Bishop Luck in Explanation.

Thames Star, Volume XIV, Issue 4460, 21 April 1883, Page 1 (Supplement)

Bishop Luck in Explanation.

Auckland, March 30. Bishop Luck's letter to the Auckland Hibernian Society, and which caused some talk a few weeks.ago has been published. After assuring the Society that he is a warm admirer of the faithful and longsuffering Irish nation, and a true and earnest sympathiser with them in many crying wrongs, goes on to say-—" Newspapers announced the visit 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. I am not going to discuss any political question, nor eren pass judgment on a 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 likely to excite political animosities and strife amongst my flock ; and by briefly giving our reasons and course of action, I shall be pleased to influence and guide jou also in the

principle which will underlie your cb« i operation with, or abstention from; com" plications in which you will doubtless be j invited to take part- My own policy as | your- Bishop! will be —abstention from participations in the programmes of political agitators. My reasons for this line of conduct are—Firstly, though love of country is a duty and a virtue, I deprecate' its influence with the bonds of charity which ought to unite the Catholics of all nationalities in the peace and harmony of the Catholic Church; secondly, from my experience of the past, I am 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 step, and in spite of your intentions and their observations, you will find yourself carried beyond the > point at which you intended to stay, and | landed at a terminus altogether beyond j your original plans;" thirdly, leagues are I ooked on with favor by the secret societies I which sooner or later workjtheir way into I them, and then set their machinery to work for objects, and ends, disapproved of by the Church; fourthly, funds, which are invariably an essential condition for the existence of these Leagues, and which have to be raised from amongst those who join them so often find them an exhaustive application in the salaries of the agents, who parade their own disinterestedness; fifthly, Ido not see wisdom or utility in mixing oneself up in our adopted country in the feuds and strifes of the land of one's birth, especially when the adopted land is at the very antipodes of the field of action; sixthly, 'By their fruits ye shall know them." The result of exag gerated party feeling, especially in con» nection with Leagues, has been in many a diocese and parish a prolific source of crimes crying to heaven for vengeance; disunion amongst families, and the friends of false principles influencing; individuals to such a degree as to cause them to cease to heed the voice of the church. The Catholic body in this diocese has hitherto 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 cries. The Bishop concludes as follows—" Your active, co-operation will doubtless be asked for, 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 a course you will adopt." The reply of the Hibernian Society is also published, and it is to the effect that the rules of the society prohibit the discussion of political matters.