A CATHOLIC PROTEST

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 139, 10 December 1930, Page 6

A CATHOLIC PROTEST

(To the Editor.) Sir, —In your issue of 2Gth November "H.E/'.says'.tbat I must answer tlie argument tiiat tlie State schools could absorb the whole of the-children.in the Homan Catholic schools -by taking, on the average,; seven .children into each school. Assuming that this statement is true, what difference does it make?/ It does not affect the position, one iota, because, the Catholic claim for State aid does riot rest upon the score of expense or economy, but upon the firm foundation of common justice. Your correspondent states that Roman Catholic schools are established as a matter of faith and conscience. If he means that it is a matter of conscience tht Catholic parents should seutl their children to Catholic schools, lie is quite correct. He then asks why Catholics should raise the cry of inju^ tice when asked to pay for carrying out their religious principles. The answer to that is that Catholics'have never objected to paying for their religious principles. They pay to-day with their money. "H.E." then asks a question, the answer to which leaves him without a leg to stand on. He says: "Have they (tlie Catholics) any right to expect that the other sections of the community will pay for their religious observances?" My answer is first, that they have no such right; secondly, that they do not claim it; and. thirdly, that, if this is so, then have the other sections of the community any right to expect that Catholics, in addition to paying for their own system of education, should contribute through taxation to the maintenance of another system of which they cannot take advantage. He states that in every country in which the Catholic Church has the influence, she insists that no schools shall be established, but those in which her own religion is taught. I answer that there is not a country on earth in which the Church has that power. —I am, 'etc., J.B.Q. sth December, 1930. [This correspondence is now closed.— Ed".] .