A CLERICAL SCANDAL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9053, 31 March 1908, Page 5

A CLERICAL SCANDAL.

CABLE NEWS.

United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph Copyright.

CASE OF CANON NASH. ARCHBISHOP CLARKE'S ASSERTION. Received March 30, 9 a.m. LONDON, March 29. The Most Rev. Dr. Clarke, Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne, claims that he has obtained evidence of serious mis:onduct, which he considers justifies him in maintaining his refusal to grant Canon Nash a license, for Christ Church, Geelorg. Replying to an interviewer, the i Archbishop said that as Geelong was a diocesan educational centre it became specially necessary that the incumbent of Christ Church should be a man of robust moral strength. For some time Canon Nash had held an important incumbency in a suburb of Melbourne, and a couple of years ago he was chosen as incumbent of Christ Church, Geelong, which is regarded as one of the chief posts in the archdiocese. Towards the end of last 3 ear a great sensation was created in ecclesiastical circles by the announcement th&t the canon had resigned his incumbency of Christ Church and had ceased to hold any office in the archdiocese. No explanation was given, but it was elicited that whatever the charges were the canon had submitted himself to the judgment of the chapter of the cathedral —an irregular ecclesiastical tribunal —and when that judgment went against him he, according to an undertaking given, resigned. Canon Nash's friends were indignant, and one of the first things that happened was that th 3 Board of Nominators renominated him for the vacant parish. The archbishop then took the unexampled step of vetoing the nomination. Mr J. S. Faulkner, of Geelong, who was recently sent to England by sympathisers with the Rev. C. H. Nash, to investigate charges of misconduct made against Mr Nash while curate at Huddersfield, Yorkshire, made , prolonged enquiries, and has stated that he has not been able to find a trace of anything to justify a charge of any kind against Mr Nash. In a 1 letter written to the Archbishop in December, Canon Nash stated:—"l gave up my ministry in England upon one ground alone. That ground was, to quote Canon Bardslsy's words, 'an act of impropriety rather than an act of immorality.'" There is what Canon Nash calls a. so-called second charge, which has been de- j scribed by the Archbishop as "so grave as to affect the judgment of all of us as to your permanent fitness for the ministry." This charge Canon Nash describes as untrue.