Catholic press replies ...

Sir,—Your issue of July 15. which has only now come to my notice, contains a leading article, "Catholics on birth control: banned views," which takes the Catholic press in New Zealand to task for alleged suppression of news in not publishing a statement on Catholics and contraception attributed to Cardinal Doepfner. a vice-chairman of the Papal Commission on Birth Control.

The leading article, signed by "M.K.," was apparently contributed by your religious editor. Mike King. (An almost identical article appears in "Critic." the Otago University newspaper, in its issue of July 22. under the name Mike King, with the attribution "NZSPA Religious Reporter.")

I am sure you and your religious editor will be interested to know that the purported statement by Cardinal Doepfner was not, in fact, made by him. If you should wish to verify this you may consult the London Tablet (6/4/66, page 457; 30/4/66, page 514).

It has not, therefore, been a case of the Catholic press in New Zealand refusing (to quote your leading article) "to cooperate and disseminate statements from responsible parties." Quite the contrary. The Catholic press has shown a responsible journalistic attitude by having a healthy suspicion of the original news item, holding up publication until its reliability or unreliability could be established, and having its original judgment vindicated when the news item was discredited as unreliable. In other words, the Catholic press resisted the temptation to publish the sensational and instead, by its prudent inquiry, has better served the cause of truth than your leading article.

It is a pity that your religious editor and yourself have been put in the embarrassing position of publishing an indictment of the Catholic press for being in a sense irresponsible through suppressing news of value! only to have it emerge that the irresponsibility lies with yourselves in not having made elementary inquiries that would have spared your blunder.

Had your religious editor approached me I would gladly have informed him of the reasons for non-publication and furnished him with references to sources that would have established for him that the original news item had been discredited as unreliable. In the event, of course, since the basis of your leading article is a discredited news item, your whole article proves inaccurate and misleading.

In the interests of responsible journalism and truth, which. I am sure, are of vital interest to you, let me assure you that I will be only too ready at any time in the future to supply your religious editor with any information he may desire and make available to him, or any agent of his, source materials that might help him in his task of reporting the truth and craimenting on it in the religious field.

REV F. D. O'DEA,

Editor, New Zealand Tablet.