CORRESPONDENCE. BISHOP CLEARY ON BIBLE-INSCHOOLS “PROSELYTISM.”

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 59, 11 March 1913, Page 6

CORRESPONDENCE.

BISHOP CLEARY ON BIBLE-IN-SCHOOLS “PROSELYTISM.”

(To the Editor “Sttatford Post.”)

Sir, —I desire to draw attention to the fact that I have recently been incorrectly quoted by the rev. organiser of the Bible-in-Schools League. 1 correctly quoted him as boasting before tho Presbyterian Assembly that ‘.‘32,000 Roman Catholic children, with hardly an exception, read Scripture lessons in the schools” of New South Wales. The quoted words were taken from two verbatim reports of his speech, and I have before me at least a dozen similar statements of his and of League pamphlets. I added that this means, “in other Words,” that these children “have been successfully proselytised into violation of the faith and discipline of the Church of their Baptism.” This is also quite correct. Catholic faith is opposed to tho sectarian doctrines of “private judgment” and of the moral right of the Government to teach religions—or (as the law terms it) to impart “religious instruction” and “general religious teaching.” Catholic ecclesiastical law is also against Catholics reading or explaining unapproved Bible versions, or taking part in tho New South Wales sectarian instruction and worship described in a League pamphlet by Rev. A. Don.

The League has adopted, in aggravated form, the conscience 'clause devised by astute Irish proselytisers for the declared purpose of “weaning the Irish from the abuses of Popery.” That conscience clause legally embodies the following cunning falsehood: That all parents, Protestants, Catholics, Jews, etc., who fail to protest in writing against this State “religious instruction,” thereby demand or approve that “religious instruction” for their children in the public schools! And, without consulting parents, the Government requires the children to accept this “religious instruction.” That disreputable Irish conscience clause is, on the face of it, clearly intended to capture for sectarian instruction among others, the children of objecting parents who (as formerly in Otago) are unaware of the right of withdrawal; the children of objectors who cannot write, or who merely neglect or put off writing, or who are naturally shy about exhibiting their bad spelling and bad writing to critical teachers, or who belong to the fairly numerous class who would write a letter (so to speak) only at the point of the bayonet. The Irish Proselytisers’ conscience clause is also plainly intended to capture children who (even with written protests) forget or neglect to deliver them, or who (in the usual childish way) “do as the rest do,” or who (in one-roomed schools) have either to attend “religious instruction” or to stand outside, exposed, perhaps, to rain, sleet, or snow.

If parents want State “religious instruction,” they may be presumed to ask for it. There is no evidence that Catholic parents in New South Wales either asked for or approved such “religious teaching.” That false and cunning conscience clause provides legal machinery for proselytising the children of non-approving as well as approving Catholic, Jewish, and other parents. No wonder indignant New South Wales Catholics are year by year so eagerly demanding more and ever more Catholic schools to save their children from proselytism by Act of Parliament. There, as here, Catholics are strong advocates of Biblical and religious instruction in the public schools—but not on the League’s unjust terms. —I am, etc., HENRY W. CLEARY, D.D., Bishop of Auckland. March 6th