Bishop Patrick Moran
Moran regarded Catholic education essential for a vigorous church. This photograph shows a group of Dunedin Catholic school children in the 1880's.
"Honest, fearless and outspoken", Moran was an aggressive defender of the Irish and Catholic causes
When Patrick Moran, the first Catholic Bishop of Dunedin, died in June 1895 one local newspaper commented with hostile and ungrammatical vigour that "outside of St Joseph's {his cathedral} he was nothing to nobody". This was far from true. Moran's career was part of the massive and far-reaching operation by which the Roman Catholic authorities sought to build the normal structure of the church around the Catholics - many of them Irish - who spread out from Europe in the vast population movements of the 19th century. To this operation he contributed in both South Africa and New Zealand. Moreover, in New Zealand he not only helped make the Catholic minority a conspicuous and strongly organised part of the community but was himself the focus of two issues of notable public interest - Irish Home Rule and State aid for non-Government schools.
Patrick Moran was born in Ireland in 1823, the son of a tenant farmer in County Wicklow. Little is known of his early life but in 1847, after completing his studies at St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, he was ordained priest. He served in various Dublin parishes until 1856, when he was consecrated titular Bishop of Dardania and appointed vicar apostolic of the Eastern Province of Cape Colony, South Africa. Here he remained for 13 years, distinguishing himself as a capable organiser and builder as well as a defender of his faith. In the latter role he opposed not only sectarian attack but also the movement for representative government.
To Moran, representative government implied that rulers were limited only by the will of the majority, which denied the, for him, fundamental principle that religion should set standards of morality and that the churches, the proper teachers of religion, were entitled to Government support. This belief, which also lay behind his State-aid agitation, was far from popular. And Moran's style did not help his cause. The Grahamstown Advertiser lamented that his arguments were not always urged in the most moderate manner". Nevertheless, at the time of his appointment to Dunedin in 1869, it complimented him on being "honest, fearless and outspoken" and stated that no diocese could "lose by his administration". Dunedin was to learn the truth of those words.
A vigorous leader
Catholicism in Otago was mainly a by-product of the gold rushes. Between 1858 and 1864 the Catholic proportion of the Otago population (then including Southland) rose from two per cent to 13 per cent; from 140 in a population of 7,000, to 7,500 in one of 57,00. The first pastors were itinerant. French Marists, diverted from their primary task of missionary work among the Maoris. Despite the devotedness of the Marists, however, tensions developed and the Irish began to agitate for clergy of their own race. Their demand was finally satisfied on February 8 1871 when Moran arrived to take charge of the newly created diocese of Dunedin. The new Bishop was gratified by the triumphal welcome he received, but did not conceal his "disappointment, disgust and discouragement" at finding the diocese without "even one Church" and "almost entirely destitute" of the altars, vestments and sacred vessels needed to say Mass. By 1895, however, it boasted 43 churches and a cathedral; the latter opened in 1886 at a cost of £22,000, was debt-free by the end of 1889.
Moran's school programme was similarly dramatic. Within two days of their arrival, a party of Irish Dominican nuns he brought with him opened a primary school for girls and a week later a high school. In 1876 Irish Christian Brothers arrived to set up a boys' school. And by 1895 the diocese had 27 Catholic schools catering for 2,000 children.
Moran believed that education was not only the proper but the necessary function of the church. "Build your schools and churches must follow, neglect your schools and your churches must close" was his motto. His demand that the Government provide a subsidy for separate Catholic (and other private) schools complemented this view, and he reinforced it by a relentless attack on the public school systems, which were allegedly hostile to Catholics.
From 1871-77 he assailed the Otago provincial system on the grounds that it was Protestant. There was undoubtedly some basis for this charge in the case of the provincial orphanage at Caversham. But there was little to suggest that Catholics were subject to undue Protestant influence in the day schools. A commission of inquiry in 1871 did, however, report that parts of some text books were objectionable and that some Catholics were not aware of the "conscience clause" allowing exemption from religious instruction and Bible reading. The Provincial Council, unable to alter the predominantly Protestant society in which the Catholics were living, and unwilling to subsidise separate schools, attempted to remove these irritants by resolving that public schools be conducted so as to give as little offence to Catholics as possible.
In 1871 Moran came to New Zealand on the steamer Gothenburg, which was later lost at sea. The ship struck Great Barrier Reef off the Queensland coast loss of over 70 lives. This engraving is from the illustrated New Zealand Herald of April 9 1875.
These Dominican novices were recruited by Moran in Ireland, and came to New Zealand in 1889.
Bishop Patrick Moran (1823-1895), an oil painting by Gilv Cappazoni.
A Threatened Faith
A similar conciliatory hope lay behind the 1877 Education Act which established a national system of secular education. The objective was to create a system acceptable to the whole population. As Charles Bowen who introduced the Bill argued, the variety of "energetic and powerful" denominations meant that a comprehensive education system could not include religion. He emphasised that the Bill did not embody secularism as a positive value, but simply as a means of avoiding conflict.
Moran, however, had a different view. The withholding of State aid was an extension of the "Penal laws" which Protestants had long imposed on Irish Catholics, while secular education and the increasing role of the State in society was part of a worldwide conspiracy against the church and Christianity itself. Behind this conspiracy, he said, was a malevolent chain of command reaching back through the Freemasons and "the Jews" to "the powers of darkness".
"The order [i.e., persecution] has gone out from one end of the world to the other . . . Free, compulsory and secular education is the war cry of the great army that is marshalling in posts against Heaven . . . For in the minds of the men who originated it secular education has for its sole object the destruction of Christianity and in the first place as an indispensable means to that end, the destruction of the Catholic Church . . . [The 1877 Act] was the Freemasons' programme and the Freemasons of this country were the dupes of those on the Continent."
If Moran really believed these assumptions it goes far to explain the tireless urgency with which he waged his campaign. He regularly wrote for the New Zealand Tablet, the weekly newspaper he founded in 1873 to carry his views beyond the pulpit, and in 1883 he even stood unsuccessfully for Parliament in an effort to obtain a further platform. Overlooking the unpopularity of his cause the Tablet explained his defeat: "Everyone knew that Scotch honour and Orange bigotry would not permit the Peninsula to be represented by an Irishman and a Catholic."
Yet, if Moran was unable sufficiently to impress either politicians or electors, his success in building a Catholic school system without outside assistance amply attests the loyalty of his own people. This he assiduously fostered by his close identification of "Irish" and "Catholic" - one reinforcing the other. His audience were constantly reminded of their tradition of suffering for their faith: the pages of the Tablet were crowded with Irish features. It was Moran's stated belief that his diocese was simply a branch of the Irish church, while his conviction that "it is unnatural for an Irishman not to be a nationalist" meant that the Tablet functioned also as New Zealand's main instrument for publicising and gathering money for the Home Rule movement.
Influence Restricted
Ironically, however, Moran's love of Ireland strained his respect for the Papacy in the 1880's, when he suspected - not without reason - that the Pope was disposed to restrain Irish nationalism in order to reduce embarrassment to English Catholics and to obtain British political support in Europe and elsewhere. The crisis came in 1887 where Rome set aside the recommendation of the bishops of Australasia that Dunedin should become the Metropolitan diocese of New Zealand with Moran as its Archbishop. Instead, Wellington was designated with Francis Redwood, English by birth and also a Marist, as Archbishop. The decision could be explained by the fact that Wellington was the capital and that most of the clergy there were Marists. Similarly innocent reasons explain why English Bishops, Edmund Luck and John Grimes, were also appointed to Auckland and Christchurch. Moran, nevertheless, avoided both Redwood's investiture and Grime's consecration while the Tablet thundered that "Irish Catholics should have Irish leaders".
Yet eventually the affair blew over. And in this Moran - probably under pressure from the Vatican - gave the lead. Thus in 1889 when the Irish priests of Wellington and Christchurch wished to present him with a bejewelled pectoral cross he refused to allow any publicity - "lest it be complained of at home". He apparently received the gift by mail - and New Zealand Catholicism took a teetering step towards maturity.
As a final judgement it must be admitted that Moran caused much needless unpleasantness and little to integrate Catholicism into New Zealand society, possibly to the disadvantage of both Catholics and the wider community. Yet, through his material achievements and the cohesive sense of purpose with which he inbued them, he had at least helped ensure that Catholics could adapt to New Zealand from a position of strength.
Laracy H, Bishop Patrick Moran', New Zealand's Heritage