Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 24 April 1919, Page 14

Current Topics

Conscientious Objectors The other day a writeranonymous, of course—in our morning paper had a sneer at Catholics, to give point to which he quoted the Tablet as saying that our people will always defend the laws of God and of the Church against man-made laws. It is to right-minded .people very strange that such a reasonable and logical position should find even in the home of the wowser anyone so ignorant of the relations of man to God as to be capable of surprise at such a remark as the Tablet is supposed to have made, and very probably did make in some case that has escaped our memory just now. God is Truth and the Church is His mouthpiece politicians, especially of the New Zealand type, are very far indeed from being oracles of Truth or in any way reliable at all; and the laws they make are not as far,as we know remarkable for sanity or wisdom. But on the whole, judging from the anonymous writer’s letters, sane laws would not be in keeping with the mentality of many amongst us. It is indeed rather a shocking state of things that we find many ready to question the proposition that the laws of God and of His Church are to be put before the laws of William Massey, and it is an eloquent commentary on the condition to which the legislation and the education of such persons has reduced this Dominion. Have they plunged us so deeply in that species of barbarism which they call efficiency that truths self-evident to a savage arouse wonder and a cackle of laughter reminiscent of Bedlam ? The fact that principles have ceased to have any meaning for many legislators and for multitudes of the. people is now too obvious to require labored explanation. And it is especially the principles of the Divine and Natural Laws that have been blotted out of the minds (as well as off the Statute Book) of the inhabitants of New Zealand. “God’s Own Country,’’ indeed! God help us. Among many priceless things unknown to New Zealand statesmen is conscience. They are to all appearances ignorant that man has a soul; they have passed Acts of Parliament against God ; therefore why should they not trample on the rights of conscience. They tried to do it as far as Catholic priests were concerned during this war alleged falsely to be for the freedom of small nations. They did it in the case of many individuals who suffered, and some of whom are still suffering, because they had ideals and convictions above the low, material, utilitarian views of the place-hunters of this country. The} did it, and in doing it they have made a name for New Zealand that will be long remembered; they gave a fine example of the Prussianism, which not for the first time has been found closely allied to John Bullism. Which of us cannot recall cases of incredible brutality which have come under our notice? And we know from the protests made in England that those who suffered there for conscience sake were not treated with the humanity that one should expect from those who went to war because they objected to German cruelty. A year ago or so a proposal to disfranchise conscientious objectors was voted down in the House of Commons after due discussion. Commenting on this, the Month said that the decision was sound, “because it acknowledges and proclaims that citizens have a higher duty than obedience to the State: a thoroughly Christian view which Catholics have been ready to uphold with their lives.” The view was certainly Christian ; and there were Christians enough in England to maintain it. Where are the Christians of New Zealand ? Are they all converted by the anonymous scribe who could sneer at the “thoroughly Christian view” that people ought to put the laws of God and of His Church before laws made by men who are not fit to govern a colony of monkeys ? Are there not enough strong men left in the country to uphold and to enforce the Christian view ? Will nobody raise a voice for the conscientious objectors who have •been ill-treated here because they would not submit to the hateful tyranny of Conscription - v

A Terrible Indictment The Glasgow Observer, referring to the arrest of the Sinn Fein leaders on a charge for which not a jot of evidence had been adduced, hinted that General Smuts, who has already been convicted of impertinent interference where Ireland is concerned, was the man who suggested the scheme. Like the Daily News, the Chronicle, the Manchester Guardian, the Westminster Gazette, and other English papers which have not sold their honor to Lloyd George, the Observer protested vehemently against the outrage of justice committed by the Government, and it made a terrible charge against British rulers, past and present, for the cowardly manner in which they have always, in defiance of the laws of chivalry and honor, calumniated and belied their enemies. The words of this honest British journal are worth producing, and it is to be hoped that certain editors amongst us in New Zealand will lay them to heart and consider how far they have deserved the same castigation: “As for the rest of the ‘disclosures,’ they bear all the traces of a trumped-up, evilly designed charge, intended to create prejudice and promote injustice, two weapons which this nation has never hesitated to wield against Ireland, or against any people with whom it has had a quarrel. The character of the American colonists was blackened most abominably when a German King on the British throne was endeavoring with the aid of Huns here and Hessians and Red Indians in America to subjugate or exterminate them. “In our wars against France and Napoleon, waged on behalf of the most odious tyranny, and ending in the infamous ‘Holy Alliance’ of all the tyrants of Europe against Freedom, this country was a regular factory of anti-French, anti-Napoleonic lies and calumnies and obscenities. The press of the time is unmatched, even to-day, for the scurrility, cowardice, and scoundrelism of its attacks on the French people and on the Emperor. And were not the Boers subjected to the same infamies? They were cowards, immoral, brutal, treacherous, firing on the white flag, and generally, indeed, were made out to be unfit to live. “We were then out to rob them and destroy their liberties, under the gentle influence of our Huns and Jingoes, many of whom are still with us, and now showing the same attitude towards Ireland.” No man who has read the papers during the present war or during the Boer war can say that the Observer exaggerated. This indictment of the Government of England recalls the scathing words of that honorable and chivalrous gentleman, Sir William Butler, on the same count. The “Prussianism” of the Tory clique is as active to-day as it was in the days of Pigott, and the most regrettable thing about it is that it casts such a slur on the good name of the British Democracy which in no uncertain voice more than once proclaimed its will about the treatment of Ireland. But it all helps Ireland. The outrageous tyranny of the Carson-Milner-George combination has already made all Ireland Sinn Fein, and is winning the world to the same banner as days go by. In this connection we again quote the Observer-. “We are with the constitutional movement in Ireland, as we have ever been. We have opposed Sinn Fein on certain matters, such as the Easter Week rising and the appeal to force. “We were surprised and pained by it all. We had fixed our eyes on other means to the end. We took a too narrow view. But we are forced to recognise even so soon as this that the men of Easter Week, 1916, those who stood as well as those who fell, will live in Irish, annals along with those of ’9B and ’4B and ’67. We are too close to the catastrophe to see its inwardness and provocation. It was a blunder, but a generous and a heroic blunder. It will have its reward. We leave it there.

“But on the Coascription issue we are wholly with the Sinn Feiners and the rest of Ireland. With the criticisms made on the Irish Party by Sinn Feiners and

others we are largely in , agreement. The party has much of the present mischief in Ireland to answer for.”

The Church and Freedom Protestantism has a heritage of lies that its sincere supporters would be well advised to discard before, with the advance of learning and research, the whole world comes to laugh at them. A Protestant tradition in English history and in English literature has long been in possession, and because few Englishmen were able or anxious to read anything outside what was written in their own tongue, the falsehoods had a long start : John Bullism was a favorable breeding-ground for it. Gradually people are beginning to regard as harmless idiots the average Stiggins who speaks now of the ignorance of the Middle Ages, of the doings of Pope Joan, of the Bull of Adrian, and of the walling up of nuns. Learning is becoming popular and the light of the Middle Ages is penetrating even into the dense head of John Bull: it is beginning to dawn on the man-in-the-street that' the men who built St. Peter's were not fools, that Dante knew a lot in comparison with Lloyd George, that Raffael could teach the best English painters a lot about colors, and that Aquinas was a safer guide in philosophy than German dreamers like Hegel or Fichte. One day it will also dawn on the deluded victims of the Protestant tradition that while the Reformation was the real cause of Prussianism, the source of tyranny and of State idolatry, the old Catholic Church was the guardian and the inspirer of true freedom right down through the ages. It is worth while recalling a few sentences from the old teachers in order that we may see how they had, centuries ago, the secret of freedom and the right conception of true Democracy after which we are groping to-day as a result of the fact that we have been led astray for three hundred years by Protestantism and Germanism. The very social and political principles of the American Constitution, which is the grandest document of liberty and right that we possess to-day, are based on the teachings of saints and sages dead centuries ago, and an American interpreting the clauses of the Constitution in the light of right reason is actually re-echoing the wisdom that the Reformation buried and decried because it stood for freedom and the Reformers did not want freedom. , The achievement of Protestantism has been to put back the clock three hundred years. And having done so it had the dishonesty to say that Catholics were to blame. Protestantism in its development is Prussianism. America is fighting on old Catholic principles against Prussianism : now that England is safe she wants to protect Prussianism again and the freedom of small nations does not matter. Protestant England again blocks the way and the Democratic President has to fight every step of the road to liberty against those to whom the principles of the Rights of Man are hateful. Let us see now how the true Democracy which is opposed by Protestantism and Orangeism was taught by the Church centuries ago. The fundamental principle of equality was thus defined 07 -Leo 111. : “There is but one Creator and one human race, and God creates all men equal. There is no essential difference between any two human beings. Men are born with physical differences, but these differences do not destroy the natural law of equality.” Many years later the theologian Bellaxuxxixxe repeated this doctrine; “In an earthly kingdom all axe created equal, and, as a consequence, the political power resides immediately in the people until they transfer it to some ruler.” In these words we have the very keystone of Democracy and the refutation of the Protestant fiction of the divine right of kings. In the following words of Mariana the doctrine is expressed still more clearly; “As it was by the people’s consent that the first kings in every country were placed at the head of affairs, all legitimate power of the king comes from the people. I would advise the people to limit the power by laws and ordinances, lest it should to the injury of the people degenerate into a tyranny. (Book 1, Chapter 8.) - »

Teaching of St. Thomas The surest Catholic guide is Aquinas, who taught that (1) government should be for the common good of the people, and that the people (2) have the right of deposing rulers: ‘‘Government become more unjust in proportion as despising the common good of. the people it looks to the private advantage of the ruler. The farther, therefore, it recedes from the common good the more unjust a government is.” (De Regimine, I. cap. 3.) “If the people have the right of providing themselves with kings, the king after his appointment, may be lawfully deposed by the people, or his power may be restricted if he abuses it.” (De Regimine Principle, 1. cap. 4.) These words contain truths that might well be studied by the victims of profiteering governments to-day. If the freedom that they promise were rightly understood there would be no slavery under Prussianism or under Jingoism, and the ideals of Democracy would not be confined to America alone. The men who blackened the Church knew how well they were building a bulwark to protect their own selfish ends, as they still arc protected by Protestantism against all right and justice in Ireland. From Leo 111. to Aquinas is a long call, and wo find the same principles advocated by both. Again they were repeated fearlessly by that great medieval democrat, Suarez, who wrote: “The civil power, whenever it is found in one man or prince, has emanated from the people and the community either directly or indirectly. It cannot otherwise be possessed.” (Lib. 11. cap. 1.) Coming closer to our age we hear Liguori declaring that, “It is certain that the power of making laws is given to men, but this power belongs to no one except the community, and it is transferred by the community to one or several rulers by whom it may be governed.” (On Suture and Obligation■ of Law, Book 1., Treatise 11. Cap. 1.) Taparelli, the famous Roman philosopher, taught the sacredness of human rights in the following words: “The principles of natural rights cannot be erased from the human heart. They remain forever. The supreme power should never, in any whim or in any ambition, offend them. Acting against those principles is acting in the interest of wrong. The circumstances of government often seem to demand much license ; but the principles of natural right are things of eternal sacredness. The history of tyranny is nothing else but a history of outrage of those principles ; and the history of happy states is nothing but a history of their observance. The whole use of government is the public good, and none other.” Try Lloyd. George, try William Massey, try William Hughes, before a jury on that passage of wisdom and what will their sentence be What respect have these people had for natural rights, or for truth, or for justice? Is not the whole history of their governments during the past four years the history of outrage and tyranny ? Are not the words MENS, MENE, THEKEL, XJPHARSIN already written before their eyes, and has not the day of reckoning already dawned for them and for all the supporters of Plutocracy and oppression? The few extracts we have cited are enough to show that the Church taught the true principles of freedom and that, for their own interests, Protestant historians calumniated our. teachers as they always calumniated their opponents, true to. Luther’s teaching. In conclusion, let Alcuin tell how Christianity is always the champion of freedom for mankind; “Positive laws cannot be made unless for the good of the people. Rulers are necessary, but only, for the public good; their office is not for their own interest, but for the interest of the State, in all its extent. This principle is not much perceived in pagan nations, for in those nations tyranny has covered the human intellect with darkness. But it is well perceived in Christian States. The light of faith has dispersed idolatry in worship and chased away cruelty in government. It has been commanded that Caesar shall get what is his, but Caesar has been endowed with no right against what natural justice demands for all the people.” ,