CATHOLIC CHURCH-STATE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 59, 10 March 1936, Page 18

CATHOLIC CHURCH-STATE.

There is but oiie solution, in my mind, of the problem of the relation of Churcli and State, which is vexing Germany to-day, and is as old as the Church itself. And that is the establishment of the Catholic Church-State, which, as I conceive it, is only another name for the Kingdom of God or universal brotherhood. All efforts to keep religion and politics—Church and State—separate have failed. The recent experience of the Friendly Road demonstrated this! afresh in New Zealand. The Church must have political power, as the Roman Catholic Church has ever claimed, and the State must ha.ve ecclesiastical power if it is ever really to govern. Thus a combination of religion and statecraft m the Church-State is the true solution of this problem. And the solution of the problem of international relations is to be sought in the direction of making the Church-State catholic, universal. By thinking the Catholic ChurchState we create it in measure; for thoughts are things. To those who thus think it it already exists, but rather as an organism than an organisation, or as a spirit which will evolve a body for itself in which to function on the nhvsical P la »e. J. G. HUGHES.