REV. W. GRAY DIXON AND BISHOP CLEARY

New Zealand Tablet, 4 September 1913, Page 23

REV. W. GRAY DIXON AND BISHOP CLEARY

His Lordship Bishop Cleary has sent the following letter for publication to the Outlook: ■.. ■:,.■-■■■, : - ■'...• v^ /' Sir,—ln your issue of August -19, .the Rev. W. Gray Dixon states that the "National Schools Defence League" has been "blessed by Bishop Cleary." . It "pains me to have to describe that statement as an invention. T know not by whom it was concocted; but a grave moral responsibility falls upon' the rev. gentleman named ' for. giving it publication. 'We have here la' plain question of plain fact as between him and me. His only honorable course is either frankly and manfully to withdraw his statement, or 'to show when, where, and in what terms I "blessed" the National •Schools Defence League. This is the second occasion on which I have had to apply so strong a term to statements wrongly credited to me by the Rev. W. Gray Dixon, and about the twentieth time to certain specified assertions improperly attributed to me in publications of the Bible-in-Schools League. Plainspoken protest is, therefore, in order. ''l ask your good leave to state what follows: (1) In common with my co-religionists, I am as irreconcilably opposed to the National Schools Defence League as I am to the purely secular system which they defend. (2) So strong is this opposition, that neither the Catholic clergy nor laity, nor any of them, have act or part in the movement. (3) In reply to a similar invention, published by another prominent Bible-in-Schools League official, I have in my possession an official declaration 'by the secretary of the National Schools Defence League, that no communication has been received by said League from the authorities of my Church. I have, •furthermore, the assurance of three of the most prominent leaders of the Defence League that they fully "realise that my attitude, and that of my co-religionists, in regard to their movement, is one of frank hostility. (4) The outstanding leaders in the National Schools Defence League hold the positions of Anglican synodsman, Presbyterian elder, Presbyterian Sunday, school superintendent, and so on. These all retain, quite, unimpaired, their high and honorable Church standing 'and the "blessing" of full communion in the Anglican and Presbyterian denominations. Among the members and active workers of the Defence League there are many clergy of Reformed denominations, but not one of the faith which I profess. (5) Catholics are irreconcilably opposed to the Defence League as to the place of religion in education. We are, hereon, in strong •fundamental agreement with the Bible-in-Schools -League— two important differences (a). We believe in religious education to the extent of putting into it 37 years of personal effort, 'the ever-dropping coin of sacrifice, and thousands of devoted lives. (In Auckland city alone, in less than three years, we have flung into that sacred cause well over £60,000.) (b) We differ with the Bible-in-Schools League only over its sundry con-science-violating methods of introducing religious, instruction into the public schools. We/are at all times prepared to accord to the Bible-in-schools denominations the fullest measure of Biblical and religious instruction which they demand, subject only to a fair measure of equal treatment of consciences. We are, furthermore, prepared to consider any scheme that may be laid before "us, irrespective of whether it includes or excludes subsidies for secular results to our schools. Our attitude on these matters has been before the public scores of times; it has hundreds of times been ignored or misrepresented in the oratory of the League. So much by way of explanation. Will the Rev. W. Gray Dixon now prove his quoted statement, or make the inadvertently mistaken honorable man's honorable amende?—l am, etc., W, , ;.' :'_,-,'..* Henry W. Cleary, ' Bishop of Auckland. 'August 25/ ;