Series 01 Part 02: Hughes family correspondence, 3 April 1917-22 September 1918 - Page 226
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[Page 226]
5.
while fully conceding the right of every priest to vote & speak as he chose, had deprecated the introduction of politics into church affairs. We said that while no doubt Dr Mannix kept within Cerretti's ruling in this respect, he went to school gatherings, & other assemblies, & was making himself very prominent in purely political questions, & that in our judgment he would end by injuring the Church in Australia, as non-Catholics were unable to distinguish between the utterances of Dr. Mannix the man, or Dr Mannix the archbishop.
Cattaneo listened most attentively to all we said, & asked us many questions. He promised to take counsel with some of his clerical advisers, but pointed out to us that he was only a couple of weeks in the country & that it would be indiscreet for him to interfere until he had a better grasp of things generally. This interview of ours is of course a carefully guarded secret, & must not be made public to anyone.
Well a couple of weeks passed, & Mannix still pursued the uneven tenour of his way, & then Heydon's patience wore out, & he concocted a letter to the papers which he showed me before publishing. I toned down a couple of paragraphs, & then on Monday the 19th of this month Heydon published his protest in all the daily papers of Sydney. The "Daily Telegraph" works with the Melbourne "Age", so they telephoned Heydon's letter to Melbourne, so that it appeared there on the same day, and