BISHOP LUCK AND MR REDMOND.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1090, 3 April 1883, Page 3

BISHOP LUCK AND MR REDMOND.

Bishop Luck's letter to tlie Bi ckland Hibsrnian Society, which caused some talk a few weeks ago lias been published. After assuring the Society that he is a warm admirer of the faithful and long suffering Irish nation, and a trrie and earnest sympathiser with them in many crying wrongs, ho goes on to say : ' The newspapers announced the arrival of a diplomatic agent whose mission is to work on the national feelings of the Irish colonists and implicate them in the meshes of political leagues and parties. lam not going to discuss any political questions, nor even pass judgment on the cause which the expected agitator has in hand. My only object is to let you know what my own line of conduct will be, as your Bishop, with regard to this or any other agent like to excite political animosities and strife among my flock, by briefly giving reasons for my course of action. I shall be pleased to influence and guide you also in principles which will underlie your co-operation with, or abstain from, complications in which you will doubtless be invited to take p«rt. My own policy, as Bishop will be absten tion from participation in the propagation of political agitations. My reasons for this line of conduct are—First, though love of country is a duty and a virtue, I deprecate its interference with the bonds of charity, which ought to unite Cath'olics of all nationalities in the peace and harmony of the Catholic Church, Secondly, from the experience of the past, lam distrustful of political leagues. As the late Archbishop of Dublin said, 'These leagues may be compared to a train into which agents invite you to stap. In spite of your intention and their assertions, you will find yourself carried beyond the point at which you intended to stop, end landed at a terminus altogether beyond your original place. Thirdly, the leagues are looked on with favor by secret societies, which sooner or later work their way into the mind, and then set their machinery to work for objects and ends disapproved of by the Ctmrch. Fourthly, the funds which are invariably an essential condition for the existence of these leagues, and which hnve to be raised from among those who join them, so often fiad extensive applications in salaries of agents who parade their own disinterestedness. Fifthly, I do not see the wisdom or utility of mixing oneself up iu an adopted country in the fends and strifes of the .land of one's birth, especially when the land of ones adoption is at the very antipodes of the field of action. Sixthly, 'by their fruits shall ye know them,,' The result of the exaggerated party feeling, especially in connection with has been in many diooeaes prolific source of ne crying to heaven for v *7i g e?nce, disunion among families and friends, and false principles influence individuals to such a degree as to canse them to cease to heed the voice of the Ghurch The Catholic body in this diocese hitherto has kept aloof from all disturbing agencies and remained usefully and sensibly intent on its own business. I would be grieved to see the existing harmony broken in upon by discordant party criea.' .The Bishop concluded as follows :—' Your active co-operation wil doubtless be asked, and perhaps relied on by the gentleman who has announced his political errand in the cities of New Zealand, but I trust that your prudence and wisdom, together with your filial deference to the express wish of your Bishop will give you the course you will adopt' The reoly of the Hibernion Society is also published, It is to the effect that the rules prohibit the discussion on political ! matters.