BISHOP MORAN AS A POLITICIAN.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3594, 18 January 1883, Page 4

BISHOP MORAN AS A POLITICIAN.

"Civis," in the Otago Witness, is rather severe on Bishop Moran's candidature for Peninsula, He says :—" The Bishop's descent into the arena of active politics is a bit of quixotism intended to prove that the ag-e of chivalry is not past. No one supposes that the Bishop can expect to be elected for the peninsula. He merely offers himself for martyrdom, hoping that the (spectacle of their Bishop at the bottom of the poll will whip up the flagging fervour of Catholics on the education question. It seems impossible for a good Catholic layman to become a politician and remain a good Catholic. Mr Sheehan is a backslider and impenitent; Mr Donnelly calmly announces his intention of sinning for two years at least—-will not disturb the existing system during the next two sessions. The blossoms of faith arc safe, it seems, only in the hot-house in which they are reared. The moment they are earned into the chill air of practical politics they wither and die. The Catholic hierarchy, disappointed in its own children, is constrained to accept the service of Gallios like Mr Vincent Pyke, who in reality care for none of these things, —professional politicians who, for any depth of conviction they possess, would find it as easy to serve on one side as on the other. "With Bishop Moran's candidature for the Peninsula the education struggle enters on a new phase. The Catholic cause wanted a martyr, and no one can be martyred in the Catholic cause with such moral effect as the Catholic Bishop. Wordly critics say the Bishop will not go to the poll. I devoutly hope that he will. He will be beaten, but defeat ought to be worth more to him than victory. If he is wise the Bishop will get himself beaten at every election in Otago for a series of years to come. After such a course of experience he will understand, what few ecclesiastics do understand, (he difference in politics between the ideal and the practicable. In the interests of his own education, if not in those of the education question, Bishop Moran ought to go to the poll. His political crucifixion will not be a particularly painful one, and in the meantime we may expect some good fun."