Misther McCarthy, Esquire.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 1, 5 January 1905, Page 2

Misther McCarthy, Esquire.

Wie, foajve betan led to tfhe qutptouring of our skpl printed abiqve by paving just received from a non-sluWbriber in the Mar'ttan disitriot a request for owr opinion on a wiret(jhe(d agglomerate of sheets of printed No Popery iH which One Michael McCarthy slanders the prieslts and pefojple of Ireland. This is about the eleventyr'leveinth time tflVat we have been asked to deal with that envenomed thing which. h(as been called by edurtesy a bjook. Wq might on/cc for all remirid inquirers that oft two occjaSions we exiposed Uhe out!rageo,us mature of tjhe publication — a pretty exfoafu stive editorial article i*n aur isistue of December 2>5, 1902, I'utoning intlo more than a pajge of tfie 'N.Z . Tablet.' We mAght furtbermore ple(a|d thati we lfke not the operatkjn of po>iring"a fresih bucket of water on a drowned rat. At tjhis Waur of the day it ought wot to be necessiary to point out that with the s'ainer class of people ' MietJieir McCarthy, Estqnire ' is wWolly disfcoredited. He has bedn aibartdojned by the glib critics of even tjhe country papers tp smndry clergymen atid atiher old women of Tv>th sexes/, ahfti by the old women to the Orange loflges, whidh hia/ve beeta. feting himi, miajkSng him presentations, trealtimg ihim as a mian airid hr,ot(he,r, and— as a reward for his rpiugh and sli.pshejd slamiders on the Oatihblic Church apii body— placing him a.lmfc>st on aj level with the fauratkral No-Popery filrebirland who is knowta to fame (or rather to infamy) as< tlhe ReveareWd Johrtnie McCnae. Bvjen ih New Zeal'ai<d na oeleHlrfation of the ' Gul-lorioius Twelfth ' is Qom#lete winWoiut a flaming jpainegyric apfl a branid-«new aiurdpla Bor Misther McCarthy. A*ud that is, perhaps, the draieWesit thing that eoußd well ,be said against him. Yiou are emjtiitled to judge a book, as you wotoUd judge a nmajn, b)y tjhe company it keeps. And Miclnael McCarthy's ruhis c?o)vers with ' Maria Monk ' apd the pr/orfyc'tfiojnis of t(ae Sl'attery impostors aWd siuph ouher ' gems of (pfuiresit ray serqne ' of Orange ' literature.' And tlh&t's surely degradatiiloin enough to meet the amibitilon of any map! whose tastes run iii thlat direction.

Foe tpelapHe flh'at like that 'sotr't of thing it is just the stort of tilling they like. There are, no doubt, i!n New ZeaVaJnfd mlany who, through lack of kjnowleflge of recent 0B ctuijrent literary history, might be disposed to take McQaitihy at his own estimate a<nd that of his 'yelltow' fri«tn|ds. For such we may make the following brief Biummlaxy statement blearing Upon the man alnd his ' Inofolky 11 referring inquirers to 'aur fuller articles therecm :— Ifr order to give currency afnd ata air of authority IJo bis stettferte, MteCartfhy calls himself a CJatholic. This is a mirfdiesicriipftlon. The main was brought up a QaHholic fn tjhe city where 1 The Bells of SWamdon Sound sto gran 4on The pleasant w'atter's of the River Lee.'

9iiit H as qomebddy has remarked, his early piety—if he ha,d any— was not fitted with watertight compartments. It leaked away after his father — Wiho^, by the way, ' raitite|d ' finom the Na'tion'aLis»t» cause aWi- became ; a viiolejnt aniti-Iriish Irishmaai— setat him to be eti ! u | oateld at tlhe Pirotepitant Grammar Sdhool of Middletlon. Fcom that seat of ailtra-Protesitantism he proceeded to ,'Qiueen's Cnllege, Clonk, which was to all intents amU purposes a Prote&tant estia))lishment. His faith— if fee liad, any left — clung only in rags arid patches to him there. Ha nexl etotere'd Trinity College I>ubli'n— an i'n'stitJuti'Q'n wihiih every professor arid superior must be a Ptfotestajnt, and which was established for the exjures® purpose of weajhing Irish ' Papists ' from their ' Popery <,' ' • For miany atnd mlany a year Mteftfrer McCarthy has had njo practical commiunion with the Catholic Church. The very book referred to here puaves comclusively that he hias tjltrown over not atdme the practice of the faith, but the faith itself. He, for imstaince, denounces the Mass, the Papacy, the doctrine of Transwbstantiation, Exposition of tihe Blessed Sacrament, religious precessions, confession, a'rfd alrriast every distinctive doctrine and practice of the CatJHolic Chupdh. They are ' umintelligible gibberisih,' ' uinnecessiary and thread-lxire tirasjh',' ' nilummeries,' and so on. HTs ' books ' are simply wild, incoherent, and tintnutfafiul attacks om the Oat}hV>lic Church, its doctrines, its practices, its ministers, its devotions. McCarthy's almost equally unmeasured praise of the Reformers and of the Reformed creeds wCuld prave that, despite his fatiudus claim to be a Catholic, he is in reality a Priotestant— that is, supposing him to be a ChrJstiain at all. At any i ate, in posing as a Catholic — and a ' Roman Catholic ' at tihat — McC|a/r>tihy is perpetrating a clumsy and unsfcrupii'lfaus firaud an Protestant retailers. It may sell the bipok, but it will also c sell ' tlhose who any it. As tio ite literary qjuality, the London ' Times ' refers to it in the following terms of s,plendid contempt :—

' Mr. McGa'r'thy's. new booik is, like its pxetiecesj^or, an untidy and clumsily compioseld volume ; its .si>ie is poor and pretentious ; and on a roiugh oalculition lh.? bcok has about as maaiy split inflnitives as there aieptieits in Ireland. The dominatine; idea, which is again the evil character of ecclesiastical ?Juthority in I' eland, give 1 : " Priests and People k> Ireland ' a sort of intellectual unity, but materially it is slipshod t.nd incoherent.'

The great literary magazines Kore Michael McCiarthy^s book to tatters and flung them to the winds of (hela.'ven on a sffcorm of rfdioule. And one of 'his oritics aiptly remjanke'd that 'as an illustration of what anti-datholic education can do, his l>ook should ralnlk as a cllassic' But ' I*he most i nriki>nidesit cut of 'all ' came iriom the Brethren of the Saffron Sasih when tihey pJaJced it on their lodge shelves side by side with the aß^afetida of Maria Monk and the ptotrid natteMnesls of Margaret Shepherd. |t is their vendlct on tjhe Uook. We content ourselves with miakiflig a record of t>his miost damning fact of all. Furtiher comment is haijdly needed.