JOURNAL ATTACKED

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1073, 10 September 1930, Page 7

JOURNAL ATTACKED

“ROMAN CATHOLIC PROPAGANDA” MALTA QUESTION REVIEWED j Strong exception to the propaganda ! methods of “The Month,” the AuekI land organ of the Roman Catholic ; Church, was taken by the Rev. W. } Lawson Marsh, at a meeting of the ! Auckland Presbytery last, evening. | There was little discussion, the ques- | tion being referred to the public I questions committee for report to a | special meeting in a fortnight’s time. | Mr. Marsh based his attack on the ! leading article of the latest issue, from which, he considers, it was plain that the journal existed for the purpose of propaganda, rather than as a denominational journal. The same issue contained an article by the Rt. Rev. Bishop Liston regarding the situation in Malta. It was with great regret that he found it necessary to attack another Christian church, as he could not help feeling that it, would reflect on members for whom he had a great respect, Mr. Marsh said. He had not had time to refer the question to a committee; but he believed it was of j sufficient public importance to bring j forward to the Presbytery direct. Mr. F. VV. Matthews moved that the question be discussed in commit- | tee, but tiiis was lost by a small margin. | Mr. Marsh attacked the article by j Bishop Liston on the grounds that, ! While purporting to give an unbiased | account of the situation in extracts j from both British Government and Vatican publications, actually the lat- | ter aloue was used, in conjunction j with certain newspaper extracts. ‘ “We seem suddenly to have been

| transported back to the Middle Ages,” I Mr. Marsh continued, in showing that the Roman Catholic leaders of Malta jfiad ordered their followers to vote in a certain manner under threat of j eternal punishment without hope ot | absolution- —a fearful instrument of priestly tyranny. | “The issues are clear,” said Mr. | Marsh. “Just as the ecclesiastics of Malta, chafing under defeat by the civil authorities in their Utterly unreasonable claims, have sought to make the grace of God a mere instrument in political warfare, so Roman Catholic propaganda in this country dares to darken counsel and mislead the public by side-tracking the issue, in the process dragging in the rights of freemen to buttress their arguments for tyranny. “The whole crisis was a significant development of the recent assumpj tion of temporal sovereignty by the Pope. It was well said that ‘the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.’ “We know now that all our dreams of a new era of understanding were premature, and must still fight the old battle for truth and liberty,” commented Mr. Marsh.