BISHOP STROSSMAYER.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2706, 19 October 1871, Page 2

BISHOP STROSSMAYER.

To the Editor. Sir, —Several of your correspondents seem to be sorely annoyed with me because I have ha I the charity to endeavor to set the public right in reference to a speech said to be delivered by Bishop Stroaemayer in the Vatican Council. This surprises me very much, as they owe me a debt of gratitude for having been at the trouble to save them from being dupes and the slaves of errors, as well as the laughing stocks of all well informed persons. It seems to me, however, that some at least ot them would prefer to be both dupes and slaves rather than to be just and truthful and correct in heir information in reference to the Catholic Church. Your correspondents will not believe me, but they will credit a transparent hoax, and make themselves ridiculous. Well there is no accounting for tastes, and all I can say is the taste of your correspondents is somewhat peculiar. The following extract, though it may exasperate the bigotry of your correspondents, will not fail to interest them as well as others. I give it because it contains a Pi utestaut’s opinion on this celebrated imposture—the pretended speech of Bishop Strosmayer. The extract is from the Weekly Register, p. 9, of July 8, and is as follows - “A letter in the Church Herald of Wednesday, and signed ‘An Anglo-Catholic Layman,’ calls attention to what the Guardian published last week, and is now called an impudent Italian hoax. The writer says in the Church Herald—' Quiruins ’ gives pretty fully both the speeches the Bishop made ia the Council, with neither of which is the canard of your contemporary by any means reconcileable. The translation has ia it iuhere»t evidence of its being thoroughly fallacious ; and for my part I know it to be so. (Such impositions can only be available for the moment, and I cannot but think that they are injurious to the Anglican Church’s cause. Certainly there is great blame attached to those, whoever they are, that have been parties to a ‘translation’ which so grossly misrepresents the language of the Bishop to whom the speech in question is attributed. To this the Weekly Register . a great Catholic authority, itself adds :— ‘ We may add that it is probably hardly more mendacious than those very letters of ‘ Quirinus,” on wbicli an ‘Anglo Catholic Layman ’ relies as his authority for testing the truth or falsehood of such documents.”

Your correspondent “Layman,” in his letter published last night, concludes thus, “ Note further, if he, tiie watchful shepherd, be an Ultramoutapist or Jesuit, who believestbat the end justifies the means, bow it will add to bjs earnestness, hpw it will worry his mind to utter disregard of everything,” &c., &c. This, sir, is a repetition of an old and oft refuted calumny. Neither Ultramontauists nor Jesuits hold the “eud justifies the means.” The Catholic Church holds and teaches the contrary to this—viz. that the end never justifies the means ; and I defy Layman or any other man to put his linger on one passage in any theological work recognised in the Church, which justifies him in saying that the Church teaches that “ the end justifies the means.” But, sir, I am prepared to give you extracts from Protestant writers who hold that doctrine. And I say it is a grievous injustice in Protestants to charge their own abominations on Catholics.—l am See. f P. MORAN, Bishop of Dunedin. Oct, 19th, 1871. To the Editor. Sib, —In your paper of the 11th inst. you published a speech purporting to have been delivered by Bishop Strossmayer (one of the Hungarian Bishops) in the Vatican Council held at Rome. Tnere is no doubt whatever from the manner in which the speech was reported, it was a mere fabrication, and nothing less than another weak invention of the eae* mies of the Catholic Faith. That the speech in question could never have been delivered is certain, as it is the belief (and has been for centuries) in the Catho'ic Church, that the head of the Church is infallible. I also notice that some poor illiterate bigots do really believe that the speech was delivered. Even in this evening’s paper I notice a letter signed “F. H. G.,” in which the writer forgot to mention the subject on which he was writing about: no doubt he was in a great hurry to rush into print. But I can only inform your correspondents that a doctrine that is supported by 800,000,000 of Christians must he true ; while on the other hand there are only 50,000,000 of Protestants, and even then not more than 5,000,000 can agree on any one doctrine. Even the members of the Church of England (the most respectable of the reformed churches), seeing that tbeirreligion is daily engendering “ Mormonism,” “ Intidelism,” “ Presbyterianism,'’ and a host of other irreligious “isms,” are returning to the bosom of the Mother Church, which they to foolishly abandoned. v In conclusion, I would advice and others to read Archbishop Machale s Evidences and Doctrines of the Catholic Church before going to print again. I am, &c., C. October 18, 18G7.