CORRESPONDENCE

New Zealand Tablet, 10 December 1914, Page 19

CORRESPONDENCE

[We do not hold ourselves responsible for opinions expressed by our correspondents.

To the Editor.

Sir, —Please allow me to thank Miss Mary C. Callan for her courageous attempt in your current issue to hold the position she took up in her paper on ‘ The Religion of Robert Browning/ and for the generosity she displays in striving to exonerate the members of the Auckland Newman Club from any necessary share in her views on the subject under discussion. I an* not anxious at present to contest a triangular duel, so I am content to leave the club as a whole with the references made to it in my previous letter. Miss Callan, however, forces '.me to thank her, and to do a little, more. Although it may appear somewhat cynical, I think I should thank her particularly for the inadvertent admissions in her letter.

Browning, she admits, ‘ had to combat in himself a tendency to t anti-Catholic bigotry/ The same writer told us that Browning possessed a ‘ keen sympathy with Catholic ideals and devotions’ ( Tablet , November 12). The quotation given from Gavan Duffy is, surely, a remarkable instance of naivety. ‘Duffy found the Catholic Church habitually disparaged in Browning’s poems.’ In reply to Duffy’s complaint, Browning did not deny the fact. The explanation is quite another matter. In her letter. Miss Callan admits the poet was ‘ burdened with the inevitable inheritance of bigotry of a nineteenth century Protestant/ and, later on, employs Duffy to show that such manifestations of bigotry were due solely to his Italian surroundings. Poor Italy ! Is it admitted, then, that Catholic life in Italy was debased ? Besides, did Browning know nothing about Catholic life in England ? Inconsistency is human ! Miss Callan is not aware that Cardinal Wiseman expressed any adverse opinion of the poet. This is strange, as her quotation was from the Rambler, January, 1856, v In that same number of the Rambler the Cardinal, reviewing Men and Women, wrote; ‘. . . . much of their matter is extremely offensive to Catholics. . . .’

I am sorry that Miss Callan felt compelled to enter a protest against my quotation from ‘ Christmas Eve.’ However, it is something to have her admission that the indifferentism to which I thereby referred was a ‘ mild indifferentism.' It may be remembered that I stated in my previous letter that Browning believed in the Divinity of Christ. Miss Callan, therefore, might have spared herself the trouble of proving what I had admitted, as well as the trouble of protecting. As she seems determined not to modify her views no matter how eminent the authorities cited against’ her view, I have felt compelled to use the intrinsic method and pit her against herself. Our Catholic students have a right to a balanced criticism on such subjects. In the present instance it looked ‘ all on one side like the town of Fermoy.' Certain specified works, she asserts, ‘ have led superficial readers to believe that Browning was prejudiced against the Catholic Church ’ ( Tablet , November 12). To be consistent, Father John Rickaby, S.J., and other eminent Catholics must be included in that category. Jam satis est. —I am, etc., Tertium Quid, Christchurch, December 5.