THE "CATHOLIC VOTE"

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22520, 30 September 1938, Page 12

THE "CATHOLIC VOTE"

EXISTENCE DENIED ARTICLE PUBLISHED DC "ZEALANDIA" RELIGION IN POLITICS NOT COUNTENANCED [XH« PRESS 'Special Service.! AUCKLAND, September 29. The existence of any such thing as the Catholic vote in the present General Election, or at any other time, is emphatically denied in an editorial in this week's . issue of "Zealandia," the journal conducted by Bishop Liston. The article states that "a familiar organisation, emerging from its well deserved obscurity" has been endeavouring by chain letters, pamphlets, circulars, and rumour to attach "some elusive commodity described as the Catholic vote to one of the major political Pa it Continues: "The Catholic voter records his vote freely as a citizen, without any interference or direction from ecclesiastical authority. That situation which is commonly understood as , : 'religion in has "never been countenanced by the Church. '., * ;- . . "As the list of: the Dominion's Parliamentary ' candidates shows, both political parties have Catholics among their nominees, which fact should be sufficient indication, if such were needed, of the freedom of choice which Catholics hold and exercise. In exercising their political rights Catholics do so, each' in. his own individual capacity, not as representing the Church. In a later passage the article states: "We would remind Catholic electors that the leaders of both political parties have emphatically repudiated any connexion with the sectarian campaign that is now in being. More than that, they have expressed the strongest condemnation of both the spirit and methods of this unscrupulous strife mongering."