ARCHBISHOP MURRAY ON BIBLE-IN-SCHOOLS

New Zealand Tablet, 1 May 1913, Page 23

ARCHBISHOP MURRAY ON BIBLE-IN-SCHOOLS

Tothb Editor.

Sir,lt is literally true that the Irish Scripture Lessons in use in the New South Wales public schools ,were £ compiled by Irish : pr-oselytisers for avowedly proselytising J purposes. ■■-'■..-"

These mutilated caricatures-of the Bible were devised for the Irish ;•. national'p education system inaugurated by Chief; Secretary Stanley in 1831. Irish Catholic children could hitherto receive education in publicly aided schools only at the cost of ~ systematic proselytism. Stanley declared .'. that the national' system would be one, 'from .which should be banished even the suspicion of proselytism.' Seven nominee Education Commissioners were appointed. .'" Only two of these were Catholics—Archbishop Murray i (Dublin) and a Government official, Mr. Blake.' '' " -!' ' At their first regular meeting (December 1, 1831) was proposed to supply, at cost price, the Protestant Authorised Version of the New ; Testament to Protestant children, and the Catholic version to ? Catholic children, for separate religious instruction, "v The two Catholic members agreed. : The Protestant members 1 refused—unless the Catholic Testament was printed, in the Protestant manner, without note or comment. They well knew Catholics must reject this on an underlying doctrinal principle and a specific ecclesiastical law. (Report of 1836, cited by the Irish .statesman, Isaac Butt, The Liberty of Teaching Vindicated, Dublin, 1865, pp. 42, 80-81). 'ln consequence of this refusal,' adds Butt, no copy of the Holy; Scriptures has. ever been supplied to a national school. " The Scripture extracts were prepared as a'" substitute' (P- 42). \ - -v ■■■Vte^m^

They were compiled by the paid Commissioner, Rev. Dr. Carlile, a. noted proselytiser, aided by Commissioner Archbishop Whately: (Dublin), , an ardent % proselytiser, and another Protestant. Before the Lords' Committee of 1854 Archbishop Whately: said that Carlile ' suggested ' the Scripture, extracts,' 'prepared ' them with ' assistance' from 'some fof th« other Commissioners,' and that they were ' acceded to = by Archbishop Murray' (Butt, p. 50). This is a vastly different story from the one attributed to Car- ? lile, that the Scripture extracts were prepared ' at the express wish' of the aged Catholic Archbishop. Dr. Murray's ' express wish ' for the New Testament was refused. He agreed to the Scripture . extracts afterwards only on three specific conditions, according to Carlile (Mixed Education, Dublin, 1865, p. 24). The Commissioners all - saw the proofs; but even Carlile: never suggested that the Catholic Archbishop had any, part in the compilation. 'Neither Catholic nor Irishman,' says the contemporary Head Inspector Kavanagh, ever composed one sentence or modified one line of these religious works' (Mixed Education,' p. 33). Archbishop Murray occupied, in regard to them, . no representative capacity. The Catholic Bishops were" not consulted in regard to them. Indeed, these extracts were opposed to their unanimous "resolutions of January 26, 1826, and February 14, 1840. These required (among other things) that all books intended for the religious instruction of Catholic children should be 'composed,' 'selected/ or 'approved' the Bishopsnot by Protestant Commissioners. : In these resolutions Archbishop Murray concurred. So did he in the more emphatic decrees, in point, of the Thurles Synod of 1850, and in the Bishops' thanks for the Papal Rescript condemning the Protestant . ' common' Christianity forced upon the Irish schools. '

; As priest, Bishop, and Archbishop, Dr. Murray had, in 1831, lived through the penal days, witnessed the ascendancy party's six years' reign of terror, its long-drawn, lately ended, anti-Emancipation fury. With many other prelates, he looked not for full educational justice, but merely for removal of the more galling grievances; and he was willing to sacrifice much for a system free from 'even the suspicion of proselytism.' , In his simplicity, he trusted even the archproselytisers, Drs. Whately and Carlile. Another letter

will tell how they repaid him. It is hard for Catholics to cast stone's at his memory. It is not creditable for others to draw lessons, for : days, of freedom, from the difficulties of a timid, guileless old man, surrounded by astute proselytisers, in the afterglow of thirty-two years of omnipotent tyranny.l am, etc.,■:■: .'.■"*,

* ! Henry-W. Cleaky, D.D., Bishop of Auckland.

April 24.