BISHOP MORAN AND EDUCATION.

Evening Star, Issue 3428, 16 February 1874, Page 3

BISHOP MORAN AND EDUCATION.

Bishop Moran’s Lenten Pastoral for 1874 was read at St. Joseph’s yesterday. The portin of it dealing with education is as follow :

On pievious occasions we called your attention to the all-important question of education, and urged on you the necessity of providing Catholic schools for Catholic chil- \ I ll **, v * s coll ßoling and encouraging to be aMe to bear witness to the docility and zeal witn which you have responded to this cal'. Although comparatively few and poor, you have established and maintained many excellent schools for both sexes, and, in most places, at your own sole expense. But though milch has been done, the work, it may with truth be said, has only commenced. Nothing like adequate provision for even the most elementary education of our children has yet been made Renewed exertions, therefore, will b e demanded of all ; and the faithful of these dioceses will have to prepare themselves for great sacrifices, in order to hand down to their children the faith once delivered to the saints, and without which “it is impossible to please God.”—Heb. xi., v. 6. You must trust in God and your pwn exertions alone; fropa the Governpiepts- Pifovin-

cial and General—you can expect nothing. In some of the smaller Provinces, an attempt is made to do justice to Catholics, and to give them some sha> e of the taxes they pay for the maintenance of schools, by granting us subsidies in a few instances. But in the larger, such as Otago and Canterbury, the Government refuse us all aid. It must be said, however, that everywhere the system of education supported by the State throughout this Colony is anti-Catholic. So far as we are concerned, all Government schools in these Dioceses are Godless an I hostile to the Catholic Church. Cathohcr cannot frequent them without exposing themselves to grievous danger to their faith and morals. Of these schools, therefore, Catholics cannot avail themselves except in cases of very great necessity, and when—such necessity being supposed - every possible precaution is taken to ward off all dangers to faith an 1 morals. Parents and guardians should bear in mind that they are responsihible for the children under their charge, and often reflect on these words of the Apostle : “He that neglects his own, particularly those of his own household, has lost the faith, and. is become worse than an infideland again on these words of our Divine Master : “ What will it avail a man to gain the whole world if he lose his own soul; or what will a man give in exchange for his soul!” We, therefore, most earnestly exhort all to exert themselves to establish and maintain efficient Catholic schools where it is possible to do so ; and we call upon the clergy—who, indeed, have not been wanting in this matter—to exert themselves with the greatest zeal and perseverance in the great cause of Catholic education. Nothing but such an education can save the rising generation from tbe baneful influence of the infidel systems of education so characteristic of this century, and so fashionable in this Colony.