The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, MARCH 3O, 1911. CATHOLICS AND THE CENSUS

New Zealand Tablet, 30 March 1911, Page 577

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, MARCH 30, 1911. CATHOLICS AND THE CENSUS

N Sunday next, April 2, it will be the duty of our nouse holders to fill in the particulars required for the census enumeration of the »mLJ£m Dominion for the year 1911. The time is therefore opportune for us to repeat the rellr minder which has been issued by the N.Z. Tablet on the occasions of previous censusWj£§7/ taking, that the only designation by which '\4<«» cur co-religionists are officially known to the State in these countries is -that of Roman Catholics.' As the N.Z. Tablet has before pointed out, the title is the last of a series of terms which mark as with mile-posts the course of legislation affecting Catholics living under the British flag. In the 50th of her Injunctions Queen Elizabeth ' straitly commands all manner her subjects' not to use in dispute or rebuke of any person these convicious words, papist or papistical heretic' In the statutes of her time Catholics were referred to as ' recusants,' or ' persons in communion with the Church of Rome.' During the long drawn-out penal daysfrom 1692 till the closing years of the eighteenth century — Catholics were officially known by the nickname of Papists and ' Popish people.' In 1793, after the days of the French Revolution, these epithets were somewhat mellowed clown, and Catholics came to be known as ' persons professing the Popish or Roman Catholic religion.' And in later' statutes they were finally and definitely designated 'Roman Catholics.' Social usage had in the meantime so far softened towards the Catholic body that in 1812 a writer of the day could say in his Statement of the Penal Laws that 'the reproachful epithet of 'Papist,' ' Romish,' ' Romanist,' was no longer applied to Catholics by any gentleman or scholar.' The term 'Roman Catholic' is none of our creation. And Catholics, while acquiescing in it as a legal formula have never taken kindly to it, very rarely use it, and in no wise regard it as their proper title. On this account.there lies a danger that individual Catholics here and there may omit the term 'Roman,' and merely write the word ' Catholic' in the column set apart in the census paper for information as to the religious belief of the people It so happens that— some reason which it is difficult to

fathom—returns are published in this country for ' Catholics (undefined)', and thus the omission, by Catholic householders, of the word 'Roman' from our full legal designation would cause the defaulters to be included in this nondescript column, and would render the return of members of our fold New Zealand incomplete and misleading. It is the duty of Catholics to aid intelligently and to-the best of their power in furnishing this and all the information required according to the intention of the civil authority. And we would respectfully suggest that it might be well for the clergy to impress upon their congregations the need of faithfully discharging this important civic duty. * No Pope, no General or National Council, no Father or Doctor of the Church, not one of her approved creeds, rituals, or liturgies lias ever used the term ' Roman Catholic as the official title of our religion. Its genuine official title is 'the Holy Catholic Church,' or 'the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church,' or briefly, ' the Catholic Church.' We claim the title ' Catholic ' as ours exclusively. No other creed or sect claims this. exclusive right. At most, they would share the title with us. Fifteen hundred years ago St. Augustine—who was certainly a Roman Catholic,' and in full communion with the Holy See —made, light of all such claims to partnership in the title ' Catholic' ' We must,' he writes, ' hold the Christian Religion and the Communion of that Church which is Catholic, and is not only called so by her own children, but by all her enemies. For heretics and schismatics, whether they will or no, when they speak not to their own people, but to strangers, call Catholics, Catholics only. For they cannot be understood if they give them not that name which all the world gives them.' And the same great saint— a classical and oft-quoted passageconcludes as follows the statement of his reasons for remaining in the Catholic Church: Lastly, the very name of Catholic holds me, of which the Church alone has, not without reason, so kept the possession that though all heretics desire to be called Catholics, yet if a stranger asks them where the Catholics meet, none of the heretics dare point out his own, house or church.' St. Cyril of Jerusalem applies a similar test; and the saying of St. Pacian (Ep. 1 ad Sempron.) is familiar to everybody: ' Christian is" my name, Catholic is my surname.' ... * As Horace long ago remarked, the law and standard of speech are governed by usage ; and present-day usage, in respect to the word 'Catholic,'is in full keeping with that of the patristic authorities just quoted. Judging by the practice of standard writerssuch as Macaulay, Edmund Burke, James Martineau, Lecky, Ruskin, Tennyson, etc.literary usage is quite agreed that the term is the peculiar designation of the Church or religious body which has for its visible head on earth the Pope or. Bishop who sits upon the chair of St. Peter in Rome. The extent to which this age-long application of the term ' Catholic' is embodiedand embedded in general literature, is admirably illustrated in the following extract from a recent issue of our contemporary, the Western Catholic: ' There can be no possible misunderstanding when people speak of "Catholic Emancipation"; or when Tennyson in Queen Mary makes Elizabeth refer to Philip of Spain as "the proud Catholic prince" ; or when Ruskin, in Fors Olavigera, writes "concerning these Arabian knights of Venice and the Catholic Church"; or when Leigh Hunt says in his autobiography that "Dante's heaven is the sublimation of a Cathoiij church"; or when Carlyle says that "the ideas and feelings of man's moral nature have never found so perfect on expression in form as they found in the noble cathedrals of Catholicism"; or when Lecky, in his nationalism m Europe, says that "the Catholic reverence of the Virgin has done much to elevate and purify the ideal woman, and to soften the manners of men"; or when Hawthorne says, "I have always envied the Catholics their faith in that sweet, sacred Virgin Mother" ; or when we say that Belgium is a Catholic country; or when Becherelle's dictionary says that in French "the word ' Catholic ' is used only in' connection with the Church in communion with Rome"; or when the Turkish Government distinguishes between the Orthodox and the Catholics. In a word, the world has fixed the use of the word "Catholic" to suit itself; and, as that use happens to be in accord with the true meaning, it is useless to attempt to change it.' We may add that in colloquial speech, not less than in literary English, the term 'Catholic ' is used with the same exclusive application to the Church which is in communion with Rome. ' Are you a Romanist?' asked the land agent of Mr. Doo'Jev. 'A which?' said he. 'Are you a Roman Catholic?" 'No, thank God, I'm a Chicago Catholic.'« ' 'Tis the same thing,' said the agent. - , . * - No creed outside ' the Roman obedience' claims the , exclusive right to the word ' Catholic' When others apply

it to themselves at all it supposes the acceptance of a branch theory or other form of church polity which is opposed to the words of the New Testament and contradicted by all ecclesiastical history and tradition. Moreover, the official title of none of them is the Catholic Church.' It is (as in the Coronation oath) ' the Protestant Religion as by Law Established '; or ' The Church of Scotland '; or 'The Free Church of Scotland'; or 'The Protestant Episcopal Church'; or 'The Methodist-Protestant Church'; or 'The Freewill Baptists',; and so on. In the ordinary and long-fixed usage of the words, the overwhelming body of Christian people understand by the designation Catholic Church the Church of Rome anil no other. The word ' Roman' is not used as an identifying prefix, and therefore, outside legal formalities, its use is unnecessary. When Catholics employ the superfluous word 'Roman' in reference to themselves they do so either in accordance with official requirements, or merely to emphasise the Roman headship of the Church. People cutside our Fold sometimes use the term ' Roman ' in this connection by way of denial that the Church in communion with the Pope is the one and only universal Church. Apart, therefore, from legal requirements, Catholics should ever call their Church by her unique and long-consecrated title, ' the Catholic Church '; and should avoid bestowing upon her a designation which is "not of our creation, and which is nowhere recognised in her official formula. * • Reverting to the subject of the census, it is interesting to note that throughout all the United Kingdom it is only m Ireland that the people are asked to state the religion they profess. In a truly Catholic country, like Ireland, the people are proud of their religion, and there is not the least difficulty about asking for the desired information. In England and Wales, however, the Nonconformists have from the first steadfastly set their face against the religious column. Religion is, for them, so sacred and private—so shy and illusive, so to speak— they have a conscientious objection to give it a name in public, and to expose it m the open columns of a general census paper. In Catholic Ireland the religious information tells only of that which all men know, and of which none are ashamed; and hence it comes that ever since 1861 there has been a religious column in the Irish census papers, and it is filled in willingly and readily, as by men who glory in their faith. _ In this same spirit may their co-religionists on this outer rim of the Empire do their duty on Sunday next.