Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 28 July 1921, Page 14

Current Topics

" I Spy Strangers" Once upon a time a Member of Parliament could have the galleries of the House of Commons cleared by simply raising the cry: "I spy strangers." It was done time and again. O'Connell cleared out the reporters of that fair-minded British press which then as to-day threw in its lot with the top dog and had no sense of justice or honor where Ireland was concerned. But the greatest blow that an Irishman ever struck at British priggishness was when that stalwart fighter, Big-gar, cleared the galleries and forced the Prince of Wales to leave with the rest. If some Catholics had been disposed they might have raised the cry in St. Joseph's Cathedral recently when a number of P.P.A. spies attended eleven o'clock Mass, presumably to find out if Catholic clergymen imitated their own celestial leaders and gave their congregations the gospel of hatred instead of the message of Christian charity. Catholics had a good laugh at the expense of these foolish persons, and it is to be hoped that the difference in matter and form between what they heard in our church and what they heard a few evenings previously from those scrupulously honorable and truthful gentlemen, Messrs. Griffith and Elliott, made some impression on the poor camp-followers in the army for the New Zealand P.P.A. war on women. They are always welcome to come. And when they hear any priest in the pulpit fanning the fires of sectarian hatred by lies and calumnies against Protestants they are welcome to make the most of it.

The Importance of the School Father Hull, S.J., editor of the Bombay Examiner, has published a number of books which no intelligent Catholic ought to be without. He has dealt with many subjects, from the point of view of a theologian, a scholar, and a historian, and his books are a real course of apologetics. They are ■ worth ten times what they cost: and it is a pity our booksellers do not do more than they are doing to bring them before the reading Catholics of New Zealand. Most important in the series are the volumes that treat of education and the formation of character. At least all Catholic teachers, and all catechists, ought to know these volumes, and know them well. They are compact with solid instructive matter, and the author is a man who knows what he is talking about. In Collapses in. Adult Life, a book specially written for parents and teachers, he insists that the present state of society makes the Catholic school more important than ever:

"The work of character-forming is being thrown more and more upon the schools; first because the home no longer does its share in the training of the child, and secondly because there exists no home tradition calculated to impress favorably the budding mind. The .school authorities must come to look more and more upon themselves as the arbiters of the future of the rising generation entrusted to them, and to bend their backs to the task of making the best of their disciples, as if present formation and future destiny depended upon them alone." ■ That is true everywhere except in Ireland to-day It is particularly true in this country of stock-yard morality, of godless and spineless politicians, of dishonorable and lying pressmen, of filth-flinging parsons who are more bent on exciting hatred of Catholics than on teaching the people the gospel of Christ. And therefore, whatever the others may do, we must never relax our efforts to maintain the high moral and cultural standard of our Catholic schools. Religion depends on them. They are the keystones in the arch

President Harding's Advice to Journalists Americans have been criticising Harding's speeches rather adversely. They have found a want of origin*

ality and a lack of distinction and polish in his utterances, and they have contrasted him in this respect with Wilson. Wilson, with all his sounding rhetoric was a poor thing when all is said and done, and Harding need not regret being unlike him in diction if he is also unlike him in action. Whatever truth there be in the captious critics' complaints, Harding, who was a journalist, had a lofty ideal of the mission of the press, and he once drew up for his staff on the Marion Star a set of rules that deserves to be framed and exhibited in every editorial office in the world. Here they are, as published by America: "Remember there are two sides to a question. Get them both.

Be truthful. Get the facts

Mistakes are inevitable, but strive for accuracy. I would rather have one short story exactly right than a hundred half wrong. Be decent, be fair, be generous. Boost—don't knock. There's good in everybody. Bring out the good and never needlessly hurt the feelings of anybody. In reporting a political gathering give the facts, tell the story as it is, not as you would like to have it. Treat all parties alike. If there is any politics to be played we will play it in our editorial columns. Treat all religious matters reverently. If it can possibly be avoided never bring ignominy to an innocent man or child in telling of the misdeeds or misfortunes of a relative.

Don t wait to be asked, but do it without the asking, and, above all, be clean and never let a dirty word or suggestive story get into type. I want this paper so conducted that it can go into any home without destroying the innocence of any child." J

We endorse the editor of America, who says: "All honor to the President-elect for this noble code. May its underlying principles of reverence, justice, charity, and fair play for all dominate his own presidential career."

Duties of Parents

There are three natural duties binding on parents: theso are :

1. The Duty of Nurture; 2. The Duty of Protection; 3. The Duty of Education. 1. God endowed man with free-will and reason tor the carrying out of the designs of Providence For the perpetuation of the human race he gave to Adam the- precept: Increase and multiply. The free-will and the reason of the parents are thus involved in carrying out the design of God. The parents must use their reason and free-will to co-operate with God's will m this regard from the first moment of the child's being. From the first quickening of the child in her womb, the mother becomes responsible to God for another life besides her own. , That life is a human lite, and the mother's obligations extend to soul as well as to body 1 Inasmuch as the soul is more than the body the child's right to be born and baptised is greater than the mother's right to live. It is a supernatural duty, as well as a natural, for her to see that her child is bom alive: it is therefore a crime against nature for a doctor to destroy a child under such circumstances To neglect the proper care and nursing of the child is also a sin against nature. As head of the family, the father is responsible to God for his stewardship; therefore he is bound to see that the mother does not neglect the children. l. a' C l lild is Under the P ower of the fatn <»r, as head of the family. Until the child comes to the use of reason this paternal power is paramount. Power and responsibility go hand in hand; therefore the lathers responsibility is extremely great It is inalienable: he cannot get rid of it. He is bound to see that . the mother does .her duty; he is also bound to provide proper housing, food, and clothing for his children, according to their station in life. The Duty of Protection extends not only to the temporal' but

also to the spiritual welfare,:of the children. Husband and wife are trustees for God. y They are responsible - to God. It is - consequently the father’s duty to pre- ; I vent: any interference with his family that is not' justified by the laws of God. It ■ may be his duty to : resist , even, the ; State and to ; drive its agents from his home. The? State may help, him but it has no right whatever to usurp his authority, :as it is powerless to relieve him of his responsibility towards God. No Beck, no Parr, no tinkering busybody has any right to come between . a/father, or mother and his or her duties towards the. children. Any such interference must be resisted to 'the very end. Better be true to God and smash the State than be true to an unauthorised, unchristian authority and false to God and to self. The Christian father who does not see to it that his . children are brought up Christians is a renegade and a traitor. ,

3. Here we come to the question of Education. A man's children continue his own personality; therefore he is bound to give them such a mental, moral, and physical upbringing as will enable-them to lead good and useful lives. The Duty is on him and not on anyone else. He, not the State, is answerable to God. He is bound to see that the children are educated in accordance with the Law of God. The right of a parent being a natural right the State has no power to usurp it. A State monopoly in education is simply tyranny and every true man ought to resist such tyranny and crush it. Such tyranny is responsible for the destruction of home-life and for the ruin of the population of countries in which godless schools are foisted on the people by godless politicians.

The Orangeman's Liturgy The Orangeman's religion is to hate Papists and his chief act of devotion is to assemble in force and murder some defenceless Irishman about the time of the Glorious Twelfth. That is the date of the "annual brainstorm" which is as unavoidable as sneezing after snuff. On the Twelfth the Orange piety is at its highest, and even tepid and timid souls froth and fume and curse the Pope valiantly. To see Professor Dickie shambling along the street on ordinary days you would say that butter would not melt in his mouth. To watch Pastor Knox gliding by in his motor, you would say that the milk of human kindness was oozing out of him. But when the Twelfth comes we find that scratched Russians are tame compared with them. In hand with the "ecstasy" goes a ritual that is as sacred as the memory of King Billy. Carson offended not a little in the early days when he was rather clumsy in wielding the wildness of the Orangemen for Tory ends: he had not sufficient regard for processions and flags and curses; and he made an awful mistake when he had the impiety to substitute the hymn, O God Our Help in Ages Past, for the orthodox and canonical:

Sleeter, slaughter, Holy Water, Scatter the Papishes every one; When we go to battle The cannons will rattle, The Protestant boys will carry the drum.

Carson soon conned his brief .well and became as Orange as the rest < of them. . But the introduction of a foreign element into the camp has corrupted to some extent the original > purity of the Orange orgies. It was bad enough to have King Billy flanked by old Dizzy -in, times • ; gone.; but it is beyond the beyond altogether to : ; find * Carson and ' Galloper Smith among the saints ; now. And as a matter of fact, we are told that the image of the "bould , Galloper" is held fin just as high reverence:, now as the banners that bear the enlightened ; mottoes, "No Popery" : or " "To j Hell * with Sinn Fein!" The • Orangemen loved their ritual and rejoiced: in processions and bands and uniforms. In fact they were incapable of working themselves up to a proper pitch of insanity without such outward signs. :•; The curses v and the smashing of windows we're

in keeping with the noise of the drums—-and, of , the parsons. Only a man) wearing a busby and ': a vivid f sash .could i put the true note of fervor i; into his "To Hell* with the Pope!" It was Archbishop Whately 1 who said: "The very name of Orangeman is a sign chosen on purpose to keep up the memory of . a civil war,, which every friend of humanity v would wish to ;bury in oblivion. It is doing what among the heathen; was reckoned an accursed keeping : : a ' trophy in repair." . And Curran was no kinder when he described the Twelfth and its ritual as "the unrolling %of >a;i mummy— old bones and rotten rags." The Orangeman is the only person in the world—except a New Zealand Cabinet Minister of course— deems himself capable ,of improving on the Law of God. One Reverend Dr. Drew, & tall candlestick in the temple of King Billy, once gave birth to an opus magnum called Twenty Reasons for Being an Orangeman. Mr. Dooley says that a fanatic is a man who acts as he thinks God ought to act if He knew the whole facts of the case. Mr. Dooley's irreverent skit is illustrated beautifully by some of the Reverend Dr. Drew's lucubrations. Among- his "reasons" we read: ~ "Because -it cannot be otherwise, but that under the downward progress of British legislation God will be made angry, and the nation imperilled, Protestant unity and testimony are therefore required to deprecate God's indignation, and to bide the time of needful resistance."

Beautiful, isn't it ? But listen to this:

"Because all truckling to Popery has, in every instance, been attended with renewed clamor for further concessions in violation of pledges given by Roman Catholics."

Did anybody ever read such nonsense as that? And it written by a Reverend and grave Presbyter too! Yet, if we pause for a moment we will recognise something familiar in the jargon. Is it not the selfsame note of all-fired conceit, of superabounding, Pharasaical righteousness, of diabolical intolerance that is the ineffaceable character on the soul of the wowser whether in Armagh, Timbuctoo, or Ashburton? The words are the words of Dr. Drew, but the cheek is the cheek of an Elliott or a Nosworthy. Like the "Colonel's lady and Judy O'Grady" in the awful doggerel of that truly' British poet, Kipling, they are all the same under the skin, whether an Ulster sun or a Canterbury Nor'Wester smites them. The howling for a Referendum to enslave their fellows; the. frothing and fuming about drivirTg conscientious objectors to the slaughter; the circulation of filthy books and pamphlets, are all part and parcel of the creed of men who disregard the Law of God and the Law of Nature and set their own selfish notions as the standard by which all men must live. The Orange ritual is a queer thing, as we have seen. The Orange hymnology is a fearful thing too. . Just think you hear the chorus on a Holy Twelfth roaring out the popular song V; ( '

"We are the true-born sons of Levi, None on earth can with us compare ; We are the root and branch of Jesse, The bright and glorious morning star."

Imagine you hear a harmonised rendering of—

"Our master there he fills the chair, his : .rules and ; laws

_ we must obey, ->:■.•;■. •-■,-. ''' ■''" ; -.V As bur flags we hoist, The Protestant Boys 'is the •■' favorite tune "we play ;■■;' -r ■.•-;.-• •',' '">■ :^v s - The Highland Lad, Kick the Pope, Tartan Plaid, .'/.'• and Who'si Afraid!;■ ;i ; - v;^: ;. : ''': :,T '^ L '- v '' ; ; ; ''x'v;;','' ::::;: ' ;; ,;.' : ?

The Orange and Blue, Boyne Water r too, and that , favorite tune called Lisnagade. , \

And surely, the tender charity and the Christian; elevation of sentiment in the following would move a mule

"Come all ye blind-led Papists, wherever that ye be! Never bow down to priests or pope,' for them God will disown; ■ . "

Never bow down to images, or God you'll not adore, Come join our Orange heroes and cry ,'.' Dolly Brae 'V/C ino, more.' " ;•:•:/ : :;^£^f;s^ .

The logic of the Orangeman is as wonderful as his religion. His professed programme is "Equal rights for all and privileges for none." But just ask him if he thinks Catholics ought to, have fair representation in Parliament, among the judges, or even on the Belfast Corporation, and he will faint at the monstrous idea. He swears he is loyal and in the next breath he tells the King that he will kick his Crown into the Boyne if Orange privileges are not maintained. He calls the Sinn Feiners pro-German, while he worships King Billy and arms himself with Mauser rifles and invokes the protection of "a powerful European Potentate'" against British tyranny. He abhors bigotry and he will go round to business men asking them to dismiss Catholics from their employment. He talks of fair play and he pays a horsewhipped cad to calumniate dead women and to go round the country arousing sectarian strife at election times. You will ask if there is anything under the sun more abominable and more disgusting than such menand their female helpers. Well, there is: it is the politician who wilfully abets the Orangeman and creeps into position on so foul a ladder. Such is not unknown amongst us in this land over which the wowser crawls, an offence and a scandal to God and man.