THE ARCHBISHOP AND THE “TELEGRAPH”

New Zealand Tablet, 23 August 1917, Page 11

THE ARCHBISHOP AND THE “TELEGRAPH”

' ♦ A REJECTED LETTER. The following letter was sent to the Sydney Daily Telegraph on July 31: —You say in your issue of to-day that “it is intolerable that a Roman Catholic Archbishop should publicly pour abuse on the things that Protestants hold sacred, especially at a time like this, when attempts to stir up internal dissension are doubly reprehensible.” Your virtuous indignation sits you badly indeed. You had no word of protest a little while ago, when the Anglican Primate uttered from his own pulpit, without having received any provocation therefor, a stale and offensive calumny against the Catholic Church. And you closured me when I tried to expose him. You have time and again voiced without reproof the vile charges of the Orangemen against our priests, our nuns, and everything we hold most sacred. When Lord Morley, in his Life of Burke, wished to say that his hero had been too sweeping in his condemnation of the leaders of the French Revolution, the hardest thing he could find to his hand was that Burke had been unjust to them, even “as the foul-mouthed scurrility of an Irish Orangeman is unjust to millions of devout Catholics.’’ To such men you gave the hospitality of your columns, and the lash of your indignation did not move. In the campaign that preceded the last election, everything that could brand with a stain the Irishmen and Catholics of Australia was ventilated day after day in the press. Critchley Parker was not a Catholic. The politicians used him secretly, and only repudiated him when they feared they had gone a shade too far, and that their dirty work might recoil on themselves. It is not unpleasant to see you squirm in your turn. Whatever you may think of Archbishop Kelly’s language, he, at any rate, spoke but the truth ; Archbishop Wright spoke the' other thing. If you will condescend to receive a little advice from me, I would suggest that, when you begin to practise what you preach, your sermons will produce much better fruit.— Yours, etc., M. J. O’Reilly, C.M., St. John’s College, the University.