CORRESPONDENCE.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume II, Issue 200, 29 August 1874, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

[Oar columns are open for free discussion; but we do not hold ourselves responsible for the opinions of our Correspondents.]

to the editor. Sir, —I see by an extract in your paper from the New Zealand Tablet, that the Roman Catholic Bishop of Wellington, Redwood by name, has been indulging in the annual Roman Catholic pastime of freely consigning everybody outside his own Church to damnation and the devil. Of course we all know this is nothing new, as every year the same thing is done, and Ecclesiastical Billingsgate by the shipload is hurled at all unbelievers in the Papacy, to the harm of no one. The gentle Redwood, however, “meekly and sorrowfully,” to use his own words, directs his vonom more especially against -Protestantism and Freemasonry, both of which the “ meek and sorrowful ” one designates “ Hell-born,” with “ Satan their invisible Head.” Now, I want to ask this charitable Bishop, who has such intimate acquaintance with the movements of his Satanic Majesty, whether he is aware that if Masons are “ Hell-born,” so is the Popo; if Masons have the “Devil for their invisible Head,” so has the Pope ? For the Pope is a Freemason, as the following extract from a Home paper will show: —

“It has been known long ago that Pio IX was at one time a Freemason. The minute taken at his reception into the order has been published in German and Foreign papers. But the thing which is new is a protest coming from the old Scotch Lodge at Palermo against the anathema hurled in the Syllabus and Encyclical against Freemasonry, in which we find the following passage ‘ There was a man of the name of Mastai Ferretti, who received the baptism of Freemasonry, and swore love and brotherhood to his brethren. The same man was afterwards appointed Pope King, and as such now hurls his curse and excommunication against the Freemasons. This curse and excommunication, by which he makes himself perjured, must fall on his own head.’ ”

Hoping, but scarcely believing, this amiable Bishop will learn the charity of St. Peter, who said “ God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth Him and worketh righteousness is accepted of Him.”— I am, &e., A Mason. Gisborne, August 27, 1874.