What do Catholics Want?

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVII, Issue 12, 25 March 1909, Page 449

What do Catholics Want?

Catholic principles on the education question are old and have been many times set forth. But there is no limit to the variety of terms in which they may be expressed And a new statement of the old principles often carries

r with it a special freshness, cogency, and persuasiveness all its own. This is notably the case with the very admirable, pithy, thumb-nail sketch of the present position of Catholics in Australia given by Coadjutor-Archbishop Kelly, of Sydney, at' the Irish National Foresters' gathering on a recent Sunday. In view of the exhaustive discussion now being carried on in the columns of the Otago Daily Times regarding the Catholic claim, 'the Archbishop's words are ; particularly apposite — and they hit the nail squarely on the head.

'As Catholics,' said his Grace, 'we have no desire for - ascendancy in Australia, but we claim equality and fair play. Our Catholicity is a matter between God, ourselves, and our ancestors. We pay our taxes, and are subject to the laws. The tax collector does not ask whether we are Catholics, hgt whether we have rateable property. The tax distributor should be guided in the same way when there is any allocation of public money for schools, . for example. We say in the hearing of the world it is a shame, an injustice, to differentiate between school and school except on educational grounds.- Such a law is essen- , tially unjust, and injustice will work- the decay and ithe ruin of the country whose leaders make such laws. might say they wo.uld give nothing to education, but once they did give public money for the purpose-they must not exclude schools in which their standard of secular instruction was complied with. No, the State should say, " Teach our standards, teach our arithmetic, teach our. other branches, submit to our inspection as to the secular branches, and you are as entitled -to your share* of every public allocation as any other-body of citizens.in Australia." We may not be heard. We may be answered back in fallacies, but the time of fallacy must end.' From what I know of the bush — I don't know so much of the city — -we .have intelligent citizens in" Australia, who are indignant ' with any clique that would monopolise the patronage of Parliament, and exclude any school from the assistance of the State on the grounds that -it~was subject to ecclesiastical authority. Catholic schools are subject to the-authbrity of the State so far as its authority -can go, but the State's authority cannot touch the soul. The State's authority wants improved commerce and an enlightened democracy. - It has given votes, and it wants the voters to use their franchise intelligently. Its reasonable wishes will be obeyed by the managers of the Catholic schools, who hold the schools in the name *of God, and of parental rights. There should - not be a monopoly for sectarianism or for irreligion. Australia wants her children well trained in secular and religious knowledge ; Catholics feel bound in conscience to secure this" at any. cost ; in our schools we prepare the children not for this world alone, but for the next. - This is the best inheritance of our children. Their necessity dictates our' duty — our parental duty establishes our civic right.'