THE BISHOP-ELECT OF DUNEDIN

New Zealand Tablet, 19 August 1920, Page 30

THE BISHOP-ELECT OF DUNEDIN

STANMORE PARISHIONERS’ FAREWELL. The Petersham Town Hall was crowded to the doors on Thursday, July 29, on the occasion of a farewell by the parishioners of St. Michael’s, Stanmore, to their former pastor, now the Bishop-elect of Dunedin, the Right Rev. Dr. J. Whyte. An enthusiastic welcome was tendered to the popular prelate as he entered the hall, accompanied by a number of his fellow priests. During the evening a delightful concert was rendered by a timber “of well-known artists, and during the interval an illuminated address and a cheque were presented to his Lordship. With the guest of the evening on the platform were the Very Rev. Father J. P. Dunne, P.P., V.F., Rev. Fathers T. Barlow, P.P., T. Phelan, P.P., M. P. Malone, T. Kenny, R. Lonergan, J. H. Kelly, Sherin, J. Dalton also the Hon. E. A. McTiernan (Attorney-Gen-eral), Messrs. J. Creagh, J. J. Herlihy, J. J. O’Brien, J. Bourke, Cahill, J. Ryan, R. Dobson, Neaney, Storan, F. Herlihy, J. Lyons (representing the Hibernian A.C.B. Society). In response, the Right Rev. Dr. Whyte spoke, in part, as follows : It is only natural that in my new home, I shall miss old friends. I had looked forward to a further development of this parish after we had passed out of the brick and mortar stage. Just now the parish is beginning a new and a better era, and though I shall not be here to witness its progress, it will be impossible for me not to watch it from afar, and rejoice in the good it is destined to accomplish. St. Paul said to the Corinthians, to whom he had imparted the gift of faith: “If you have 10,000 instructors in Christ, yet not many fathers. For in Christ Jesus, by the Gospel, I have begotten you.” -In a very modified form, I can make a similar claim in regard' to St. Michael’s, and no matter how great and successful may be my successors in the near and distant future, nobody can deprive me of the honor of being the father or the founder of this parish. I have an indelible recollection of its humble beginnings. Every incident made a distinct impression upon my mind, the various donations of altars and altar requisites, who were the boys that served the first Mass in the church, who was the first that received Holy Communion at the altar rails; every incident was to me of great importance, and I stored it up in a memory that I consider is not ungrateful. Priest and People. Non-Catholics are at a loss to account for the bond of friendship existing between priests and their people. Hostile newspapers gave in the past, and still give in the present, a sinster explanation of it. That bond, however, is supernatural; it is holy, for it results from the sacred calling of the priest. He administers the Sacraments to his people; he leads them by the' hand from the cradle to the grave. In their sadness or their gladness he is with them, and more particularly in their darkest moments. Not like the “butterflies who show their mealy wings but to the summer, he is at their side in their sickness and want,' when pestilence rages; instead of digging himself W to avoid contagion, he is found in plague-stricken houses, administering the consolations of religion to the dying, and soothing the sorrows of the bereaved. That is one explanation of the union between priests and their people. 1 ... That bond has also been strengthened by oppose,lo x? d Persecution. When the London Times called the Irish priests “surpliced ruffians," did it imagine that that would wootan j u„.j. . 1 _ • , , , -.vu-ttvii "TO WuXlVi ucuwccli the priests and people of Ireland? Or, when the same worthy paper said that an Irishman’would soon be as rare on the banks of the Shannon as a Red Indian on the shores of Manhattan? Was that the wav to wean the affections of the Irish people from the

Church, and its priests, and to transfer those affections to the common enemy? ~You remember the fable of the sun and the cold wind contending which was the more powerful. » They agreed to try their strength on a peasant , who was walking along the country road. The sun poured down upon him /beams of glowing heat; the peasant took off his cloak and his coat. My turn now, said the wind, and it let out, as from a bow, arrows of piercing blasts. The peasant put on as quickly as he could his coat and cloak, and buttoned them up and drew them as tightly round him as possible. You have won the bet, said the sun. Persecution Strengthens the Bond. . The cold blasts of persecution have joined the Irish priests and people together by bonds of steel. That spirit is in your hearts to-night. The old blood is coursing through your veins and that is the reason you and I meet together to-night and tell whoever wants to know that we are inseparable, and that whoever tries to separate us tries to do the impossible. In the history of Ireland numerous attempts have been made to drive a wedge'between the priests and their flocks. During the operation of the iniquitous code of penal laws which aimed at rooting out the Catholic religion from Ireland, Irish youths were smuggled across to the Continent to study for the priesthood. When they became priests they were smuggled back again to minister to the persecuted people. They carried their lives in their hands, a price being set upon their heads, precisely as a price was set upon the heads of wolves. “They be sturdy fellows,” one of the minions of Government reported to his masters. They were, indeed, sturdy and brave, heroic unto blood, and their blood helped to cement the bond between them and the down-trodden people. The attempt was made to sever that union, when education was denied a people to whom learning was as dear as life. You have heard of the hedge-schools. They were illegal. It was felony for the schoolmaster to teach, and felony for his pupils to learn. “Where did you receive your early education?" the lionhearted Archbishop of Tuam was asked in 1825. “The school in which I was brought up,” he answered, “had been planned by the Author of the Universe, and fashioned by nature. Its hall was most majestic, its dimensions magnificent. The blue* vault of heaven was its canopy, and the desk on which I essayed to write was the bosom of my mother earth, and her lap the seat on which I reclined.” In 1825 the people were denied education, and since then mercenary scribes have lampooned them for their ignorance, and held them up before the civilised world in caricature, and on the stage as products of Catholicism. If anybody says “That’s ancient history; what about the modern?” he must not be acquainted with everyday life. Whoever wishes to estrange priests from their people would be foolish enough to tell the waves of the sea that they must not break upon the beach. I have been asked some peculiar questions during the past couple of months. “Do you like to leave Stan more ? Do you think you will like Dunedin better than Stanmore?” My answer is: I have been appointed to this new position without any act on my part. It would have been cowardly and dishonorable if I refused to accept it. I should always despise myself if I did anything that was cowardly and dishonorable, and I should be disappointed with you if you did not despise me, too. I, wish once more to thank all who. have made this occasion for me a memorable one. I thank you for your beautifully-worded and beautifully-illumina-ted address. If I promise to remember my old friends of Sydney, my future friends in New Zealand will not oe aispieaseo, with me. Bor if I could easily forget the old associations and friendships formed on this side of the water my sincerity could be questioned by the new friends whom I hope to make on the other S1 ~?- / ** * s not in mortals to command success, but with God s help I will do all I can to deserve it.