The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1888-11-06

Catholic church, when tue power nap
pens to be in the hands of those who do
not believe in their claims, and no one
can treat the same with more utter indif
| ference, or suppress them, if necessary,
with a more iron hand, than these same
! gentlemen, when the boot happens to be
on the other leg.
The ideal Of the Catholic church in
educational matters is school system
entirely under her own control, and run
primarily in heriuterest. That is to say,
a system whose firskand main object is
to make good Catholics of the boys and
girls under its care, and incidentally and
secondarily, TO impart to them greater
or less amount of secular knowledge.
This is what the Catholic church wants,
and what she has, where her political
power and her control of public affairs is
sufficient to secure the carrying out of
her policy OF course she will take less,
where less is all she can get, but she is
never satisfied with less, and never &C
cepts it as full settlement of her claims.
To many people, the changes now pro-
posed by the Bishop of Olba may not
seem very important or particularly OBJ
iectionable. Ii is, however, q step in
the wrong direction. Is it worth while
for us to take that step, which our own
judgment does not approve OF, and which
our own conscience and sense of right
does not require OF US, merely to satisfy
the claims of those who we know per
fectly well beforehand will not be salts
fed thereby. but who will merely accept
Il concession as sign of weakness,
anu continue intriguing for more. To
L u -,
feet from solid and impregnable foun-
dation, only to entangle them in the
shifting and treacherous quickSands OF
ecclesiastical pretensions and priestly
intermeddling.
The Catholic church in these islands
has a large and apparently devoted
membership. 1t has an able and ener-
getic Bishop, and quite numerous body
of priests 1t has churches or chapels at
every important point in the country,
and all the machinery for efficient church
work 1t has teaching and nursing
sisteIhoods whose members are person
ally respected, and whose work is widely
appreciated outside of their own COM
munion. 1t has full liberty to teach and
TO preach, to practise its peculiar rites
and ordinances, and administer its sac
raments. 1t may use almost any means
short OF physical coercion to convince
or convert both old and young,
and bring them within its fold 1t |
can organize and maintain Sunday |
schools, classes in catechism, or other |
form OF religious instruction, and can use
these and similar agencies ad lib. All |
this and more it can do, with the single |
hot 4 Il /
must be done through its own agencies,
and at its own expense, and that it shall |
not make use, for that purpose, of any |
branch OF the public service or any insti-
tuition which is maintained from the |
public treasury. 1t seems rather a sorry
confession for church thus situated to /
make, that she cannot hold her ground |
with the children OF her own communion,
and that she cannot train them up in due
faith in her doctrines and reverence for
her authority, unless she can have her
peculiar and distinctive tenets, her de-
and sectarian peculiarities
in some way directly or in
directly, by or through the agency of the
public schools.
My accumulating pile of manuscript
warns me that l must pause, which l do
without having completed all intended
to say. Thanking you for your courtesy
and liberal allowance OF space, | sub
scribe myself as before,
a Protestant LAYMAS.
P.S had just finished the above
when l received the Bulletin containing
the Bishops rejoinder to my first letter.
see nothing therein to cause me to
modify what | have written. If the |
Bishop finds any expressions which he
deems severe or harsh, beg him to re-
member that my contention is not with |
himself personally, but with the policy
Of his church as seen from the Protestant
standpoint. do not accuse him of any
conscious desire to prosecute anybody,
put the record OF the Catholic church in | 4
he way OF enforcing its own ideas and
those Of others by the strong
arm OF the civil power, when the same 5
las been at its disposal, is something 3
which no amount OF special pleading can
,et rid OF. 1t Is one OF those ugly facts Z
II history which viii have to stand. 1t a
: not necessary to go back to the records
II medieval bigotry, or TO rake up the
history of the Spanish Inquisition. Z
Things have happened in Italy, Spain
nd other places within our own day.
which give at least some ground for the
uspicbn that the more liberal policy of =
be Catholic church in recent times is
ne as much to lack OF power as to change
I purpose. [ hope the Bishop is as 1
earthly ashamed Of the excuses of his
Hn church as am Of those too numer-
US instances in which PrOtestants have
1llowed its bad example.
l cannot undertake to discuss the doc Il
-inal points advanced by the Bishop in
Is second letter, or whether and how
II belief therein is essential to saliva
on. Ny quarrel is not with the theology
-. .-l.r,r-.k ~. -. =