ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS

New Zealand Tablet, 18 April 1918, Page 37

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS

E.M.—No historian with any pretence to scholarship admits the fable about Pope Joan. Catholic. The Index prohibits books dangerous to faith or morals. The Church certainly has a right'to do in the spiritual order what governments do in the. temporal. If a Protestant government can suppress a paper which advocates Irish freedom, why cannot the Church prohibit her children from reading a book by Strauss, who denied the Divinity of Christ, or by Voltaire, who made a mockery of the most sacred truths of Christianity ? Reader. William O'Brien's recent criticisms of Lord Morley's book lead us to think that "honest John" was not such a friend of Ireland as he got credit for being. Roger Casement alleged that Morley once advocated giving Home Rule and leaving the Irish to the stench of their own dung-hill. Parnell—good judge of character—pinned no faith in any Englishman except Campbell-Bannennan. Asquith and Rosebery very wisely refused to trust. There was poor John Redmond's mistake. It must be Sinn Fein always now. Troubled. —A definite answer is not easy in your case from the data supplied. Doubts may be temptations which nobody can avoid. If there is beneath all such doubts a firm adhesion of the will and intelligence to the doctrines of our Holy Faith—an assent based on the motives of faith—doubts ought not to trouble one. If, however, the doubt is such that it amounts to admitting, in will and intellect, that the doctrines may not be true then there is a sin against faith. The safest way is to consult your confessor. Busy.—We are exhorted to pray always. We fulfil this by praying frequently, by keeping ourselves in the state, of grace and offering all our thoughts, words, and actions to God. Although it cannot be laid down that to miss one's prayers now and then is a sin, yet it seems that to get up in the morning or to go to bed at night without a word with God is black ingratitude. In every Christian family the children salute their parents morning and evening. Is God less than parents in this country ? A prayer, however short, even a simple morning offering, makes a difference in the whole day. Faith of Our Fathers.—Notice it? As the French say, it leaps to the eyes. It must continue to puzzle people of sound Catholic faith and traditions how so many here almost smile if the Pope is attacked by Ministers of the Allies. If they do not actually smile their silence is wonderful when compared with their rage if Irish Catholics demand that the Empire shall not forget the one small nation that England is persecuting. They will believe lying cables, lying politicians, lying parsons, rather than the word of an archbishop. To us it seems that the root of the matter is mixed marriages. Granting that there is heredity in faith and religious instincts, it follows that the offspring of mixed marriages lose much that children of Catholic parents inherit. The materialistic State schools, the irreligious associations, the wholesale reading of piffle as exposed in the windows of our book stores, have their part in the atrophying of faith. The persons afflicted cannot see or feel it. But to a man of genuine Qatholic education and instincts it is deplorably obvious that there are idolaters among us who worship the Empire rather than the Church of Christ. R.W.We quite agree with you that the conscientious objectors, of all classes, have been persecuted. However, we are primarily a Catholic paper, and secondarily our interests are bound up in Ireland's cause. Therefore, we are compelled for want of space to pass over matters such as you refer to, especially if they are well ventilated elsewhere.

How many pages do you think the Tablet would run into if we dealt with everything we are asked to notice ? Where there is a will there is not always a way. The Editor has given up trying to please the 2000 odd who want him to go in as many different, ways.