CATHOLICITY IN AUSTRALIA

New Zealand Tablet, 17 July 1919, Page 21

CATHOLICITY IN AUSTRALIA

ADDRESS BY ARCHBISHOP MANNIX. , Speaking at a .Communion breakfast Jat North Brunswick, Melbourne, recently, his Grace Archbishop Mannix expressed the hope that the seeds of Catholicity and religion transplanted over -the seas would always germinate and fructify in Australia, that Ireland would never have reason to be ashamed to be the mother of Australian Catholicity, and that the Australian people would always look to their mother with love and veneration. The Catholic Church was, lie said, the Church of Christ, and those who had cut themselves off from Christ and from the Church which He established on earth could not expect to have the same fruits, and, as a matter of fact, did not have them. Catholics made sacrifices for religion especially in regard to education, which no other body had the least notion of making, even ■if called upon. Anglicans, Presbyterians, and others were beginning to see that Catholics had taken the right course. They did not claim any credit for it. The Catholic Church had a commission to teach, and was not afraid to do what Christ told it to do. It made laws in regard to marriage, and insisted upon their observance by its children. Some people made a stir because the Pope had decreed that the Church would not recognise the marriage of a Protestant and Catholic outside the Catholic Church. Y hat was the attitude of the head of the Protestant Church towards mixed marriages and other marriages in Ireland not so many years ago? A marriage between a Protestant and Catholic celebrated by a Catholic priest was deemed to be absolutely invalid. This also applied to the marriage of two Protestants if the ceremony was performed by a Catholic priest. In tho Ac Tcm eve Decree the Pope was legislating for his own people. In what he referred to as having taken place in Ireland, it suited certain people to trample on the rights of the Catholic people. Catholics knew their position, and had not to look to Parliament to define their, beliefs. Doubtless they had all read the excellent article that had recently appeared in the Age on titles. Canada opposed the conferring of titles by the British Government, and ho thought they might follow that example. One good thing could, at least, be said about the Australian Prime Minister, and that was that he had no title. He quite believed Mr. Hughes could have had one for the asking. The Australian people generally should endorse the policy of objecting to titles. One man who had done something for the betterment of the human race might receive a title, but what distinction was it to him when another man who might have been whitewashed in the Bankruptcy Court also received a title? In the Age it was shown forcibly that no honor attached to titles, for which there should be no room in Australia. They turned the minds of people away from Australia and towards London. When people in Ireland looked for titles it was not for any service they rendered to Ireland, but because they were renegades to that country. Archbishop Mannix also touched on the war, the Peace Conference, industrial unrest, and the tariff question. He announced himself in favor of the, tariff if it would benefit the people and' not put more money into the pockets of manufacturers and capitalists.