ESCAPE FROM CRISIS

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 147, 19 December 1933, Page 7

ESCAPE FROM CRISIS

CHRISTIAN VIEWPOINT

OUTSPOKEN SERMON

LEADERS AND PEOPLE MUST REPENT

In a sermon on "The Churcli and the Crisis" delivered at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, Hill Street, . the Rev. Father J. A. Higgins, S.M., Viec-Kcetor of St. Patrick's College, Wellington, replied to assertions that the Church is today on her trial.

I Father Higgins said that a university prof esSor had stated that the world had issued a challenge to the Church and waited to see if she would pick up the glove that the world had thrown down, and an editorial' had stated that if the Church wanted to prove, that she was still animated in the spirit of her 'Divine Founder she must bringi pressure to bear upon the Government of this land to force some plan of action into practice for tho relief of those who were. suffering today. After stating that tho Catholic Church, if she could, would at one stroke cure the sufferings of the world, Father. Higgins pointed to the labour of mercy pqrformcd by various church organisations, but said that this toil of Christian love was not meant to cure: the evils of modern society, simply because it was not powerful to do so, and that it was not the duty or the right of the Church to take the place of civil power or government, and no work done by the Church was designed to ,do the work of civil government. While the Church was prepared .to help men even with the affairs of this life, she was not prepared "to do what her Divine Founder had made plain was simply not her work. • ..--...-

Declaring that men who by their own actions had made the work of the Church almost/.impossible now demanded her assistance and success from her efforts, Father'Higgins said:—

. "In the pride, of their so-called enlightened ways men scorned the power of religion. They placed their trust in human reason and refused the wisdom of God. They dismissed Christian truth from school-and college and university and the Church which they neglected and. even spurned is now to give them back that world in which she herself enjoyed scarcely the tolerance of men, .'.'•.

"Men drove God out of the world of business, out of the realm of commerce, industry, finance, and politics, they told the minister of religion to do his own work and to keep put of the affairs of the world; and now when their vaunted society is breaking up around them. they demand that the Church, under pain of their condemnation, must rush to their aid. . / WHAT THE CHUECH CAN GIVE. "Men today turn to the Church of God. And they, are wise in doing so. At last, even if only because of bitter adversity, they are doing the one thing necessary; but let this be clearly understood, they aro not wise even in what they want. Tor, mark it well, they are not asking the Church to give them a true Christian world. And the proof of this is that they give her no guarantee that in return for anything she can give them she will receive their genuine and loyal Christian conduct. She is to make a world of justico out of men who are even .abysmally ignorant of justice, she is to make a world of Christians out of peoplo who are not decently Christian, she is to make a Christian world out of the world's modern apostasy from Christ. What do men think that the Church of God can give them? She can give them Christian life and nothing else, shecan igive them the necessary means for them to keep the commandments of God, she can give them godliness, but she has nothing else to give them. The only . social prosperity therefore which the Church can give, the world is a way of life among men which will grow out of the Christian conduct of a godly people.

"There is only one way for men of today to approach God about the affairs of their social lives, and that is with humility seeking truth. The irky for men to profit by the wisdom of the Church of God and her authority is to acknowledge their mistakes. Let them come to her, but let them come in the guise of penitents, repentant for the evil they have "done. The appalling, the unspeakable evil of our day is that men have almost lost the power to approach God correctly, because they havo almost lost the power to think correctly. Not only are men ignorant of the- truth of God, also their minds are full of false notions and ideas, so that the task' is not merely that of teaching truth but also of breaking down the false notions that prevent men from understanding the truth. And from the social viewpoint tho great error to be broken dowii. and to bo wiped out completely is tho idea that there can be any genuine social reconstruction and reform, without reform and reconstruction in the very hearts and minds of the individuals who make up society. That, indeed,', is tho colossal impertinence, the sheer effrontery of many people today; they call upon the Church to help them and they are not willing to help themselves. They demand a Christian society from the Church of the Redeemer and ( wDI not themselves live Christian lives. They have forgotten, that society can "be no better than tho people who live in it. PEOPLE MUST BE CHRISTIAN. "The issue is quite plain and open, and tho Church is emphatic on the point;' no amount of legislation, no amount of economic reform will cure the maladies of society unless the people themselves are Christian.

"One of tho first needs for tho reconstruction of society, nay tho very first need, is for the people to acknowledge how far they havo fallen short of their Christian duty, society's greatest need is for the people to confess their unsocial selfishness, their avarice,. their greed of gain even at tho cost of justieo, their shirking of duty, their mad rush for pleasure, and tlicir denial of true obligations.

Let the people bo more Christlike, and above all, let the leaders of tho people be more Christ-like, and thon society will have begun to heal its wounds. . . . "A BLACK INJUSTICE." "The assistance of the Church.is ready for men to take and use, but it is .for them to take it. The Church is not a civil government, and' she may not do tho work of parliaments, and there is only one way for society to profit by the wisdom, the sanctity, and authority of the Catholic Church, and that way is for the people, and particularly the leaders of the people, to cast themselves at the feet of Christ crucified and genuinely to repent of the evil of their ways. You will never, never make a Christian world for men to live in until men honestly strive to bo Christians. And the modern way of challenge to the Church to assist society is only a black injustice unless men and women are prepared to bo what the Church demands they shall bo —Christians themselves in more than name, Christians in word and deed. Without the true Christian life of its people, all this nation can over produce in the social world will be a sham of Christianity.''