RELIGION AND LIFE

Grey River Argus, 23 October 1943, Page 5

RELIGION AND LIFE

ALL CHURCHES UNITE In Australian Convention (Special to N.Z. Press Assn.) (Rec. 7.28.) SYDNEY, Oct. 22. The Pope and the leaders of other Christian Churches should be consulted at the Peace Conference, declared the speakers at Australia’s first “Religion and Life” Convention, which is,now being held at Newcastle There are delegates of all denominations attending the conference, which has been organised by the Anglican Bishop of Newcastle, Rt. Rev. Dr. Dewitt Batty. “If Christianity is ignored at the Peace Conference, it will be a monstrous blow in the face of the purest patriotism of which man is capable, said one delegate. “It will amount to a rejection of that form of pure world citizenship which, alone, can ensure the peace, security, and mutual Prosperity for the nations of the world. A variety of subjects affecting the war and the post-war world have been touched on by the conference. Its deliberations have been widely publicised. The criticisms of the delegates have covered education, political life, and social life. The State system of education, with its merely ethical approach to life, was roundly condemned. An Anglican delegate said that the purpose of education was to give an inspiring vision, and a sense of the purpose, and to 1 create national character. The Christian civil philosophy could not be satisfied by the present education system, with its largely materialist outlook. . ■ A division of opinion was evident when the Conference discussed the subject “Economic Security as Necessary to Social Health.” Delegates pointed, to accomplishments within the Soviet Union. These delegates were, replied to by the Rev. Doctor P. J. Ryan, the Ca ; tholic writer and philosopher. The present economic ills, he said, were not due to ownership, but to the lack of ownership. Too few persons owned too much; and the many owned top little. Communism, however, dia not remove this unjust inequality. It aggravated it, by transferring the ownership of the productive goods to the State, and thus combining economic power with political power, and so reducing the citizen to slavery. “The Communist system,” said Doctor Ryan, “has no more to do with the bravery of the Russian people than has the capitalist system to do with the bravery of the A.I.F. There are five million members of the Communist Party in Russia to-day. If they are anythin? like the Australian Communists, most of them will be m well protected industries, far from the battle front”