‘THE CASE FOR THE CATHOLICS’

New Zealand Tablet, 16 March 1911, Page 473

‘THE CASE FOR THE CATHOLICS’

A WELLINGTON CONTROVERSY Under the above and other headings the columns of the Wellington Evening Post have for some days past been filled with a keen and interesting controversy on what is rapidly becoming a burning question question, namely, of the Catholic claims. That the Catholic apologists are defending their position is what the Post describes as an 'exceptionally able 5 way, will be evident from the following letters, which we select as being representative, and as being calculated to give non-Wellington readers an excellent idea of the general trend of the controversy. THE CASE FOR THE CATHOLICS. Sir,Whether or not the Catholics of the Dominion are displaying in their present struggle that great energy and determination with which you credit them in your editorial columns of last Saturday, at least there can be ■no manner of doubt about your energy and activity in defence of the other side. More than any other leading paper you have sounded the trumpet call, so as to prevent the Catholic claims from even getting the bare justice of a public examination. You will therefore not be surprised to find by degrees a goodly number of your readers disagreeing with your views, and gently but forcibly reminding you of it. As one of these, let me first of all confess to a mingled feeling of* surprise and pain that you, who have so constantly proved yourself the champion of all whose lot it is to suffer hardships in any form or shape, should now rush forward with such intemperate haste against those who, by 5 7 our own admission, suffer under an undoubted hardship', [t ill becomes— I may be permitted to say so— who has always held that not only injustice but severe hardship is a fit object of redress by the State, to turn upon the poorest section of the community, when they ask that the burden of paying for the education of their wealthier neighbors' children should be at last removed from their shoulders. In the present case, sir, the ' people's cause' is not the cause you champion, but that of the religious body, which, though the poorest in the Dominion, has made greater sacrifices for its religious convictions than all other denominations put together. Iji the second place, I desire to enter a strong protest against your repeated insinuation that the plausibilitv of the Catholic claim is due solely to the dialectical skill of its leading exponents, notably Dr. Cleary, Bishop of Auckland. But too many of your readers, I feai, will have read their own meaning into your words, and the words sophistry, Jesuitical casuistry, will probably have risen to their lips. If we are natural, they will reply, ' Ars est celare artem '; if we are convincing, they will suggest that we are able logicians; if we show warmth, we are acting the indignant innocent if we are calm, we are thereby detected as smooth hypocrites; if we clear up difficulties, we are too plausible and perfect to be true. The more tnumShant are our statements the more certain will be our efeat. It is mainly to protest against this attempt to cut the ground from under our feet, to poison by anticipation the public mind against us, that 1 write this letter. In the third place, if I may further trespass upon your space, I would say that your usual perspicacity seems to have played you false in the present question. You repeat again and again—and the repetition, it seems to me, adds no emphasis or cogency to the —that Catholics have really no insuperable objection to the secular system; that they are, in any case, not treated unjustly, as all denominations are treated alike; and thirdly, that the Bible in Sohools movement was opposed out of a desire to shield Catholic children from interference with their religion. To take the last point first, Sir, I am genuinely convinced that there is not one Catholic in the Dominion who believes that the majority of the opponents of the Bible in Schools movement are mainly actuated by a desire to safeguard our*freedom of conscience. If I am not greatly mistaken, Catholics believe that the bulk of that opposition is recruited from men who hold that Christian doctrine is one great delusion and Christian morality another. As for the assertion tha't Catholics have no insuperable objection to the secular system, is not that giving us the lie direct arid again poisoning the wells? Is there then such total blindness in editorial circles that the most striking and significant facts of years have there remained invisible? For the long course of thirty years, Catholics have (to borrow a phrase from Aesop) seen the track of all their money going into the State coffers, but seen no track that signifies there is any gone out thence. For thirty weary years one section of tho community has seen showers of gold lavished upon an educational system in which they can have neither part nor lot, whilst they themselves remained like the fleece of the "Hebrew warrior, dry in the midst of that benignant and fertilising dew. And can they be expected to keep silent, when after all the sacrifices they have made out of their great poverty, the.Y are told that they are not so very much in earnest " about their schools, that they have only a certain preference for denominational schools? This special pleading, which in the light of facts seems so absurd, is, supported by the specious proof that a large number of Catholic children attend State -schools. But is it fair to omit to say that

; , .- . . ' -....-"•.:.'..■..'•'".". \-. this is true only of districts where there can be no Catholic schools on account of the poverty of the small number of Catholics there residing ? , • Finally, we protest, as we have done again and again, that we are not on an equal footing with our fellowChristians of other denominations. They have built no schools of their own, and they have not and do not pretend to have the same conscientious objections as we have—and that, in our eyes at least, destroys the whole argument, shell and kernel. In conclusion, sir, allow me to say that the Evening Post has often in matters of Catholic interest written with so much kindliness and understanding, and with such evident desire to be fair, that I should be very sorry if in these words of comment or correction there should seem to be anything wanting in the appreciativeness and responsiveness which are its due. Catholics, however, cannot help feeling that in their present struggle for equality and fair play they are opposed but too often on principles other than your , own, principles which I will qualify by a sentence of Cicero, which at least some of your readers interested in this question will understand: ' Totius iniustitiae nulla capitalior est quam eorum qui cum maxime fallunt'io.agunt ut viri boni esse videantur.' My advice to my fellow-Catholics is in the words of Shakespeare: ' But screw your courage to the sticking-place, And ye will not fail.'— am, etc., B.J.G. PROFESSOR MACKENZIE AND SECULAR EDUCATION. Sir, —I crave space to point out a piece of bad logic on the part of Professor Mackenzie in his treatise on education—a summary of which appeared in Saturday's issue of your paper. I pass by his statement that the Church is ' an institution that began in the service of the State.' Of which State? Was it the one presided over by Nero? But it is the extraordinary logic of his argument that Catholics deserve no special grants that I wish to draw attention to. ' The' National System,' he says, 'is quite as much in the public interest as the maintenance of our Army or Navy.' Let that pass, as a logician would say. He continues: 'Where would we be as a nation and Empire if those who are conscientiously opposed to war were allowed a remission of rates or taxation on the ground of conscientious scruples? The very idea of such relief is absurd.' So concludes the Professor, or at least he leaves his readers to draw the conclusion that Catholics are entitled to no relief, because they are opposed to education on conscientious grounds. Professor Mackenzie does not, of course, dare to say that Catholics are opposed to education, but his argument can only hold together on that supposition. That is what it logically demands, to warrant the parity and the conclusion he draws. This fallacy has a name in logic that Professor Mackenzie must be acquainted with. Now, Sir, Iwill use as ' a pari' argument to prove just the opposite of what the Professor attempts to show. It is not original— has been used before. Let us suppose that the State decided to give all the schoolchildren free breakfasts when they went to school, and let us suppose that it decreed that the breakfast should consist of a pork chop every morning. Soon the Jewish parents of some of the children would protest that they cannot conscientiously allow the children to partake of that breakfast, because they, on conscientious grounds, can have nothing to do with pork in any shape or form, and they ask that a mutton chop be substituted for the pork so far as their children are concerned. But the State refuses this demand, and tells them that if they are not content to accept the pork, which they abhor, their children can go hungry. And when the Jewish members of the community proclaim that they have a grievance founded upon conscience, they are told by the upholders of the State that those ' who prefer the luxury of exclusiveness from the national system must pay the price.' What would your readers think of that or, an answer? And now, Sir, if we substitute Catholics for Jews, and the pork chop for Secular Education, we have exactly the position of Catholics under the present system of education. Who will deny that the grievance which the Jews would justly complain of under a pork 'regime is not on all fours with that under which the Catholics of this Dominion are suffering in matters educational at the present moment We have not withdrawn,from the national systemwe were forced out of it. And, as 'An Englishman' so ably put it in your columns last week, the granting of aid to Catholic schools would not destroy the national systemon the contrary, it would make them become part and parcel of that system, and thereby strengthen instead of weaken it. It is so in other countries such as England, Germany, Belgium, Canada, and many others, and the national systems of education in these countries cannot be classed as being behind the times or inferior to what we have in New. Zealand. It is only because men cloud the issues and use catch phrases instead of solid arguments that systems which are unfair and unjust are allowed to exist. I commend this to Professor Mackenzie, and advise him to carefully revise his .treatise if he wishes: it to contain sound argument, and not fallacy and sophism.. In conclusion. Sir, I would like to quote a few remarks of the late Sir Harry Atkinson, made in 1889 on the second reading of the late Mr. Vincent Pyke's Bill as follow: 'lf you really want

a national system of education in a true sense of the term,' and to preserve what we call a national system, then we must treat all our fellow-subjects alike. ".., . I am as strong as anyone for a national system, but I understand a national system to be a diverse system. I say it is not necessary that all should be taught* under exactly the same system. i What the State, I think, should demand, is that every child should possess a certain amount of knowledge. What more it possesses is a matter of indifference to the State; we should leave that to the parents.' It is needless to state that Sir Harry walked into the Ayes lobby in support of Mr. Pyke's measure. — I am, etc., JUSTITIA. SECULAR EDUCATION. Sir, — read in the Evening Post of 22nd inst. a letter from 'Observer' on the Catholic School question. He says : 'lt is contrary to fact that Catholics have a conscientious objection to the secular education,' and ' that denominational education has been forced upon them by their clergy,' that ' he has heard Catholics quietly express themselves as quite satisfied with the State school,' that others were to the additional expense, following upon the establishment of a-Catholic school,' and so on. I do not pretend to deny that • there are such Catholics, but my experience as a Catholic, living' up to the teachings of the Church, is that no conscientious Catholic would for one moment advance such views. They are like many who are not of the faith, they want the State to find everything for them. If denominational education cost them nothing there are very few indeed of that class of Catholics who would not avail themselves of sending their children to Catholic schools. Many of the same class,, too, would give their attendance at the churches if there were no collection. I would like ' Observer' to take in view my experience as a conscientious Catholic. • I am nearly seventy years of age, I am the father of a fairly large family (nine children), whose ages range up to thirty-three years of age. I well remember Mr. Forster's Bill "being passed in 1870, and that that Bill was intended at the time for the education of the poor who could not afford to pay, and not for the rich, who could and ought to pay for the education of their own children. As time advanced the better classes began to get their children educated at the expense of those Anglicans, Catholics, and Jews, who continued to educate their own children because they had consciences Seeing that the secular teaching in the State schools was not sufficient to give my children that modest and religious training that was nearest my heart, and could only be received in the Catholic school, and would counteract the home training, I have for some forty years been compelled to. pay for the education of. my own children in Catholic schools, under Catholic teachers, for a good Catholic education, besides paying for the education (by taxation) for all those Turks, Jews, or Atheists, etc., who wished to get a free education ; Besides all this, I ave (by taxation) had to pay for the building of State schools, as well as to contribute towards building the Catholic schools and assisting to educate the children of poor Catholic parents, who like myself had a conscience. Notwithstanding all this' my material prosperity has gone on increasing, and all my children, without exception, are a credit to their country and the schools (Catholic) to which they were sent No prelate, priest, or Sister referred to in Observer's' letter has ever had occasion to tell me my duty in the matter; my conscience was my guide, without which no virtue, great or small can be practised effectually. I would. ask 'Observer' if it is not as necessary to act conscientiously in the. guidance of your children and their moral,.welfare, as it is to prevent you from using the money belonging to other people or any of the other thousand and one vices - and temptations that present themse ves every day. The conscience is the life of a good Catholic and ' Observer's' ideas of anything clerical in the matter is an erroneous one. The duty of the priest or Sister in the matter-of teaching children is to carry out t l6 ijli S \ teachl "g;, which every Catholic knows he should adhere .to, and if he refuses to hear the Church he refuses to hear God, its Founder. As for Observer's' quotation from the Catholic catechism, Catholics quite understand the meaning of every part of their catechism in a way that A neither he nor anyone outside the Church could be expected to interpret for them. It would take too long Mn Editor, to refer to all the passages in 'Ob! ;«Trt ?tter ' an ? With me l refe rring to these few, and thanking you . for space, I am, etc., ' LAY CATHOLIC.