“NO PRETENCE AT CHRISTIANITY”

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23262, 24 February 1941, Page 6

“NO PRETENCE AT CHRISTIANITY”

Modern Evils and Paganism

BISHOP’S CRITICISM OP WORLD TRENDS

A review of pagan /and anti-Christian principles in the modern world—-which, he said, were so serious in effect as to make those living to-day eye-witnesses of the dissolution of the work of many centuries—was given by Roman Catholic Bishop of Auckland, Bishop Liston, in ,a sermon at Solemn Pontifical Vespers in the cathedral, Barbadoes street, last night. Bishop Liston was paying a tribute to the work of Bishop Brodie, who yesterday celebrated his silver jubilee.

“The distance of the Church from the outlook and Ways of the surrounding world of today goes on increasing,” said Bishop Liston, “and more than ever must we look to Christ upon the waters and to those whom He has appointed to teach and guide the souls of men. If it be true that we are at the moment Jiving in one of the most important, eras of history, the most important since Europe was baptized into the Catholic faith, an era when Christ is for the first time in Christian history avowedly and even blasphemously rejected, and the clear decision is being taken by tbe modern world to give up the old Christian teaching, to abandon as worthless the moral endowment that the Church has created for men, and to build up an earthly paradise of its own—if that be so (and Who shall say that it is not so?) we are eyewitnesses of the dissolution of the work of many centuries.” “Many a state—shall we place our own New Zealand among them?—makes no pretence of being Christian; education is a thing apart from God; houses are built by governments, but not homes for families; little or no restraint is put upon the prevailing and increasing drunkenness and evil practices that destroy the family; books, papers, movies, pagan and degrading in thought and trend, go their way only slightly checked by public authority. Our days are days When multitudes live only for the hour and are filled with the pursuit of what passes; the world, much of it, not all of it, has lost its way and spent its forces; it is bent and broken. “Your Bishop, priests, and faithful of the diocese of Christchurch knows all this, and therefore is found, day by day, in the midst of you, teaching the truths of life eternal, given to action, a believer in prayer as a power in the world, knowing your needs and sharing your difficulties, setting your zeal to work, with deep trust in your loyalty to God and Church. And how blessed has your Bishop been in you priests and people!”