HEATED LANGUAGE.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 736, 8 February 1910, Page 5

HEATED LANGUAGE.

MINISTER' AND , CARDINAL.' SCRIPTURE: LESSONS IN SCHOOLS. By Tetogranh—Press Association—Coprrleht. : Sydney, February 7. The Hon. J. A. Hogne, Now South Wales Minister for - Education, replying to Cardinal Moran's: attack (cabled yesterday and dealing with the ■ "irreligiousness" of the Scripture lessons"given ■ in the public schools) stated:—:■'■ "!■ 'The Cardinal has broken out again ■ once; more),'breathing; out of myself.; After a fortnight' of muffins- and meditation,: he has - come forth: spiritually .refreshed from- his beatified: retreat, and: as rosult of his communings l with samta and the Pnnco of Peace he has invited me to rtread on the tail of hi 6 episcopal coat. Ho keeps on" damning our. educationsystem' with all . the . renewed , strength his cloister training' can" give .him.- : - Our system, of non-sectarian : education is tho 'stereotyped brand of infidelity and agnosticism.'." . ■ ' . ~ . I : . ;, Accusedi of Falsehood; ■ They had heard nonsense of this kind before, continued • Mr.' Hogne. It had been sufficiently - convincingly ; answered; and it was enough to say that-the sys-' tem of education waa based on' the deliberately expressed will of the people/ The Cardinal had ohaTged him with doliberate falsehood,, the Minister l went on; He had ecaroely expected such language from one who-had 1 como clothed in: the special sanctity of spiritual retreat, anil he supposed, if ho were to tell the Cardinal that such language was anti-Chris-tian, ,the latter would reply that that was a matter r he (Mr. HognoV knov nothing about. Ho doubted, however, whether, people, would accept Cardinal Moran as an ; authority on the qualifications; of a Minister for Education. • 1

Proceeding, .the Minister said: fTho Cardinal . will wait many weary days, take many, mora prayerful retreats, before he sees i&e Australian Legislature so fast' in the' grip of his or. any other Church as to hand over the work of education from the -State to the religious denominations. v ' ' . -. V-"'-'

" History and Religion. • ; ♦'The' Cardinal has found 'faulb with the'books, used, It might be very agreeable all round if , ho would say how the history of Europe could bo treated without reference to the, Reformation and Martin Luther, the Huguenot massacres, sales of indulgences,.. the Armada, -the Inquisition, , and such things;,-but it would cot be history.lt might be agreeable if it were solemnly taught, that the . Reformation - was unnecessary, -• that Luther was a crank—a sort of disc'on-' tented strike, agitator—that • thq: sales of indulgences: weremyths, and: -that- . the Catholic priesthood of the sixteenth century waa as pure .'and spotless as those who go into' retreat in the twentieth; that: the _ Armada was a defensive act that tho Church had nothing to 1 do with the massacre ■ of St. Bartholomew, and' that the .'.pope: never '■ ordered' the striking of a medal to commemorate the butchery. .

1 "Cardinal Moran. declares that ho has no fear of Catholio children being proselytised. Then' what, does. he: complain o£ f : He -is constantly attacking our schools.; If. his accusations'; agaitist the schools were.tine, would Catholic' teachers remain in -the service, or : Catholic parents allow- their'children to attend' Assuredly not.They, knbw that the fulminations against the schools are not jus--SwA .attacks'.do] no service to Christianity, and they do no harm to our schools." ..

,2 of .falsehood or (alternatively) of imorance made- by Cardinal Moran against the Minister for Education was ■ as .follows in yesterday's Minister'for Wation had sanl that the lessons were the joint production of Anglican and Roman Catholie prelates—Archbishop Whateley and Bishop Murray. /That statement was a falsehood, and such a barefaced one that the .Minister either made it knowing it to be false—and,'if so, ho wns unfit for the place lie held—or else ■ ho made the statement through' inconceivable ignorance—in which case lie was educationally not- qualified to be Minister for Eduoation."]