Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 21 December 1911, Page 2577

Current Topics

The Elections M The final results of the elections were known at the close of last week and the strength of the respective /parties now is: Government, 34; Opposition, 36; Independent, 3; Labor, 4. By common consent the two main factors- which have brought this reverse on the Ward Government were the giving of a Dreadnought to the Imperial Government without consulting Parliament, and the acceptance of a baronetcy by. Sir Joseph Ward — principally the latter factor. A similar action killed Sir Robert Stout as a politician; and there • can be no doubt that, temporarily at least, Sir Joseph Ward's prestige as a leader is gone. The lesson has been a severe one, bat it will be effective; and there will be no hankering for baronetcies among New /Zealand politicians for many a long day to come. So far the Government have not announced what course they propose to take in the existing situation; but the indications are that Parliament will be called together at an early date, and the Government's chance of carrying on will be put to practical test in the new House. There are three Maori elections to be held this week, and if the Ministerial candidates are all successful this will give the Government a majority of one as against the . Opposition. The only other feature of the elections that calls for comment is the gratifying rejection of quite a number of politicians of the wowser type. Young New Zealand is turning strongly against ' wowserism,' and if the present state of feeling continues our political Chadbands are in for a bad time. % * More important to us than the personnel or party leanings of the candidates returned is their attitude towards Catholic educational interests; and in this con- - nection, as we have before taken occasion to remark, better work has been done at this election than for many years past. In our issue of November 16 appeared a list of questions for candidates from the gifted pen of his Lordship Bishop Cleary, whose tireless zeal and unceasing interest in this subject _ have already done so much to make the question a live one. and hold out such assured promise of fruitful activity in the future. _ Regarding these questions, one of the ablest priests in Australia writes: These questions resume in a few words the whole Catholic attitude on the education question. ' They are beautifully put; in . fact they are perfect; and they are most necessary even for Catholics themselves.' The substance of these questions was submitted to most of the candidates throughout the "Dominion; and, considering that our action was in the nature of a preliminary and tentative effort, the response has been most encouraging. Candidates., generally, showed a decided disposition to be fair and several of those who have been returned stood -unreservedly for our claims, speaking out boldly and decidedly from the platform. A most hopeful and gratifying feature of this election is the fact that some of the keenest and most active fighters on the education issue have been our young men. In Auckland, in particular, the young men threw themselves into the fighting line with a vim and enthusiasm that are beyond all praise. Where the interest and co-operation of the young men is obtained, the foundation for the future "is securely laid; and the work of these sturdy • young Gideonites of the north is a happy augury of good things to' come. We heartily congratulate the Auckland Catholic young men .on the progressive spirit and splendid example they have shown; and we hope their action will be an inspiration and an incentive to our young men generally to come boldly forward, and fight, as their fathers have fought, for the interests of their faith and Church. . - " .- The Assembly and « Ne Temere ' A further letter on this subject from the Rev. R. ' Wood was published in Friday's Otago Daily Times; and the following reply thereto appeared in Wednesday's

issue: "Sir,---' Infamous and intolerant,' 'as illmannered as they are illogical,' flounders and splashes himself,' 'plunging into logical mud-holes,' boorish, futile, and ridiculousthese are a few specimen flowers of speech culled from Mr. Wood's latest contribution to your columns. The —shot through and through as it is by such scurrilityis a weird, exhibition for a Christian minister to make before the public; and his Church and people are to be commiserated. This coarse vituperation is interesting only for the evidence which it affords of the sore straits in which your correspondent finds himself. When a - manand a minister — his self-control to the extent to which Mr. Wood has done on this occasion, the display is a very palpable flag of distress.' * •■" /" ■•"■■'.;• 'Your correspondent complains, in effect, that I have hit him in the wrong place. Finding that the statements made by himself and Dr. Gibb have fared very badly under examination, Mr. Wood now practically abandons these, and, making a strategic move- ■ ment to the rear, elects to fall back upon the formal deliverance of the Assembly. The refutation of this, he says, is ' the task that lies before me.' It is unnecessary to point out to the thinking portion of your readers the absurdity of such a pretence. The shoe is on quite the other foot. The merest tyro in logic knows that in any Ciscussion the burden of proof in respect to any statements made, lies upon the persons making the statements. Statementseven in an "Assembly deliveranceare not to be taken as true merely because they are made; and until some proof "is forth-coming, no onus, beyond that of calling for evidence and proof, is cast upon those who question such statements. The only ' proof ' advanced in connection with : the Assembly deliverance was - that contained in the statements made by the two speakers on the occasion, and to these I rightly and logically directed my attention. For reasons which will hereafter be indicated, I think the Assembly might very well have refrained from interfering at all with the domestic legislation of another religious body. But if a statement had to be made, I frankly admit that, on the whole, the deliverance adopted, so far as its actual terms are concerned, was a temperate and moderate presentment of the Presbyterian point of view. There are one or two clauses in it to which I would, of course, take exception; but these are-not of sufficient importance to have made a controversy worth while, and had the deliverance, been unaccompanied by Messrs. Wood and Gibb's misstatements and misrepresentations regarding 'certain Canterbury priests,' ' Kaiser Wilhelm and his warriors,' 'conversion by coercion,' etc., it would have called forth no comment from me. Under examination, these misstatementswhich were dealt with in my first letter and again summarised in my —have broken completely down, and in respect to them Mr. Wood has not so much as attempted to make good.' With the only practical portion of the Assembly's deliverance I have already dealt. In it_ the Assembly called upon the Government for ' protection,' and ' exhorted their faithful people to avoid contracting mixed marriages.' I have sufficiently shown the absurdity—in. the existing state of the law in New * Zealand—of the first proposal, and Mr. Wood is now wisely silent on the point. With the Assembly's exhortation to their people to avoid mixed marriages, Catholics are in entire sympathy; and those ministers who are giving practical effect to this recommendation instead of dissipating their energy in gratuitous attacks on ' Rome,' are showing their real earnestness and sincerity in this matter.. Your correspondent represents the Assembly deliverance as ' summing up the indignation of the Church and nationthe nation, no less. As a matter of fact there is not a single expression of indignation in the whole deliverance. Here it is in full: ' The Assembly having considered the Ne Temere decree which has been promulgated : in this Dominion in its historical setting and practical working, and while recognising the right of every branch of the Christian Church to formulate its own 'terms of communion and to exercise, ecclesiastical discipline upon its members' in accordance therewith, but ina's-

much as the application of this decree in every case of a mixed marriage affects a party who is not under the jurisdiction of the Church of Rome, and traverses the law of the land and the law of all non-Roman ■-■ Catholic Churches by declaring invalid a marriage duly solemnised according to those laws, and inasmuch as this decree has been so applied as to disturb the peace of families and break up homes and seriously affect 8 the social standing of members of homes, the Assembly call upon the Government to devise some means for the protection of the social interests and the civil rights of all parties affected by this decree, and in view of the grave risks to domestic happiness and religious well-being involved in mixed marriages, they exhort their faithful people to avoid contracting marriages of that nature; and the Assembly further directs that a copy of this deliverance be sent by the clerk of Assembly to the Government through Sir Joseph Ward.' There are here no such epithets as infamous and intolerant,' 'cruelty, .intolerance, and iniquity' ' immorality and intolerance,' ' morally monstrous,', etc. These are the achievement only of the Rev. Robert .Wood, and he is entitled to all the glory of them.' ....•'■*.. "Your correspondent blunders very badly in his reference to the supposed attitude of the Catholic Church regarding marriage with a deceased wife's sister. While regarding such marriages as generally speaking undesirable, the Church has never taken the view that they are ' incestuous/ or objectionable on racial grounds, or that they are absolutely contrary to the ' law of God'; and in the two instances mentioned by your correspondent she was acting quite consistently with her general teaching and practice. It is not the ' deputy censor ' but the Waikari theologian who has been asleep. He was evidently ignorant of the real Catholic attitude on the subject, so made a shot at it—and missed." * ' In inferentially admitting—as he is compelled to admitthe correctness of my history of Presbyterian legislation regarding marriage with a deceased wife's sister, Mr. Wood has thrown his whole case away, and for the rest of this controversy his gun is spiked. Let me briefly recapitulate the facts. The Ne Tern ere decree applies to almost the whole of Catholic Christendom, but, for special reasons, has not yet been promulgated • in Germany, and in one or two • smaller provinces of Europe. _ This variation— what is, so far as Ne Temere is concerned, a mere disciplinary decree Mr. Wood professed to regard as 'morally monstrous' and as ' making the law of God regarding marriage a matter of geography and climate.' As I pointed out in my last letter, the thing of which Mr. Wood falsely accused s the Catholic Church is the very thing of which his own Church has been conspicuously guilty; and, as I showed, it Avas not necessary to go to 'Hungary and Slavonia,' or even to 'Berlin, Hamburg, and Potsdam,' for instances of such legislative. variation, but only to the boundary of our own province of Otago. For over two centuries the law for Presbyterians regarding marriage with a deceased wife's sister was that contained in the Westminster Confession of Faith (Chap, xxiv., s. 4), which not only condemns such marriages as invalid, but adds nor can such incestuous marriages ever be made lawful by any law of man, or consent of parties, so as ' those persons may live together as man and wife.' This was no mere disciplinary regulation—such as Ne Temere is—but was expressly set forth as the unchanging law of God which no human authority could ever annul. It was adhered to with scrupulous fidelity; and from all I have heard and read ministers of the old school would have cut off their right hand rather than have part or lot in any such unions. It affected the social interests and civil rights ' of others besides Presbyterians. ' Every non-Presbyterian—Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, etc.,—who married a Presbyterian within the prohibited relationship was brought within its scope ; and to the unhappy couple in such a whether married by Catholic priest or Methodist or Baptist minister—the Presbyterian Church said :J You are not married at all and never can be; you are living not only m concubinage but in incest; your children are illegitimate; and it is not lawful— never can be made

lawful by any consent between . yourselves— you should live together as man and wife.' Here is not mere incitement to wife desertion, but wife (or husband) desertion by compulsion. It is a much harder case than any which could arise under Ne Temtre, for at least the latter offers the parties an easy opportunity of putting matters on a proper footing and of becoming man and wife. Yet that law was administered by Mr. Wood himself for several years; and this is the man who now denounces a much less drastic Catholic disciplinary regulation as ' infamous and intolerant, and who loses his sleep at nights because of its ' immorality and intolerance ' and of its ' cruelty, intolerance, and iniquity.' And this is not all. In 1883, as I mentioned in my last letter, the northern Presbyterian Church decided to abrogate the ' law of God' as stated in the Westminster Confession, and to do that which the Confession says no law of man ever can do, viz., to make marriage with a deceased wife's sister perfectly lawful and honorable. The boundary between the two Churches was the Waitaki River, so that by merely crossing to either side intending candidates for matrimony were in the happy position of being able to take their choice of whichever law best suited their convenience. The Rev. Mr. Wood was at this time associated with the Otago Church, administering the older and more rigorous law. But in 1890—that is, while the Otago Church still adhered to the Confession of Faith enactment Wood was inducted to the pastorate of the Masterton Presbyterian Church. Thus by merely removing from Wyndham to Masterton, unions which a few days before he had had to condemn as invalid and ' incestuous ' Mr. Wood was now in a position to freely celebrate.as true and valid and honorable marriages, And, in face of all this, we now find him publicly expatiating on the iniquity of 'making the moral law of God regarding marriage a matter of geography and climate '! If Mr. Wood is so obtuse as not to realise the ludicrous light 'in which he places himself in this connection, it is satisfactory to reflect that your readers are not similarly afflicted. As mentioned in my last letter, the Presbyterian Churches of Scotland still adhere to 'the law of God regarding marriage ' as set forth in the Confession of Faith, and the bearing of this fact on Mr. Wood's. strictures regarding Ne Temere will be duly pointed out as occasion requires.' "It is no part of my purpose in drawing attention to these matters to in any way reflect on the Presbyterian Church, either present or past. Her belief being what it was—(and in Scotland still is)— could not have acted otherwise than as she did; and she is entitled to the respect always due to a Church which is loyal' to its convictions. My object in referring to Presbyterian legislation regarding marriage is (1) to show the grotesque inconsistency of the Rev. Mr. Wood in declaiming against the Catholic Church for varying her marriage ? law when his own Church has been, and still is, in the same position; and (2) to bring out the fact that as the Presbyterian legislation to which I have referred was treated by other Churches as being for all practical purposes a matter for Presbyterians, so the Ne Temere decree, which expressly legislates only for Catholics, is purely a domestic matter in regard to which other churches have no claim, and should have no desire, to interfere. The marriage doctrine of the Confession of Faith not only incites to wife and husband desertion, but compels it; and it affects the ' social interests and civil rights' of all non-Presby-terians—including Catholics— may by marriage bring themselves within its scope. There is not a single objection which has been, or can be, advanced against ]Se Temere which does not apply with still greater force to the Westminster enactment; and this—in so far as Mr. Wood makes it necessary—it will be my duty to show. But neither the Catholic Church—so far as I know, any other Church—has ever felt called upon to fulminate against it, or to attempt in any way to interfere with Presbyterian legislation. The right which she has conceded to others, the Church insistently claims for.herself; and to-day it is only the hopelessly prejudiced and unthinking by whom that claim is denied.l am, etc., V _ V ;V Editor N.Z. Tablet.' December 16.