PRIEST AND PRESS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 450, 6 February 1909, Page 3

PRIEST AND PRESS.

Some time ago Mr Coleman Phillips, of Carterton, wrote a long letter to the New Zealand Times, in which he expressed some views on theology and earthquakes, and gave free play to his own ideas. The letter was prompted by the Messina earthquake, and appeared in the New Zealand Times on January 26th. Now Father Hickson, who happens to be administrator to the local Roman Catholic diocese, took strong exception to the letter, and communicated thus ’•• ; th the editor of the Times: —

. ‘the publication of the letter, as asuoscriber, I must take strong exception. In fact, if anything further of the same nature were to appear, I should have to seriously consider the advisability of counselling those uuder ray care not to admit your paper into their homes. I do not say this exactly by way of threat, but rather to indicate to you how pernicious I believe to be the publication of such matter. I should be pleased to have a statement from you in answer to this letter.”

The editor wrote in reply, saying he intended publishing Father Hickson’s letter, and adding:— If you disagree with the views of any writer in these columns it is quite competent for you to place your protest on record. If I hear of any instance in which you counsel those under your care not to admit my paper into their homes’ I will take such steps as will be calculated to preserve its interests, and at the same time expose the peculiar tactics to which you have threatened to resort. In absence of your expressed wish to the contrary I propose to publish your letter of January 28th.” Father Hickson offered no objection, and the editor sent him a note, some of which reads as

follows:

your right as a subscriber to protest against the publication of Mr Phillips’s letter, I did, and do, take strong exception to your threat of intimidation by a priest that he will ‘ seriously consider the advisability of counselling those under my care not to admit your paper into their homes.’ This presupposes, firstly, that individual members of your congregation are unfitted, by lack of of intelligence or education, to determine for themselves what they shall accept or reject as true, or false, in a large matter with which they are familiarised by perusual of the daily newspapers, and, secondly, that you have the right to dictate to them not only as to what they shall read, but also as to what newspaper they shall take into their homes. Pardon me for suggesting that this is a very ill-advised action for any priest or leader to take up. The time was when certain individuals and sects arrogated to themselves the right to dictate to those less enlightened what they were to know and believe, but in in these days any such presumption would be met with stern resentment, and men and women can no longer be treated as ignorant children.” ■