CATHOLIC FEDERATION

New Zealand Tablet, 7 February 1918, Page 11

CATHOLIC FEDERATION

'ADDRESS BY VERY REV. DEAN REGNAULT, ,5.M.;.1. . ,V i • • ; ‘ ; ' (Concluded from last week.) _ : . ’ Again, , the Catholic Federation, we are told, is a menace to the liberties of the British people. Is the Catholic Church, then, the enemy of liberty? The Catholic Federation is founded on the principles on which the Catholic Church rests; it has been established in order to uphold those principles and safeguard its interests. But when has the Catholic Church been the enemy of liberty? Her Divine Founder proclaimed liberty for the children of God. “You, brethren." says St. Paul, “you have been called unto liberty” (Gal. 5, 13). “And where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (Rom. 6, 20). When the Church emerged from the Catacombs, she found the greater portion of the human race groaning under the yoke of slavery. Who waged a deadly war against this crying evil, who broke the bonds of slaves, who emancipated them and set them free ? It was the Catholic Church. Woman was treated as a beast of burden, she was the slave of man. Who elevated her to her rightful position? It was the Catholic Church. The English people are proud of their liberties, liberties gained by the crushing of the feudalism of the medieval barons, and the despotism of many English sovereigns ; they are proud of their laws which regulate the descent of property, safety from arrest except by due and settled process, trial by jury, etc. But are not all these the exclusive institution of Catholic ? Do we not owe them to the Catholic Church, the Church of 10,000 victories over pagans and barbarians, over ■slavery and tyranny, over heresies and false philosophies. The English king to whom the English nation is indebted for most of her most cherished liberties, and whom the London Times of July 16, 1877, styles “the father of the British people,” is Alfred the Great, a devoted member of the Catholic Church, and one of the greatest saints in her calendar. The mission of the Church and of the Catholic Federation to-day is to continue the fight for these ideals of liberty—to make tyranny and injustice impossible, and to safeguard the rights and privileges of all classes. Finally, our loyalty to the Empire is questioned. Why ? Because in our affections, the Church, the Kingdom of Christ upon earth, “takes precedence over the State, because we put God before man, and God’s gift to us, religion, before country. But every unprejudiced mind knows that after the Church there is nothing that sends such a thrill of joy through the heart of the Catholic as the land that gave him birth. Next to that of defending God’s Kingdom, His Church, the obligation of loving and serving their country and their King, is to Catholics the most enduring, the most universal, and the most sacred. In the first ages of Christianity, Catholics served pagan princes; they fought and died for them. During the Middle Ages they made England great and glorious, and laid the foundations of the British Constitution. Even when treated in England as outlaws, criminals, and traitors, they never failed in true patriotism ; their blood flowed freely wherever the British Flag was attacked. The various battlefields to-day are red with Catholic blood— (

"Bold as the boldest they fought and bled, And the day was won— the field was red— : And the blood of their fresh young hearts was shed On their country's hallowed altar."

This noble patriotism is fostered and cultivated in our Catholic schools and colleges. Blue and White, the school magazine of St. Patrick's College, contains figures which are truly eloquent and remarkable. This college has been in. existence only 37 years; its annual roll barely exceeds one hundred. 1 Yet j? the Roll of Honor just published comprises 454 names, names of

which not only the Catholic Church but the Dominion of New Zealand has reason "to be proud. Of these 41 ■ have made the supreme sacrifice, one-,;is missing, and ; 87 have been wounded. These remarks have been inspired by the activities ..of: a new organisation lately, started in Auckland. , x I , should. not perhaps put it: this, way, ; for this , so-called new organisation is not a new organisation at all; it 'is the same old Orange Society which comes out .under a new name. .. To judge by their public utterances, their failure to substantiate their calumnies, % the. sponsors s of \ that new society have no other qualification to, bear the responsibilities they have assumed than a . bitter, deeply bitter, hatred of Catholicity, of the Catholic Church, and of the Catholic Federation. Of course no one would offer any more objection to'such,people federating than to the federation of labor unions, if J they only federated for useful purposes. In fact, if such were the objects -of their federation they would , have the entire sympathy and support of the Catholic Federation. ~' If they federated, for instance, in order to promote the interests of all classes of people, socially and morally, in order to foster civil and religious freedom, and equality for all citizens, or to give to their children a religious education worthy of the name, the Catholic Federation would be delighted to co-operate with them. But such is not their aim: their one sole, avowed purpose is to gather in their forces against what they term "the awful Roman menace"—a bogey of their own creation. With the ignorance of bigoted minds they imagine all things evil of the Catholic Church and of Catholic organisations. Their minds are too small to appreciate the meaning of religious freedom. They are jealous of the success and the beauty of the Catholic Church, its sacred institutions, its power for good, and; carried out of themselves in their insane bigotry, they invent calumnies and spread lies to the end that they may root out the Catholic religion from the land and trample upon the Catholic body. To this we cannot meekly submit. We would indeed be craven cowards were we to endure such insults without protest or resistance.

To conclude, the object of the Catholic Federation is not to encroach on the rights of others, but to vindicate our own rights, and safeguard the interests of our people. In order to achieve, success, we need the active co-operation of the whole Catholic bodywe need it at once —we need it urgently.

ADDRESS BY REV. FATHER McMANUS, (Concluded from last week.) When we read the public utterances of politicians in the Old Land and in this country we might be easily led into the belief that the future of democracy is assured. Hardly a speech is made, whether by a lord or a plebeian, in which we are not told that - this gigantic war has been undertaken and is continued “in order that the world may be safe for democracy, in order that democracy may get a chance to express itself and a chance to live." It is a healthy sign of the times that there is on all sides. this newly awakened interest in the welfare of democracy. It is a thousand pities that in the past the appeal of democracy was either not heard or not understood. Had that appeal been heard and heeded fifty thousand children who attended schools in London in a condition of semistarvation would have been, properly housed, and fed and would now be of service to the Empire instead of growing up with stunted minds in stunted bodies. The men who in the past pleaded the cause of the teeming millions, in the slums of , industrial cities, ./millions who had no home life and ; no.. home associations —millions who lived on the border line of hunger. The men who pleaded their ‘ cause were looked upon as visionaries and dreamers ' and were told that the nation, with its almost limitless resources', could not stand the financial strain involved in solving the problems of slum existence. " r Now : we know that these men were true patriots and that , their theories had they

been reduced ■; to practice would have sustained the power and increased the resources of the Empire!" Had a? few of those millions which are now being spent on the war been spent in the past on the poor in industrial cities : the investment would have been sound from an Imperial view point and would have redounded to the glory as well as to the strength of the Empire and the happiness and contentment of. her people. "The world," we are told, "must be made safe for democracy, and democracy must get its chance." Democracy certainly deserves to get its chance. . Democracy has had to bear the lion's share of the burden and suffering of this war, and generations yet unbcyn will feel its burden in taxation. Democracy will insist on its share in those things for which it suffered and bled and died. "The old order changeth piving place to the new," and in that change from the old order to the new our holy mother ■ the Church, who watched beside the cradle of Christian democracy at its birth, who .pleaded the cause of the slave in ancient Rome, who .witnessed the contract when a reluctant king signed the Magna Charta of English liberty, will continue in the ways of her Divine'Founder to show special marks of affection to the poor and the oppressed, remembering . that they are. in a special way God's aristocracy. , / The Federation has even now to contend against bigotry and intolerance, but I do not think she has much to fear from this cause. "Bigotry," said O'Connell, "has no head, and therefore cannot think. It, has no heart, and therefore it cannot feel." We have in these parts such an overwhelming preponderance of those who have heads and therefore can think, who have hearts and can feel, that the screams of intolerant bigots will fall for the most part on deaf ears. Another reason why I think "we have little to fear from the bigot may be found in one of those shrewd remarks of a non-Catholic writer, G. K. Chesterton: "At the Reformation we were told to watch Rome, to keep our eyes on the Pope, and while we were watching Rome and keeping our eyes on the Pope they went through our pockets. We paid for our lesson, we learned it and we remember it."

The Federation has a noble if difficult task before it. May God's blessing rest upon its labors. May nations and individuals realise that not in war and greed and injustice, but in peace and harmony and charity, can the highest and purest aspirations of nations and of individuals be attained.