. Catholics well instructed on the matters mentioned above could not, in conscience,. conduct the so-called unsectarian general- religious instruction referred to.’ Then I say further over—' The Catholic teacher who teaches it— unsectarian instruction— for the time false to- Catholic principles, Catholic conscience, and Catholic ecclesiastical discipline. Owing to the substance or effect of past and present regulations, or to the well-known views of high-placed administrative officials, it is at present no easy matter to secure for publication expressions of opinion from Catholics, or other objecting teachers at present in the employment of various Government Bibleextracts States of Australia. So far as Catholic teachers are concerned, this is, however, not at all necessary, seeing that the Catholic position in regard to “unsectarian,” “common,” “un-dogmatic” or “ixn-deno-minational” “general religious instruction”, is so clear and emphatic. Outside and beyond this, there arc, however, sufficient indications of the discontent of conscience with which the system is viewed by Catholic teachers with some knowledge of, and regard for, the laws and principles of their Church thkt bear upon the sectarian “unsectarianism” and dogmatic “un-dogma-tism” of the State religion. No educationist in Australia has probably so intimate a knowledge of the Catholic teachers’ hearts of New South Wales ‘as Bishop Gallagher of Goulburn, who is in constant touch with them. In a letter to me he declares that the Catholic teachers in Ifis Avide jurisdiction, positively “hate the lessons” from those sectarian. ; mutilations of the Scriptures which, dbvised by Carlyle and Whately for the avowed , purpose of proselytising Irish Catholics, had to be ban- ‘ ished from the national schools of that land. The- position of such Catholic teachers is somewhat like the position of the League clergy. These clergy denounce the secular; system as “pagan,” “barbarous,”

‘Godless/' - “dogmatically secular," and “degrading to morals/' yet for nearly forty years they have serenely sent their children to be brought up in the “paganism/' ‘‘barbarism," _ “dogmatic secularism," and “moral degradation" of that system (see Catholic Federation series ’of publications’ No. 4, pp. 2-3).’ Official testimony, quoted in' my principal evidence, goes to show that some years-ago the teachers’ “general , religious instruction" was deprived of any useful religious character in 50 per cent, of the schools. * The testimony of Rev. G. A. Chambers, M.A. (Warden of Trinity Grammar School, Sydney) shows that, at the present time, this “general religious instruction" is, to a very considerable extent," practically abandoned or rendered useless (Sydney Daily {Telegraph, July 20, 1914). And Archdeacon Irvine declared, in a deputation to the Minister of Education on religion in the schools, that “the members of the Committee saw the danger of the country becoming, to a large extent, materialistic " (Sydney Morning Herald, May 6, 1914). Other evidence could easily be adduced to a like purport and effect. Information received by me shows what follows (a) that, as stated, a certain number of Catholic teachers conduct the State Biblical extract lessons in good faith, through being uninstructed or ill-instructed in the Catholic laws and*principles bewaring upon the matter (b) that others shirk the lessons as far as they dare, or make them as Catholic as they dare, or as perfunctory as they can, or turn then into “silent" lessons.’

(To be continued.)