The Christchurch 'Star.'

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 31, 30 July 1903, Page 1

The Christchurch 'Star. '

If the Christchurch ' Star ''enjoys a bad pre-eminence it ought to be in the seventh heaven just now. It holds the evil distinction of being the solitary newspapet — secular or religious— in New Zealand that has disgraced the respectable profession of journalism by dancing an editorial can-can of bigotry by the bier of the good old Pontiff who has gone to his rest. The decenter side of our human nature— even of Hottentot human nature— is in full accord with the old Dantean proverb : • Oltre la tomba non va ira nemica '— ' the ire of enemy passeth not the tomb.' And we can well understand the disgust with which people who wear clean linen, or who value the decent amenities of life, regarded the venemous outbreak of editorial bigotry which the Christchurch 'Star ' of the 21st inst. published in connection with the demise of the late Pontiff. The ' Star ' editor treated his readers to cheap and nasty sneers about Pius IX. busying himself over-much with ' theological quibbles about the Virgin.' In the course of the same article there appears what is, without comparison, the most virulent and gratuitously oflensrve paragraph that has 1 , appeared in the editorial columns of any seculat paper in New Zealand for many a year. It runs as follows :—

•Papacy has much ill to be responsible for. It cut a swathe through the Middle Ages, more sanguinary, more marked with the curse of fire and sword than that of the hordes of Attila or the followers of the Arabian prophet. In its wake followed superstition, blasphemy, rebellion against the Almighty. But Papacy is no longer what it was at that time. The world has changed, and the Roman Catholic Church has changed too. It will never become just what it was at the time when the Pope divided the American continents between Spain and Portugal, giving to each one half, as if it had been an orange to give to two good children.'

An article that appeared in our editorial columns some two months ago, and still, perhaps, in the memory of many of our readers, furnishes an instructive evidence of the amazing degree of ignorance which could have penned such a wild and woolly paragraph. It is followed by another that, if less offensive, is not less misleading —where it states that the Catholic Church ' now has commenced ' to recommend the reading of the Scriptures, and that this is ' the best proof of the changed conditions ' that prevail within her fold. It is clear that the schoolmaster has not been abroad to much purpose in the editorial rooms of the Christchurch ' Star,' and that 'Our Great National System of Education' has not

been as successful as was expected ia expelling ignorance. The paragraph quoted above bears a suspicious resemblance to the vitriolised waterspouts of roaring oratory that have been associated with rowdy celebrations of ' the glorious, pious, and immortal memory ' of the little Dutchman. For people who like that sort of thing it is just the sort of thing they like. But if that is a fair sample of the sort of stuff the Christchurch 1 Star ' serves up to its readers, local Catholics will have very little manliness or public spirit or regard for the faith and feelings of their families if they ever let so much as one of its envenomed columns appear within their homes.