‘Apathy to plight of unemployed’

Press, 14 April 1978, Page 18

‘Apathy to plight of unemployed’

P A Wellington' Many people show an un-l fortunate apathy to the, plight of the unemployed, i say New Zealand's Roman’ Catholic bishops. "Our unemployment problem should weigh on the conscience of us all. Let noone talk of the nation’s crisis being over so long as we leave all these thousands unemployed," the bishops said, in a statement after a week-long episcopal conference in Wellington. Cardinal R. J. Delargey, Archbishop of Wellington, and Roman Catholic Metropolitan of New Zealand, presided. Others at the conference were the Most Revs O. .1. Snedden (Wellincton), J. Mackey, J. H. M. Rodgers,

E. R. Gains (Auckland), B. P, ( r Ashby (Christchurch) abd J.lv P. Kavanagh (Dunedin). 1; Archbishop T. Little (Mel-'l bourne) attended as an ob- c server for the Australian s Bishops’ Conference. In New Zealand and many] countries of the Western world, the right to work hadp been eroded by the con-? sequences of some modern? economic and philosophical r beliefs, the bishops said. ■ New Zealand had morel! than 20,000 unemployed, and? [the Government must be<* encouraged to use more ef-[ s Ifectively the means that 11 were available through the!' | Labour Department to help 1 overcome this problem. ( "We wish to remind the < community that neither the s

rights of property and wealth nor the rights of labour are absolute. Both are limited by the rights of others and both involve responsibilities to the general good." The bishops attacked section 3 of the Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion Act, which they said dispossessed parents of their rights. This section allowed certain persons, irrespective of the wishes of parents, to provide children with contraceptives, to direct or persuade them to use contraceptives, and to instruct children in their use. “It is dangerous and potentially very damaging to our whole social structure,” said the bishops. People should not be allowed to act in this way contrary to the wishes of the child’s parents, the bishops saiu Parental rights were proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which New Zealand was a signatory. The conference, the first of two meetings held by the bishops each year, also discussed communications between the Church and the news media, ecumenism, lay ministries within the Church, liturgy, moral issues, and progress on revision of canon law. Bishop Ashby emphasised the importance of the Church’s message getting through to young people in the confused atmosphere of modern society. “With the pressure of the; news media and other in-1 fluences, there is a . .ve danger of our young people i accepting ethical values that are not Catholic,” he said. '