Wealthy Clergymen

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 18, 30 April 1903, Page 1

Wealthy Clergymen

According to Mark Twain there are 869 different forms of lying. Some newspapers have graduated in them all. The ' St. James' Gazette ' has struck a skilful and ready method of conveying a false impression. It recently printed, under the heading ' Wealthy Clergymen,' a paragraph detailing the fortunes amassed by Dr. Parker and others during their ministry, and then went on to say : ' The poor people of Glasgow will bo surprised, no doubt, by the revelation that the late Roman Catholic Archbishop, Dr. Eyre, left all a but £150,000 gross.' The paragraph in question has been extensively copied by the secular Press in Australia and New Zealand, and, on the face of it, conveys the imputation that the late Archbishop Eyre jnade his wealth, like Dr. Parker and others, in and by the ministry, and that he raked the shekels in from ' the poor people of Glasgow ' and piled them high and hugged them in the close clasp of a miser till they had swelled to ' all but £150,000 ' when death came and relaxed his grip.

The London ' Monitor and New Era ' gives a correct idea of the extent to which ' the poor people', of Glasgow' were ' surprised ' ' by the revelation ' of wealth left by the late Archbishop Eyre. It says : — ' Many poor people in Glasgow would not be a bit surprised. A great many of the poor people of Glasgow are Catholics, and the Catholics of Glasgow knew, and had good reason to know, that Archbishop Eyre was a wealthy man. He was a scion and heir of a wealthy family. Ho inherited the wealth of that family and passed on to the posterity of the family so much of the family trust confided to him as he deemed it to be his duty to bequeath rather than appropriate. At the same time the Archbishop took a fair slice out of the funds of the Eyre family, for he built and bestowed upon the archdiocese of Glasgow an ecclesiastical seminary which cost him in round figures about £40,000. Added to that, during the long years of his tenure of the See of Glasgow he tooki not one brown copper from the archdiocese for mensal expenses, as he would have been perfectly entitled to do. In other words, for over thirty years he gave the Catholic Church in Glasgow an incomparable service ab-

solutely without financial fee or reward, disbursing SS^fd m theS YearSV earS a str «** of benefactions which SfOSi aßß , e ! S l and the recipients may know of, but R«Tw ♦?6? 6 , I d * BOW » nothi *c and never shall know. So that the imputation of the " St. James' Gazette " is wh?i«V rr ° U eSS^ ?' Parfcer ' S Wealth Was ««l«ired while he was in the Protestant ministry, and no doubt derived from his labors as a Protestant minister. We do not say a word against Dr. Parker for having amassed a fortune Sine* the point is raised, however, it is n*£u y , . Catholic P^esthood to state that the Catholic priest usually dies worth about as much as suffices to bury him. Cases in point are numerous and 2ta£^v I* ♦ Z fre( * ventl y commented upon firmg ly by the Protestant newspapers. A notable w?o S£?w °Z i° f DeaD Dona^y, of Melbourne, bo^mU 7 ♦ ! lghteen PenCe ' a fact * hich led a MclW 1 I ? ?T r tO r6mark that the had always about e.ghteen pence, more or less but that as soon as he fouaid he had more he parted with the surplus to the first poor man he met.'