The New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. SATURDAY, JANUARY 3, 1874. THE PRESS VERSUS THE CHURCH.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume I, Issue 36, 3 January 1874, Page 5

The New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. SATURDAY, JANUARY 3, 1874. THE PRESS VERSUS THE CHURCH.

For some time we have had our attention amsted by a ! curious t irciunstance. We have noticed that whenever topics of political fi- party interest were few, whenever, in fact, newsp;,] <_:• writers had a rather limited circle of subjects from which t , choose for Leaders ; these newapapers usually abounded in abuse and calumny of the Catholic Church. It ia always easy, if not pleasant for a certain class of writers to abuse the Church, and it has the additional advantage of interesting an enlightened public, and of paying What is the use therefore of racking- one's brains, or studying deeply the Church — or, indeed, any other subject — when on her an off-hand and daringly unscrupulous onslaught, false in fact and in principle, is so much easier work, so much more pleasing to one's readers, and a vast deal more lucrative than truth and common sense ! Lately our three daily contemporaries of Dunedin have been relieving the political tedium and dullness of Christmas times by iierce diatribe 3on the Church. In oui issue of last week it wa.s our duty to notice the doings, in this line, of each of the triumvirate. But with the exception of the ' Daily Times ' man. who has hit upon the exquisite plan of always printing the words " Our holy religion," in inverted commas, there not much that was origmal in the efforts of any ot them. It is always the old story rehashed, the old calumnies

that have been refuted a thousand times. These are repeated day by day with all the zest of a new discovery, and all the zeal of a neophyte, by our contemporaries. But as has been already said there is little that is original in these attacks. The cry once raised, is taken up by the entire pack of anti-Catholic writers, and carried on in chorus loud and long. The last illustration is a statement made a few days since by one of our contemporaries here, as to the result of Catholic education. " The Catholic Church had the entire control of national education for centuries, and behold the result." This is the statement, and the inference suggested is, that the disturbed state of society throughout the world is the result of Catholic education. But this is not an original discovery of the writer, for the daj r after these words appeared in the Dunedin print, we read the identical words in the Dublin 'Evening Mail.' It may have been merely a coincidence, but thib is hardly probable. What fine scholarship ; what power and accuracy of reasoning are displayed in these words ! Two points are to be considered here. First, enquiry must be made as to a matter of fact ; secondly, whether the inference drawn by these two newspapers is legitimate. " The Church," it is said, " had the entire control of education for centuries." What centuries ? For this is an all-important point. If she had not the entire control during the last century, she is not responsible for the sad state of Christendom. Well, let us take the last one hundred years, and investigate the teaching of history. We shall begin with Great Britain and Ireland. In this empire, so far from the Church having had the entire control of national education, education by the C*hurch and under her control was for part of the time high treason against the state, and for the remainder, discouraged in every way, and rendered extremly difficult. The State, and the State anti-Catholic Church had the entire control of national education. The same is true of the Northern States of Europe without exception. But, perhaps the Church had the entire control in Catholic States, or in States in which Catholics are the majority. Such, however, is not the case. For nearly a century, the Church has not had the entire control of national education in France, Austria, Spain, and Portugal, or in almost any State in the world ; and this is the reason of the commotions and anarchy prevailing throughout the world. In many countries, indeed in most, for generations national education has been anti-Catholic. In France, Switzerland, and the greater part of Italy, for example, it has been Godless. Anything, therefore, more untrue, anything more directly the opposite of fact cannot be imagined than the statement that "for centuries," meaning of course the last two centuries, "the Church has had the entire control of national education.' The truth is, that for generations the State has had the entire control of education in almost all the nations of Europe and America; and behold the results. These may be deduced from perpetual revolutions, wars, conspiracies, confiscations, blasphemies, secret societies, odes in honor of the Devil because he rebelled against God, till lawlessness and immorality culminated in the Paris Communists and the Red Republicans in the southern Profinees of Spain. These were not educated by the Church, but they were trained by the State in Godless schools to hate the Church; and that they learned their lemons well is proved by the slaughter of good men by the Paris Commune, bimjily because they were good men and for no other ic.ison. The natural outcome of Godless education is hatred of everything that is good and true. The State, and not the Church h.is had everywhere the entire control of the education of the peoples who arc now disturbing the peace ot society, revolutionising nations and governments, and rendering life and property insane. Terrified at their own -\\oik, secularists and others, who hate and harass the Church particularly in her efforts to give .v, Christian education to her children, have the Lad faith to charge upon her their own crimes and their consequence^ : and the audacity, in the face of notorious facts, tj endeavour to subborn history and make her lie, in order that they may gratify their hatred by calumniating the Church of God.