RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 309, 8 February 1910, Page 5

RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION.

CARDINAL MORAX'S CIIAROES. MINISTERS REPLY. By Cable. —Press Association. —Copyright Sydney, February 7. The Hon. J. A. Hogue, Minister for Public Instruction, states that Cardinal Moran has broken out again, and is once more breathing out denunciation on him. After a fortnight or so of nmtlins and meditation he has come I forth spiritually refreshed from iiis beautiful retreat, and as a result of Ins communion with the saints and the Prince of Peace he has invited him to tread on the tail of his episcopal coat. He keeps on damning our education system with all the renewed strength his cloister training can give him—our i system of non-sectarian education was the stereotyped brand of inlidelitv and agnosticism. They had heard nonsense of this kind before, and it had been suflicientlv and convincingly answered. It was enough to say that our system of education was based on the deliberately expressed wish of the people. Tli Cardinal had cluirgd him with a deliberate falsehood. He had scarcely expected siuh language from one who bad come clothed in special sanctity of spiritual retreat, and lie supposed if lie were to tell the Cardinal that such language was anti-Ciiristian, the latter would reply that that was a matter he (Mr. Tlogne) knew nothing about. He doubted whether the people would accept Cardinal Moran as an authority on the qualifications of an Education Minister. The Cardinal will wait many weary days' and take many more prayerful retreats before he sees the Australian legislature so fast in the grip of his or any other Church as to hand over the work of education from the State to the religions denominations. The Cardinal bad found fault with the books used. It would be very agreeable all round if, say, the history of Europe were treated without reference to the Reformation, Martin Luther, the Huguenots' mass'acres, the Sales of Indulgences, the Armada, the Inquisition, and such things, but it would not be history. It might, be agreeable if it were solemnly taught that the Reformation was unnecessary, that Luther was a crank sort of discontented strike agitator, that the Sale of Indulgences were myths, and that the Catholic, pries'thood oj[ the sixteenth century were as pure and spotless as those who go into retreat in the twentieth. that the Armada was a. defensive .net. and that the Church hac] nothing to do with the massacre of Saint Bartholomew. and that the Pope never ordered the. striking of a medal to commemorate butchery. Cardinal Moran declares he bas «o fear of Catholic children being proselytised. Then what doe* lie complain of? He is' constantly attacking our schools. T:f his accusations against the schools were true, would Catholic teachers remain in the service, and would Catholic parents allow their children to attend? Assuredly not. They knew that the fulminations against the schools were not justified. Such attacks do no service to Christianity and no harm to our schools.