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PUBLISHED WEEKLY.
ADDRESS: BCX 3633, G.P.O.
PHONE B5447
A CATHOLIC WEEKLY CIRCULATING THROUGHOUT THE STATE OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA. ESTABLISHED ire. Registered at the G.P.O., Perth, for Transmission by Post as a Newspaper, PRICE THREEPENCE
PERTH, SATURDAY, APRIL 28, 1934
Vol. LX
THE ASQUITH SLANDER
A statunent male by Lady Bonham daughter of Lord Asquith, that ' s a Catholic priest had broken the seal of Confession in order to the mind .11 of her fatter when he relieve had ordered, as Home Secietary, the execution of a I man for mtrder. The Lon ion 'Tablet" challenwl Lady Bonham Carter's statement, and to•ought evidence to s show that fir only person condemned / under conditicns stated by her was not a Catholic, no: w-ts ho attended by a Catholic priest. The "Tablet' pointed out that it I was -up to" th ladv to clear her father's honour from the stain pla:ed 1' on it by her, namely, th.at, even if the statement were true, he had gossiped I about a confidential statement :wide to him for his own benefit. "The Tablet- hal -ent a letter conI' taming iits comments to Lady Carter. I but had Not received mot acknowleeg :tent• Its letter oontained the eame i of the madexecuted an-t of the clergy man who attended Hr. A letter, dated Monday, February 5, had been handed in at its office on Thursday afternoon, February S, soiric hours after the 'II paper had gone to nre3s. No exolarre non was given of thf.- reason why th., letter took three days to travel • than three miles. Thee following is a spy of the missive "2 Suss x Place, W.2. ' '5th. Feb., 1931. . "Sir,—t have receved Your reminmication enclosing a een.N.Y of 'The I Tablet' . 0f February 3rd'. , As I have already stated. what 1 s have written is accurate and can be ( onfirmed by many others. , "To the opinion of tipase who believe father to be 'unutterably vile' caps 31e af conduct and , ..-eracite. I am indiffel ho question Inv nt.—Yours. etc..
"'VIOLET BON,„ AM CARTER.'
To this Hor nearlynote the "Tablet" replied that aboured notfour moitths it patiently Priesthooj. hutonly tO\ vindicate thc to protret Lord Oxford 1: and 0. Asquith's honour. Continuing. 1; One of our two great "prima cie" reasons for rejecting the Story 'f the Broken Seal 00tild place Herbert wae that its truth :\..%quith in a dis honourable light. .1Vtnd now his :laughter s' rewards us bky placing us Onlong "those who believe (her) fathet be (sic) capable of conduct 'unuterahl v Lady Raving thusViolet's Veracity. odic-,lusly false witness against us,borne said the —Tablet.- Lady 11 iolet. with rests t hat w the same di ,. of ink, suge have questoinect her veri On Cnost earefelthe contrarv. w-,e have been to impugn the ,veracity of We have supplied' Lade- VioIlet with Il lather's irrefutable evidence that her anecdote was currente,in anhrtuer form, which implied no sealand the most we asketi her was to inform readers of' the 'trand NIagatine" that there I lict (4 testimony probably is a, condue to ' Tod"'uv : s memory 'going astray.however. we have reached a tur thter -and hafi uusi •nessless pleasant stage of this Although we have not (l0 bte °lir antagonist's veracity in e Past we doubt it now. Or rather (a wcoa., enrintd'env er.ea. it, soe far as this affair is conee adealings r se.: 0 ingse Pttoheth w for know ' n , be of Washingtonian irrelO ' e--cel—'1': hut towards us her verxe• atl-d"its dried up. ift unveraciceus I' so. sgarneful to say that we, who toiv.e 'Thlottele defended a lead rrean
LADY BONHAM CARTER EVASIVE honour, believe him to have been capaple of conduct "unutterably vile." A "Telegraph" Interview. Our long article a fortnight ago caused a stir. More than one newspaper gave prominence to its findings. The "Daffy Telegraph," for example, reproduced part of it, under headlines nearly three inches deep. and acioed the following paragraphs: D AUGHTER'S REPLY. "My Father Could Not Make a Mistake." -I fully answered 'The Tablet' when they first alluded to the subject." Lady Violet Bonham Carter said to a representative of -The Daily Telegraph" last night. "I told them that my recollection of the story told by my
father is absolutely clear, and that recollection is corroborated by my brother and my husband. We heard the story told by my father over and over again. "He spoke most certainly of a Catholic priest, and as the condemned man was also a Catholic it was natural that he should make such a confession. I was a child at the time the incident happened, so that, of course,I have no other recollection than that of the story told by my father. "It is not conceivable that he should err in telling it, for not only did he possess a remarkable memory, but he was a man of extreme accuracy. In no sense did he tell the story to the discredit of the Catholic Church. He wanted only to emphasise this action of a priest who had the imagination to
ENGLAND'S ARK OF SAFETY INCREASING INTEREST IN THE CATHOLIC FAITH. ' I am quite definitely ot the opinion that we have reached, or are reaching, a state of equilibrium, a period of calm before the storm; but, after the storm, the people of England sickened and horrified by the excesses of the totalitarian State, reacting from the unrestricted interferences with the liberty of the subject and individual rights, from the storm and stress of human opinion and fallible theorising, will again seek safety where safety alone can be found—and that is within Peter's Barque. This was the considered answer of Rev. J Morgan, D.D.. L.S.S., of Oscott College, Birmingham, to the question, "Is Eneland Regaining the Faith?" which he dealt with in a lecture given under the auspices of the Liverpool Catholic Evidence Guild in the Picton Hall. Liverpool, recently. Contrasting the period in England characterised by the subjection of Catholics to persecution, and later, to obloquy and contempt, with the present times, Dr. Morgan stated that there was now throughout. the country at least a tolerant indifference, but indifference was on the decrease and tolerance was on the increase. What was more, there was a lively interest in the Catholic faith, thanks principally to the writings of Mr. Chesterton and Mr. Belloc. He, personally, had interviewed literally hundreds of earnest young men and women who were seeking the truth. and he was sure that his old colleagues of the Catholic Missionary Society had all experienced the same. But the greatest phenomenon of all was that fact that a large and really earnest section of our non-Catholic friends hacl so little prejudice against us that they were keen to be called by that once loathed and despicable name of "Catholic": that their clergymen were eager to be addressed by the title of "Father," which once was a sneer and a by-word, and that they gloried in calling themselves priests, which was once an indictable offence in England. and had cost forty-four students of his own college their lives. Our present status as Catholics, economical. social, political and intel7ec, -400 -04.141. -.041.
tual, was vastly superior to what it The faith of a was before the war. Catholic was no longer a real and insuperable barrier. But the most important. consideration of all was the fact that we were the only body in the country who could present a complete. comprehensive and consistent scheme of human existence, a reasonable explanation of the purpose of human life. But opposite our tremendous gains we had to balance serious losses. It could not be denied that there was a really serious leakage from the Church. There would always be some who fell by the wayside, but the leakage today was dreadfully abnormal. Thi.; leakage. Dr. Morgan attributed m ainly to one fact: the rapidly changing nature of the country from a nonCatholic one to a pagan one. Its atmosphere was one of sheer worldliness and selfishness, and Christian morality and tradition were in the discard. Hedonistic materialism was fast becoming the only religion of the country and the morality of the modern social orld was the morality of the hen-pen and the rabbit warren. Forecasting the future. Dr. Morgan said we were faced with the alterna. tives of Communism or Fascism. If the first, the Church would be proscribed, outlawedv forced into the catacombs as it was in Soviet Russia. The country was losing faith in the National Government. and he predicted that Labour, dominated by extremists, would possibly sweep the country, reenacting The scenes that occurred during the French Revolution. On the other hand. if Fascism obtained control of the country, its dictator might seek to curtail the Church's rights and liberties. We had to remember that in the totalitarian State, eVei-V interest had to be subordinated to the State. The State became a jealous god. who would have That no other gods before him. meant trouble for the Church, which recognised only one God and neither Stalin. Hitler. nor Mussolini as His prophet. The conversion of England was in evitable, because this Eeeland was Merrie England. Mary's England.
see how he could set at rest the mind of one who had performed his official duty. "It is idle to suggest that the Home Office would be able, at this late date, to say that the condemned man spoke What only to an Anglican chaplain. was there to prevent the condemned man confessing to a priest of his own faith? My father could not make a mistake on such a matter, and my recollection of his references to a Catholic priest is perfectly clear." That a moral man "could not make a mistake- and that "it is not conceivable he should err," is a rather large claim: but it confirms a recent remark in "The Tablet- that Infallibility is apparently to be found in all sort s of places, except on the Vatican Hill. We are dealing, however with a grave matter. knowing that scores ot thousands of readers see the "Tele. graph" who never handle the "Tablet," Lady Violet (herself a journalist) boldly said to the interviewer: "The condemned man was also a Ca. What was there to prevent tholic. the condemned man confessing to a priest of his own faith?" From this we gather, says the "Tablet." that the case detailed by us to Lade Violet is agreed to be the childHer ladyship murder in question. does not venture to say that we are on the wrong murder: and she does not — because she cannot—deny that the convict in that cas_e was attended on the scaffold by a good Church of England clergyman whose fall name we have What she does is to given to her. declare flatly that the murderer was a Catholic. Not that he may have been; "he was." Our searchers' reports, which lie open before us at this moment, do not contain one word about the murderer On the face of it, being a Catholic. His the statement is preposterous. Majesty's prisons are punctiouslv run, and a prisoner's religion is carefully noted from the beginning of his incar; Moreover, the gaol in this ceration. case was one of the most important in England. to which priests and ministers of .all the greater, denominations regularly repair. Lady Violet wishes us to believe that, in the case of her Christmas-time Seal-breaking story. the Governor of the prisoner muddled the Or. worse still, she makes chaplains the insulting suggestion that the chaplain properly concerned left to a minister of another denomination the terrible task of attenciine a murderer. in the darkness of one January morning. We call this insulton the scaffold. ing: because no minister of religion would thus have shirked his duty. Neither Catholic priest nor Wesleyan minister ,neither Baptist nor Presbyterian pastor, would have said. "This condemned man is of my religion: but I've done my bit by seeing him and listening to him, so now the Established Church can get on with it." She, not the "Tablet." has brought her vercitv forward; so we now tell Lady Violet that the veracity is chat lenged. Her latest addendum to the story makes it more incredible than ever; and she shall not evade her honourable obligations on the unveraciou3 e xcuse that we have calumniated the N-er y man whom we are defending. On what evidence does she affirm that the child-murderer was a Catholic? Unless we receive a proper reply we shall make a statement to a wider pnblic than our own
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