LIQUOR QUESTION.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLVIII, Issue 112, 14 May 1914, Page 3

LIQUOR QUESTION.

ATTITUDE OF THE ROMAN ' CATHOLIC CHURCH. '

STATEMENT BY BISHOP GRIMES

A fow days ago a cable message was received in New Zealand-stating that the Pop© had urged a greater activity in the temperance movement. Speaking io a Ly ttelton Times i-eporter,, Bishop Grimes, dealing with the message in an interview, made clear the attitude of the Roman Catholic Church on the liquor question. "Of , course," he'■.remarked, "I endorse wthat. his Holiness has said. Tempe'ramice is ,o«ie 'of the cardinal virtues, enjoining moderation in all things as a virtue. We believe that intemperance is destructive of individual morality, and greatly lessens public morality, tending as it does to criminality and immorality. Statistics go to show that no vice lessens more the economic productivity or wages greater warfare on the welfare of the people than intemperance, especially whpn it becomes tii© vice of drunkenness. The Catholic Church has always set its. face against this vice in season and o,ut of season. Its popes, bishops and 'priests have raised their voice against it, and the action taken by the Pop©, therefore, is <iiot new. His predeec-ssbrs granted indulgences, spiritual favors, to those who refrained from intoxicants, from a principle of virtue. Wo know that ■in former time, when drunkenness was rife in the country we have come from, England, the people ridiculed people who had fallen into that vice by placing them in the stocks. We rejoice in any legitimate effort made td countcaia«t or to put down this vice. No one is more pleased than lam to find that the use of stimulant is much less encouraged by the medical: profession than heretofore. Tlie armies of -'Britain, America., and Germany have,, adopted less harmful beverages, and we know thait the lata Captain Scott .and Lieutenant Stfoackleton \ had said that the use'of stimirlants Was not only unnecessary, but , : vWy hurtful to; the qualities of endurance in expeditions like those they led to the Antai^t-ic. Belgium, France, and Italy, where formerly the bar© idea of total abstinence was ridiculed as: a- i'reak of the Anglo-. Saxon race, now have .their institutions in favor of .temperancel. In France there is a League Nalionale against alcohol, and in Italy there is a similar League. In Sweden, Ge'rinany, and in Switzerland there are leanperanee tavernswhere intoxicants are tabooed. "Many of our religious orders in ancient and modem times,. especially in the East, lwere total abstainers,5 tub practised it as a> spiritual penance and mortification. The religious sect. of the Manicheans, which existed in the • third, fourth, , and later; centuries, taught that there were two principles, good and evil, ruling the world. That the author of all_ good things was God, and the devil the author of bad things, and amongst the bad, according to them, was strong drink. We know, according to the Book of Genesis, that when God created the world, ho pronounced all his works as good, and, therefore, the Church condemned the teachings of the Manicheans on this principle as heresy. This is the1 teaching of the whole dh.urch.at the present day. "We do not take a public part in the effort against the .liquor evil," said Bishop Grimes, /'but we do all that we oan to secure temperance.. We have a temperance pledge, which j is taken and -.- becomes a. spiritual j matter. It has been said, that Cardinal Manning was a great advocate of total abstinence, but Cardinal] Manning did not condemn drink itself, as an evil. Speaking of drink, he said: ' Nor is there siri in these things for this reason. That there can be Bin in nothing or nobody who hasiiot will and conscience to know right from wrong.* -Therefore >if this room werte full of baiTels of beer and bain-els of wine, and puncheons of brandy, there could be no sin in these things i themselves. We could sat fire to I them and make an end of them. They: are not sinners; It is ourselves* who ; are sinners. The men, arid:' women! who abuse these things violate their: conscience by their own free will; they are ihe sinners.' We teach that alcohol and other poisons are good in themselves, because they were created for good, and it would be wrong to say that they aro evil. j "St. John Chrysostom has said: i ' People cry out— ; would there were no wine! 0 folly! 0 madness ! When men sin in other ways dost thou then find fault, with the gift of God? But what madness is this! Did the wine or men produce this evil? Not tJie wine, but the intempea'at©, such as take an evil delight in it. Say then: Would there were no drunkenness, no luxury; but if - thou sayest would there were no wine, then wmild thou by degrees go on to say: Would- there were'no steel boc^use of murderea-s, no night because of thieves. In short, would there were no thing because' it may be abused.' The. great theo-! logician, St. Thomas, the angelic doctor; teaches that the use of Avime and intoxicating drinks is not itself sinful unless men in doing so give rise to scandal, giive way to drunkenness, or violate some promise to the contrary. The great Cardinal Manning made the following striking statement: ' But I repeat that any man who says that the use of wine and other like things is sinful when it does not lead to drunkenness, that man is a heretic condemned by the Catholic Church. With that man I will never work. Now, I .desire to promote total abstinence in every way I can. I will/encourage societies for, the promotion of total abstinent, but the moment lie is not chaxitablo, attempts to' trample down men; who don't belong to the total abstainers, I say from that moment I will not work with these men.' "I could not say," concluded Bishop Grimes, "that drink was evil in itself, because drink, opium, and similar things are only .evil ■ when they are abused. They are good, and useful and good- when used under proper direction. The scriptures do say that the drunkard will not enter heaven, but they don't mention the moderate drinker; and one of the apostles, himself a total abstainer, advised a mam to take drink for his health. It is'said-that the wine in tho day.? of tho fjcriptures was uiifermenrted, but that is a gratuitous assertion, and can bo, gratuitously denied. The bad thing in the drink is. I think, the adulteration and mixir<? :ind things of that sort. I believe iT'v.':r>lf thfct people are better without stroug drink, and, though I havo been through many severe trials, I have n^t touched strong drink for many years, and I havo not felt tho need fa-' it. I think .that a lot- that is said alwit drunkenness in the Dominion is exaggerated, amd is- a libel on New Z^ a landers, whose vicej I think, is not intoxication."