CARDINAL MORAN ON BIBLE-INSCHOOLS.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1716, 5 April 1913, Page 6

CARDINAL MORAN ON BIBLE-IN-SCHOOLS.

Sir,—lii your issue of.'.November IC, again at recent date,. and ill . a league pamphlet, statements appear distorting Cardinal Jloran's attitude qn the Bible-in-schools question, with pointed personal reference lo me. As his intimate l'riend, 1 ask leave to reply. (1) No loyal Catholic, mucli less Cardinal Moran, could hold the league's sectarian and anti-Catholic dogma that it is tile Government's moral right and duty to toacli religion,-, or (in legal phase) to impart "religious instruction" and "gen-, oral religious teaching"' as a class-sub-ject. (2) At the Educational Conference in Sydney in April, 1001, Cardinal'Moran denounced the New South AValcs Government Scripture lessons as "garbled extracts" compiled for proselytising purposes by Archbishop Whately, "a professional proselytiser," and tho Rev. Cari j « tIIC vcrj ' ™ rsf; P rol s el ytiser in Ireland. (3) In. a .telegram read in tho Queensland Legislative Council on October 25, 1910, ho said. tliosa Government lessons "are avowedly Protestant, and are condemned by me and all Catholics." (4) In a letter- quoted in tho Queensland Legislative Council on November 1, 1910, tlio league organiser described tho opponents of his scheme as being "under .Cardinal Moran's banner." (5), At tho Catholic Educational Conference in Sydney 011 January 17-21, 1911, Cardinal ■Moran declared that the New South Wales system "from its inception, was hostile to tho Catholic Church"; that its iounder, Sir Ilenry Parks, had declared its object to bo "death to the calling of the priesthood of the Church of .Homo"; and that "it was unjust to ask. Catholics to send their children to schools which were avowedly for the purpose of destroying their faith." (Official report, pp. it, '49-50.) He reaffirmed the arclndiocesan law against tho clorgy teaching religionin the public schools—they should "bring the children to a neighbouring church or house or elsewhere. . . . They must make it plain that there wai no peace with the system as far as Catholics were concerned." (Official report, p. 10.) . "Tho reports of the Education Dcparttncut," said lie, "make it appear that they had paid 900 such visits'last year. Those visits were in tho remote country districts, wlioro there were no Catholio schools, and whero tho children were .obliged-.to attend State schools. The priests merely called at the schools to assemble the children for preparation for the Sacraments, but did not actually •teach them in the schoolroom, taking them to a neighbouring house, if available, or otherwise gathering them under a gum-tree." (Official report, p. 31.) "(G) 1 personally know that Cardinal Moran objected vehemently to tho league's Irish proselytising conscience clause,. and (on ■ grounds of Catholic tlnjology) to compelling teachers to impart "general religious teaching" which their consciences forbade. ' (7) I know from tho Cardinal personally, from a teacher present (whoso evidence is available), and from the condensed newspaper report, that he took up the following attitude at tho confercnco of 1901: (a) As the law (which ho bitterly resented) stood, it | would' bo "a • vast improvement" (as mitigating somewhat the dangers of State proselytism) to substitute "the four Gospels" for tho Irish proselytisers' "garbled extracts", (b) "In tho matter of expense," said ho, "I do not think it .is a matter in which tho State should bo cailcd upon at all; I. think eacli denomination would bo ablo to present its own children with the necessary, books." Tho Cardinal 6ternly opposed objectors having to pay foi* the endowment of Protestant "religious teaching." He offered to supply at his own expense (as wo do where we can) "Douay" Gospels to Catholio children. 13ut, faithful to oonscicnce and Church law, he never contemplated Catholic children being. taught Scripture lessons by Stato officials of all creeds and of none. Liko all Catholics, he believed in religious instruction' for ' 'public-schoolJ children, 'on lair, all-round conditions. There' is : no 'divergence,i inl substance, be-"twceir'-hi.i "views' UM ; those ; expressed _by me, 'ami, in 1901, by the Catholic Hierarchy of Now Zealand. —I am, etc., HENRY W. CLEAItr, D.D., • Bishop of Auckland. - April 2. '