ST. PATRICK AND LEAP YEAR.

Putaruru Press, Volume VI, Issue 230, 29 March 1928, Page 2

ST. PATRICK AND LEAP YEAR.

ENGLISH PAPER’S VERSION. , Under the heading “ Back to its Vomit,” the Tablet writes:—“Now and then the Dunedin Star publishes something insulting to Catholics and. over the line defined by gentlemanly ideals. Last week, In an article containing scurrilous and ill-informed references to St. Patrick and St. Brigid, it once more imitated the mongrel of which St. Peter has told us. That the extract in question was borrowed from an English rag in no way excuses the Star. The historical and theological inaccuracies of the writer of the sacrilegious screed are so glaring that even a Jew might have been expected to detect them. Any beginner could have informed the author that the law of celibacy was promulgated in the Western Church at least in the century before St. Patrick’s arrival in Ireland, and that in all probability it went right back to | apostolic ages, although it was rath- I er a custom than a written law be- ! fore the reign of Pope Siricius, who, I in his letter to Himmerus of Tarragona, clearly says that “ from the day of their ordination all priests and levites are bound indissolubly by this precept,” which, though of ecclestistical origin, may have been an apostolic tradition. Whatever doubts there may be concerning the vigor of the law in the first three centuries, there can be no doubt whatever as to the insult offered to Irish Catholics j this month by a newspaper that is 1 degraded enough to publish such J scurrility. Many things may be ex- , cused on the plea of ignorance, but j where a violation of the elementary principles of decency is concerned even crass ignorance will hardly be taken as an excuse. One could not imagine a pagan writer of ancient Rome or Greece lowering himself to the level sought with such apparent affection by some of our modern products of British Kultur.”