MISSIONS IN TONGA

Hokitika Guardian, 28 November 1930, Page 7

MISSIONS IN TONGA

REPLY TO CRITIC. CONDITIONS IN THE GROUP. WELLINGTON, November 26. A defence of the work of missionaries in the Tongan Group was made to-day by Air J. C. Rich in. reply to Mr G. W. Allsop, a retired Auckland architect who declared on his return from the islands that missionaries were living in luxury. Mr Rich said that it was a common practice to-day to malign missionaries and the interview given in the Press as reported in a message from Auckland was in accordance with practice. Air Alison’s remarks exaggerated the position and his knowledge seemed to have been gained in Nukualofa, where ATr Rich suspected that he listened to the cynical, embittered gentlemen who were familiar personalities on the bench and envious of the traders who competed with the missionaries for the natives’ dollars. ATr Rich described the life and conditions of the Tongans. In the country, the church was the natives’ chief social recreation, and in up-country villages it took the place of the movie house, such as their more fortunate brethren ill Nukualofa enjoyed. A TYPICAL AHLLAGE. "A couple of wooden churches, the size of a drawing room of a bungalow, a couple of native parsons, who live principally by working their small plantations such is the typical village parish in Afalapo,” he said. “For instance, there are two small churches on a rise almost touching each other. The village contains but a dozen families or so, perhaps fifty people, hut the church is conducted by native parsons who are villagers, not white missionerics ‘living in the lap of luxury.’ “A visitor passing through the village is certainly surprised upon seeing two churches and but few houses, especially as some of the houses are hidden by vegetation, and it is one of

the smallest villages,” -added Air Rich. “In Aina, the largest village, containing, a few thousand inhabitants, there is a large Roman Catholic church and it is an imposing structure. Perhaps the altar did cost £4OO, the price Air AiJsop quotes as the cost of some of the altars in Tongan churches, but there is another side of the story. A French Father spent the best of his life-time building that church. He laboured for twenty-seven years, living alone in the village and working with a party of converts, cutting up coral blocks and then conveying them to the site of the d;urch. Gradually, with many difficulties, he at last realised his ambition, a handsome Catholic church for all time.”

MISSION DEAR TO CATHOLICS

- AUCKLAND, November 26,

“J. was amazed to read Mr G-. W. Allsop’s scathing indictment of the missionaries in the Tongan Group,” says the Rev. Father M’Grath, S.M., of the Marist Mission House, Mount Albert, in a letter received from him this morning. Father M’Grath says that lie has forwarded Mr Allsop’s comments to the Right Rev. Dr Blanc, S.M., Vicar Apostolic for the Marist Missions in Central Oceania. “I may say that this is a mission particularly dear to every Catholic in so far as, while yet part of the vicarite which had our own Kororareka for its centre, it was sanctified by the martyrdom of Fntuna of Blessed Peter Channel, one of the original Marist Fathers,” states Father M’Grath. “It was founded in sacrifice by .Bishop Pompallier, the first Bishop of Auckland. Dr Viard, the first Bishop of Wellington, was also one of the pioneers of this mission, and such was his zeal for the natives that he had to leave them by stealth to take over the see of Auckland during Dr Pompallier’s protracted visit to Europe in 1846. Mr Alison would have us believe that names like Chevron, Chanel. Pompallier, Viard and Bataillon have become a pale memory amongst their successors in central Oceania. "INVASION,!OF OTHER SECTS.” “Miss D. E. Ferguson, in her reply to Mr Allsop, refers to the invasion of the other, sects fifty years after the establishment of Methodism in Tonga. If by sects she means religious denominations is necessary to correct this statement. Father, Chevron arrived in Tonga from Kororareka in 1842. The Catholic missionaries who - have come under Mr Allsop’s lash consist of fourteen Marist fathers, six native priests and thirty-four sisters (Marist sisters and sisters of the Third Order Regular of Mary). The Third Order Sisters are the game who have won the wholehearted approval of the Dominion for their devoted work for the lepers of Makogai. OriS of these sisters has left ‘the lap of luxury'/ and is at present a patient of the Matei* Hospital. Few will feel gratified that this victim of missionary zenl is at present our guest to receive first hand a New Zealander’s view of her missionary order. "Mr Allsop makes no qualification in his denunciation of the Tongan missonaries. With regard to stagnation and salaries let me say that there aie 10,186 Catholics in, the vicariate under Dr Blancs’ pastoral care. Last year on this mission twenty adults and 421 children were baptized, seventy-four marriages were solmenisod, 320 candidates received confirmation and over 200,000 Holy Communions were administered. I challenge Mr Allsop to prove that any Marist missionary under Dr Blanc’s administration is in receipt of a salary in excess of £4O a year.”