'USELESS PERSECUTION’

New Zealand Tablet, 22 February 1917, Page 35

'USELESS PERSECUTION’

; , CLERGY AND CONSCRIPTION. ■ HIS GRACE ARCHBISHOP O'SHEA ;'-.-■/■•' SPEAKS OUT. f An address • was delivered by Archbishop O'Shea at St. Joseph's Church last night (says the New Zealand Times of February 19) on the subject, ' Conscription and the ; Clergy:' The church was crowded to the doors. His Grace said :-r-- >-V;■ ' "V-; ; -. '••'; . / ' The question of the military conscription of the c l er gy is at the present moment engaging a great deal of public attention, and is a question! about which a great deal that is ; beside the point and a great; deal that is nonsense 1 has been said" and written. _> The criticisms that have been directed against the clergy in regard to this matter are due in part to the ignorance of some otherwise well-intentioned persons concerning the position and duties of our priests, but unfortunately they are due in part also to the organised attempt by sectarian bigots to injure the Church. They are prompted by the same ' spirit that has prompted the statement made recently even in this country by some of j themthat the Pope lias caused : the • war. I will make no comment upon this wicked attempt to sow the seeds of sectarian bitterness : at a., time like the present, but will leave it to the contempt it ' deserves from all reasonable and fair-minded men. t

The Law of the Church.

‘ The law of the Church against priests going into war as combatants goes back centuries,’ continued Archbishop O’Shea. ‘lt is a prohibition, not a privilege, and it was enacted first by the civil power, not at the demand of the ecclesiastics, but at the demand of the laity. It was promulgated in its present form about the beginning of the ninth century by Charlemagne, in answer to an urgent petition presented to the Sovereign by the whole of his subjects. J This Imperial law has been frequently re-enacted by the Church, and for at least 1100 years has been the law for Catholic priests. The reason for it is well summed up by St. Thomas “Fighting,” he says, “ is forbidden the clergy, not because all fighting is wicked, but because all fighting, even the most justifiable, is out of keeping with a priest’s vocation.” Many other things are forbidden priests which are quite lawful for the laity, such as engaging in secular professions and trades and commercial enterprises. • 4 - . > ‘ A priest’s work is predominantly of a , religious and spiritual nature. To devote themselves more thoroughly to the ..service of their fellow men, priests make sacrifices from the beginning of ' their career,, such as' no other class of men of any profession are called upon to make. They have to discharge duties of a sacred and individual character in regard to their people that the clergy of no other denomination are called upon or expected to discharge. First of all there is -Divine Worship itself, which for us Catholics consists primarily in the Sacrifice of the Mass. v Then there are other demands made upon us by our people—the Sacraments have to be administered—must be heard; Holy Communion must be given; the sick and dying must be visited arid attended to; special services must be held . and a host of other things, which are multiplied, not diminished in war time. “ ‘ Even from a military point of view the priest following his proper calling has a very great value.- The morale of the civilian population left behind as well as the morale of the troops at the front has to be kept up by the clergy, so. that even from this point of view, it would be the worst form of mismanagement to dpa\y

| for,-other:: purposes %on the limited # and «J irreplaceable body ;of clergy. - What kind : of ’ organisation -is it that {{ would -take men from work that they f are - experts .1 in 3 and that is just as necessary to win the war fighting, :■{ and put them in' positions that they ‘not used to • and {{ in which they might be an ’indifferent success. Not , : that our : -priests, who have no fear of death, would not go - {anywhere and do anything at' the > call of duty, and , would not’ fight as bravely as the bravest. Ask : the {survivors of Gallipoli; what they think of .the bravery . and devotedness of the: priest chaplains there, and they will tell you. But though" a priest may lawfully expose his own life and will cheerfully do so at the call of i duty, to put a rifle in his hand and require him to . take the life of another would be an outrage on the .: sanctity of his profession and an outrage on the Catholic conscience, more deeply resented by our laity and especially by our Catholic . soldiers than by the priest himself. , >- ,

, An Understanding Given. f { ‘ Now, we have in New Zealand—-the only part of the British Empire to have it— a law that does not exempt the clergy from fighting. „ When- it was .made an understanding was given to the bishops that the conscription of the clergy, was against the policy of the Government, and that means would, be taken to have such of the priests and theological students, as desired by the bishops exempted’. The spirit of this understanding has not been kept, and yesterday a Military Board refused to exempt two students. These young men are clergy in every sense of the word. . They are bound by nearly all the obligations of a priest, and' they come under the prohibition against soldiering. Now, this law as it stands affects for all practical purposes the clergy of one denomination onlythe clergy of our Church. For our clergy are all bound by the vow of celibacythey must be unmarried—while the clergy of. the other denominations marry. It follows that all our priests of the military age, about two-thirds of, the total number, are in the First Division, while the clergy of the other Churches are, for the most part, in the Second Division. Therefore, all our clergy in the -First Division will eventually, be drawn in the ballot, and everyone of them . who is passed as medically fit. will be compelled to go before the non-Catholic clergy who are married are even thought of. You see, then, : how this law, which exists in no other . part of the British Empire strikes principally at our; Church. ‘ Catholics, because they cannot in conscience accept the spiritual ministrations of any. but an unmarried clergy, are to be singled out for this special treatment, and have their priests taken away from them, left to live and die without- the Sacraments and to be buried like cattle. If , this is not religious persecution, I do not know what is. The spirit that animates it—un{consciously ’ it may be trueis the same spirit that animated the penal laws of the bad old days. But the whole ’ thing—this conscription of the clergy of any denomination betokens an apostasy from the Christian ideals that the British race in ■ the past -held in veneration, and still professes toehold so dear. True, it is only in this far-off part of the Empire that such : an apostasy has been perpetrated.’

{ . - Fighting Priests of France. {■; ■ ‘ But what about.France?-you will be asked. The priests are fighting there. Well, the law that compelled the priests to fight in France was passed by, an infidel Government for the purpose of destroying the Church. Its effect has been the exact opposite, how--ever. But nevertheless the Church has always , protested against this law as a scandal- and still protests. { When the war broke out and the enemy poured into France, the Holy Father dispensed the French priests .. from the prohibition against fighting because of the exceptional circumstances. : ‘ First of all, because of,. having followed the materialistic scientific principles so dear to the infidel . ■ Government,, the population of France had dwindled enormously of late years, and the clergy were numerically considerable. . Then the Government at first. . would not allow any chaplains in the army. ; So where all the soldiers were or , ought to be Catholics, soldier priests mixing amongst them would be able to absolve them and administer spiritual consolation when they -

were in -the firing line and dying in battle. : • Then one?-/? - of these soldier priests was asked if he were going to ' ; the front: "Yes," he replied, "but not to kill—to heal, to succour, to absolve.'* ' That is why the French priests went. : .; ' But the conditions are quite different here. . We -: - have our priests as chaplains at the front, and splendid - work they are doing, too. Their, departure has thinned our ranks and will thin them more as time goes on; V : and • has compelled , us to reduce our staffs in several v. splaces. .' Besides this country has already sent a very large number of fighters ?• and : will be able to • send even more than the proportion expected of us, ; without calling upon a handful of clergy, whose small numbers would t not influence the actual fighting in the least, but whose '.■ .''.' help in God's work will have a mighty [ influence in - winning: this war. For. no. matter how just our cause island it is just cause—we' cannot win, without God's •■*blessing. ; " This is the conviction of : all sane Christians, : and % especially of our two great naval and military ' - leaders. ■;■; And are we going the right way to obtain .: this blessing ';! if -we set about scrapping the religious Z:i machinery; of the country, or handling it so poorly as i: s '. :? to render ■'* it ineffective. ■ ~, r And we are a Christian country after all, notwithstanding the fact that there are some infidel cranks amongst us."- r -.«-''" vr .' : '-■""*■.;-.-.. Then there is that other senseless cry:; "We must " send every man ;to the : trenches, in order to: win the . war." Such a cry makes me sometimes despair of ever being able to win it. It shows, a deplorably erroneous idea of what organisation means. ,; And it is the . proper organisation of our immensely superior resources that is going to win the warnot throwing men indis- : criminately into trenches. This applies: not only in the case of the clergy, .but also to many other professions and trades, where, if men are told to follow the business they know best, they will be of infinitely more = help in winning the . war than anywhere else. The other day I read in an 'English paper that,there were ' three million English soldiers under arms, but that at the' same time there were just under three million men (women were not included) engaged in jthe manufacture of munitions. If you are going to send every man * from the country into the trenches, who is going to raise the food for them ? Who is going to make clothes v \ for them? Who is going to provide them with munitions Who is going to make the money that -helps to win the warthe money that we shall need to pay the cost of the war ? Really, the common-sense of - some people in this country seems' to have deserted V them. "•■ .--.,• '•■ ■"-■. .-"*'- -•,-

--■„. The . Catholic Position. w•■ - ■ - ',■ - \ ■■- .. Briefly, then, this-is our position in regard to the conscription of the clergy,' said, his Grace, in con- - elusion. 'We are doing our. full share in providing chaplains for the spiritual wants of our soldiers at the front, and we are likely to be called ;upon to do even,; more, and please God we will do it. .Our chaplains will go anywhere with our soldiers, and our Catholic soldiers will go anywhere with their chaplains.. ~ But our poor - people?" who are left behind', who have ; given up their sons and brothers and husbands i for the cause of their, country, whose sorrows and trials are. many and great at this time—they, too, '■■'■ need the consolations that- religion and the spiritual ministrations of;. their , priests can alone bring them.; Are they to be deprived of :.';; these, and thus have their sorrows increased 1 tenfold? % Surely not. Surely this ought to appeal to the u sense ■ of justice and fair-mindedness ■of the community. I We ought : to have this much sense .left to endeavor to work all together in ■„ harmony during ; these so critical times ■A ; for our country, and avoid : needlessly .exasperating any section of the people. ;■;- It is for , a little more of this .* spirit that I plead. > Catholics are resenting i deeply '% the attempt to conscript their clergy, • and ..will • resent it -.-. still: ; more if it is - persisted in. ;r - We " will use ; every ,'■ means in our- power :to prevent .5 it;,' and will appeal - against' some of the recent decisions 4 of ..the;-; Military • Boards to the Final Appeal Board. . But: we . will appeal more; than all to the Christian sentiment and fairness of a British community," not to persist in a policy that we look upon as useless persecution, aud : wiirreseut to the eadr' ' >