New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1876. IGNORANT AND INCORRIGIBLE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 180, 8 September 1876, Page 10

New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1876. IGNORANT AND INCORRIGIBLE.

Some hopeful who knows where Tapanui is, has lately visited .New Mexico, has written about his travels, and the Otago ' Daily Times ' has had the good taste and justice to pubJibh his blasphemies against the Catholic Church, and even common decency ! A more truculent, lying, and indecent attack on the venerable Church of God and genuine history, than this made by "An Old Otago Settler," we have not read for a long time. The man must be an ignoramus as well as a demented bigot. It will be necessary for us to transfer some of this writer's nonsense and contradictions to our pages, in order that our readers may see a specimen of " An Old Otago Settler" and that we may be enabled to deal with him as

he deserves, But before doing so, we beg to apologise for doing so, and to plead as our excuse, absolute necessity. Writing of certain people whom he came across in New Mexico, this " Old Otago Settler " says, " Although they lie, and steal, and cut throats like blazes, they are yet very good Catholics, and even go to the length of suicide, in some cases, in order to do God service." If these men are such as they are described hj "An Old Otago Settler," which we doubt very much, instead of being very good Catholics, they are not Catholics at all. And that any old settler who ever resided in Otago could have been capable of writing such a monstrous falsehood, we could not have believed, nor would we even now believe it, had we not the authority of the * Otago Daily Times' for saying that this atrocity was really written by "An Old Otago Settler."

Here, again, are a few more specimens of the truthfulness and accuracy of information of "An Old Otago Settler." " How one's blood boils at a system which has subjected the human body and mind to so many dreadful sufferings. . . . . I have never seen a more degraded and superstitious lot of people than the Spanish Mexican races in their western territories." Indeed ! "An Old Otago Settler " then cannot have travelled much in England and Scotland. Had he done so, or if having done so, had he chosen to speak truly, he would have met with thousands in happy England and thrifty Scotland, aa they are called, who, in brutality to helpless women and children, iv besotted drunkenness, and in profound and amazing ignorance, are immeasurably lower and more degraded than even the Spanish Mexicans in their western territories. We are no apologists of their crimes or faults ; but they cannot be charged with mutilating and murdering women and children with their fists and their feet, with brutalising themselves with intoxicating drink, with ignorance as to the name of Christ, or even of the sovereign who rules over them, as has been proved to have been the case in innumerable instances in England, where the people have not been " subjected to the influence of the Catholic Church for ages." "An Old Otago Settler" does not charge the western Mexicans with these or such enormous crimes, and from his not Laving done so, we may rest assured he could not. In what then has their great crime consisted ? In an exaggerated superstition which the Catholic Church condemns, and into which they have fallen, not because they have been for ages subjected to the influence of the Catholic Church, as this shallow or malicious " Old Otago Settler" would have us believe, but precisely because they have for generations been withdrawn almost altogether from her benign influence by liberal and revolutionary governments, whose one great object has been throughout to destroy the Catholic Church, and blot out, if possible, even the name of Christ.

Again, "An Old Otago Settler " gravely tells us that " the Church has had absolute dominion for ages in Spanish America. The Church has had the biggest share of the people's earnings, and their education entirely in its hands, and what is the result? In South America, in. Central and North America, the same story as in Italy, Spain, and Ireland — the masses debased and ignorant of the commonest laws of their being ; turbulent, unruly, given to lying and assassination, rebelling against both Church and State." This is truculent and reckless writing with a vengeance. This " Old Otago Settler " knows so little of the subject on which he undertakes to write, that he- hesitates not to state, as a fact, that which is notoriously untrue, as testified in all histories, except such as have been composed for the use of schools in England and Scotland to help on the spread of genuine education! This " Old Otago Settler" seems never to have read the story of Las Casas, and the other innumerable Catholic ecclesiastics who, through long years of weary conflict, battled for the rights of the Indians and the privilege of teaching them Christianity, against the greed and tyranny of godless colonists, or the apathyignorance, and sometimes the direct opposition of a distant government which was throughout engaged in thwarting the Holy See, and which put the climax on its iniquities by banishing their most able and devoted teachers. Id either does this " Old Otago Settler " seem to know anything of the action of Mexican governments for the last fifty years — how often these have banished bishops and priests, confiscated the property of the Church, left entire districts for years without pastors, and obstructed in every way, the action of the Holy See, as is done at present in Protestant Germany. He was probably too much engaged up at Tapauui, with his sheep and his bullocks, to attend to such

things ; but then, if so, he should not have undertaken to enlighten the erudite and equitable ' Otago Daily Times,' and through its columns the bucolic mind of Otago. But if his squatting occupations in and about Tapanui might be pleaded in extenuation of "An Old Otago Settler's" ignorance of Mexican and American affairs generally, these can be hardly adduced as an excuse for saying that the Catholic Church has had the education of the people entirely in her hands in Ireland for ages, and that as in other Catholic nations the masses in Ireland are " debased, turbulent, unraly, given to lying and assassination, rebelling both against Church and State." "Why, so far from the Catholic Church having had absolute control of the education of the people in Ireland for ages, the fact is, she has had no control, except such as she obtained in spite of laws imposed upon her by England and Scotland, which made the ■education of her people a crime of High Treason against the state. In the second place the mass of the Irish people are not and never were as degraded as the mass of the English people, nor are they given to lying and assassination to nearly the same extent as the English masses, notwithstanding the efforts made through ages by a vile civil government to render them both liars and assassins. Then as to the loyalty of the Irish to both Church and State, who but a besotted bigot would deny it. This brave and chivalrous people have proved their devoted loyalty to the Church, by suffering the loss of everything the world values rather than be disloyal to her — wealth, liberty, harder still education, and hardest of all even life itself. Only think of the outrageous folly of the mau who charges the masses of Ireland with rebelling against the Church. And what shall we say of the charge of disloyalty of the Irish masses against the state ? Against what legitimate government have they ever rebelled? Have the Irish people ever dethroned and put their king to death, like the English ? Have they ever been guilty of the unutterable sordid baseness of selling their king into the hands of those Englishmen who thirsted for his blood for the paltry consideration of a few hundred thousand pounds, like the Scotch ? No never, but on the contrary, as became loyal and true men, they sacrificed their all and fought to the death for their legitimate sovereigns, even though these had persecuted them, and refused them liberty of conscience. This is strong writing, but it is true, and the conduct of the ' Daily Times ' in publishing these most untrue, unjust ■and calumnious charges against the Catholic Church has made it necessary. If anti- Catholic writers and periodicals choose to continue to calumniate the Catholic Church, they must not be surprised, nor can they justly complain, if Catholic writers give back some hard knocks, and in legitimate self-defence avail themselves of the facts of genuine history, which are not creditable or pleasing to their opponents. i