SYDNEY UNIVERSITY AND DIVINITY DEGREES

New Zealand Tablet, 16 August 1917, Page 35

SYDNEY UNIVERSITY AND DIVINITY DEGREES

ARCHBISHOP KELLY'S WARNING. At the ceremonial blessing of the foundation stone of St. Francis' new church at 'Paddington on Sunday, July 29, his Grace Archbishop Kelly dealt with the effort now being made to grant powers to the Sydney University to confer degrees of divinity. "They must not .Protestantise the University," said his Grace. "Let it be honestly secular. It has come down to us from worthy citizens who took a due account of religion. They gave a college to the Anglicans, to the Presbyterians, to the Catholics, and are prepared to give one to the Methodists. These were built partly by the Government and by the laity. St. John's College represented to the Catholics an expenditure of about £BO,OOO, and before its completion it would require another £BO,OOO or so to accommodate some 80 or 90 students. The Government gives the Rector a salary. The people who did these things in the past would not want to impose upon us a secular system of education in the schools and say: ' Take it, but if you don't then pay double taxation in building your own schools and supporting the State's as well." " No Unity of Religious Thought. His Grace quoted an extract from the daily paper which set out that the representatives of several theological colleges had waited upon the Minister for Education and urged the amendment of the Act so that the University could confer degrees of divinity. The Minister had no objection, and said he would see if an amending bill could be drawn up. They must not do to the University, continued his Grace the Archbishop, what they have done to the public schools. In these they had Scripture lessons taken from the Protestant Bible, and these were cut up and emasculated, and they have by a kind of vague clause done a good deal to make the public schools Protestant. They must not do that to the University. It would be against the law. If they were true democrats, wishing to give equality to all denominations, they must not let Protestants get possession of the University. Do the several theological colleges agree among themselves except in hating Catholics? "I respect Protestants and have my hand stretched out to every one," added the Archbishop, "and only speak against the general doctrine. Continuing .the subject, his Grace was very outspoken. "They must not Protestantise the University as they have tried to do with the public schools," he declared. "It must be secular. . . . London and Manchester Universities were mentioned in support of the request, but what doctrines did they preach ? What was the doctrine outside the Catholic Church ? A doctrine of corruption—the doctrine of a dead body putrefying and going to pieces. They have lost the meaning of the Bible, and have no one to tell them what it is. Yet they are going to give a degree in divinity ! That's doing the devil's work, anyway."