DU MORAN’S EXPLANATION.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2658, 24 August 1871, Page 2

DU MORAN’S EXPLANATION.

To the Editor. Sir, — You will permit me, I hope, to say a few words iu reference to your lender this evening. 1 regret to perceive you labour under the impression that it conduces to the advancement of litre ty of thought and the promotion of the public good to teach Catholic children in their tender years to believe falsehoods of their religion, its ministers, and their Catholic ancestors. My idea is, audia this I am supported by the highest authority, that te be under the influence of error is the greatest slavery, and that it is truth alone which makes man really free. But it sc ms your idea is that liberty of thought and the public good demand that Htt e children from their tendercst years should bo taught to despise and abhor the Cath ilie Church, and to admire and revere her persecutors and calumniators This, no doubt, is putting the que tiou you take in your leader strongly, but c msidciing what we a e contending for and the circumstances under which we contend, my way of putting the case, a'though strong, is fully warranted. You s y. too, that many of the clergy arc the enemies of science. If you mean to include the Catholic clergy you misrepresent the f.-ct and do that illustrious body a grievous wrong. The Catholic clergy have ever been, as I trust they always will be, the enemies of false science and the absurdities of would-be scientific men, who being only half-instructed and a little learned so frequently exemplify the old sa}'iug that “a little learning is a dangerous thing.” It appears to me that veiy many of the public writers of the day s era to forget what the clergy hat'o done in every age for the preservation and advancement of learning, and tint even in modern times, from the days of Copernicus, the Jesuit priest, to the present time, when another Jesuit, Padre Sccehi, stands at the head of the scientific men of Europe, the clerical body has produced many of the most scientific men. You write as if we knew nothing, cared for nothing but ignorance—and this iu the face of genuine history. Now, sir, I beg to enter my most strenuous protest against this style of writing. You conclude your leader thus —“No State has a right to support such a system denominational by endowing it with funds.” This amounts to saying that the S:ate is something distinct and apart from its citizens, and that it possesses funds independently of its citizens. It is hardly likely the citizens of a free State will endorse such a principle. As to us Catholics, our demand is simply that the State, which t.ixez us for education ebaU i ot establish a

system which excludes us. We only ask our own, and it is untrue to say we call on the State to aid our religion. Catholics are prepared to give in their schools as good a secular education as is given elsewhere : ou what principle of justice, then, can you deprive them of their fair share of the expenditure of common taxation ? I am, &c., f P. Moran, Bishop of Dunedin, August 23.