MARRIAGE AMENDMENT BILL

New Zealand Tablet, 25 November 1920, Page 17

MARRIAGE AMENDMENT BILL

STATEMENT BY ARCHBISHOP O'SHEA. Most Rev. Archbishop O Shea, speaking at a meeting of Catholics at Mar ton on a recent Sunday, said that the Massey .Party was now seen to be in open alliance with the 1 P A. h or some time past this was strongly suspected but the division list on the Marriage Bill had put the matter beyond all possible doubt. He (the Archbishop) advised all Catholics to post up that list in every Catholic home throughout the Dominion, so that they might have before them a constant reminder of their friends and foes. “There are several names on that list/’ he said, “who are in Parliament to-day because of hundreds of votes they’ received from Catholics at the last election, and yet when the time came to speak and vote for justice to the Catholic body, they were found skulking amongst the bigots in the P.P.A. lobby under the lash of Hie Ileform-P.P.A. whips. The Massey Party was once supposed to be the party of respectability and honorable dealing, but its recent achievement has branded it as something very dif-

ferent. While in public its members proclaimed they nere ashamed of the P.P.A. and had nothing to do with it, their acts belied their words. Jlnl secret they had allied themselves with it and supported it with their money. °iT* i mst they have com© out into the open and- have publicly, descended from their lofty respectability to the plane of the arrogant, unscrupulous faction that does not hesitate to defame dead women as well as living, provided in the latter case no names are mentioned; nor to i use pure inventions, garbled quotations and forgeries to support its ridiculous charges against the Catholic Church. Jhe language used by some of the members of the House • who supported Catholics the other day,' was not one bit too strong. It will help to open the eyes of the people of this country to the nefarious pest that is destroying public 1 life and robbing it of all decency and respectability. Nay, it is doing more: as was pointed out by Mr. Isitt, it is putting a severe strain upon the .sympathy of a large section of the community with the Empire, which sorely needs all the help it can get in its present serious difficulties. ‘Catholics will not mind very much the insult that has been thrown at them by the 44 members of Parliament who voted for this persecuting clause. They intend to treat it with the contempt it deserves, and if it ever reaches the Statute Book they will utterly disregard it. 1 opticians and political parties, come and go, but the Church remains for ever. Catholics have long memories where their faith is attacked, and can afford to bide their time, for they know now how they stand with the politicians of New Zealand. After a while, when people wake up to the full meaning of what has been going on, they will become ashamed of it. A decent Parliament' will quietly repeal the insulting clause in the Marriage Bill, which , will never be more than a dead letter, just as the British Parliament some years ago became ashamed of the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, which it had hurriedly passed in cii cuinstances similar to those now obtaining in New Zealand. Afterwards having recovered its self-respect and dignity, it hastened to remove the stain .in its records by quietly repealing the obnoxious Bill, and the same will take place here before long. In the meantime, this taste of persecution will do Catholics good, and it will make them stronger and more united than ever. These attacks are a tribute to the success of the Church ; they are a proof that she is doing some good in the Dominion. To be hated and attacked by foes of sutfh character is her greatest eulogy. As the savage of the forest fears* the civilisation which he does, not understand, and therefore hates it so the savages of our political ■ life, whose minds are too small and narrow to be able to understand the Church'and her mission in the world, fear her and therefore hate her, and try to persecute her. But as in the past persecution has always failed, so now Catholics need not be dismayed, for they will emerge from this trial far stronger than ever.”