Prohibition and the Catholic Church

Horowhenua Chronicle, 4 December 1911, Page 2

Prohibition and the Catholic Church

CIRCULAR FROM THE ARCHBISHOP. REV. FATHER COSTELLO ON THE MOVEMENT. At St. Patrick's Clmrcli, Palmrston North, yesterday the Rev. Father Costello read the following circular letter which he received from Archbishop Redwood on the previous evening:—

"The leaders of the No-license party have publicly declared that if National Prohibition is carried one of the results will be that after about ten years, no wine, even for medicinal "or sacramental purposes, will be allowed into the dominion. As tliis would 1 render the celebration of Mass 'impossible, we feel obliged to warn our people against Prohibition and to warn them not to vote for it."

Tt appears that the Rev. B. S. Hammond, in reply to a questioner at Ashburton, said that his party contended that liquor was an evil in itself and asked as to what the Prohibition party would do, in such case regarding tho three exemptions under dominion prohibition, said:

"When we carry prohibition, a few years after we will have the majority of the people educated to the extent that the doctors will throw alcohol out for medicinal purposes; the churches will not use it for sacramental purposes, and it will not bo necessary for industrial purposes. Then will come the repeal of the exemption clauses—in "a matter of about ten years."

The Rev. Father Costello, commenting on the circular and the.se facts, said that two leaders of the Prohibition party had tlnus spoken of repealing the clause under which wino used in the sacrifice of the Mass oould be procured. The result would be that they, as Catholics, following Christ's precept, could have no Mass for the transubstantiation of the elements of bread and wine as effected by Christ at the last supper which was an essential of the sacrifice of the Mass in the Roman Catholic Church. Under such circumstances they could not Vote for prohibition. The Catholic Church everywhere stood for temperance. The constituents of wine were provided by the Creator—for the use of man, and if these clerical gentlemen said that wino was in itself evil then they either oould not know what the Scriptures taught regarding it or they must regard Christ Himself as a bad man, for the first miracle which Christ had performed was to transform water into wine at the marriage feast, at the urging of His Mother, and it was such good wine that the Steward had said to the Bridegroom that he (had kept the best wine to the last. And at His last supper He again directed that the wine should be used in communion as His blood in an eternal sacrifice. There was not, as these clerical gentlemen said, evil in wine itself. There was evil in the abuse of it and for those who could not take ite temperately, the church counselled teetotalism, which was a good thing, but it should be adopted with free will. He believed that his people oould take it temperately and there was not a practical Catholic in this congregation who was a drunkard. No good was done by compulsion in such, matters. Reform must oome by the exercise of free will, and by strengthening the will, not by prohibition, which was the negation of free will and the creation of a tyranny.