REPUDIATION

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 23 February 1931, Page 5

REPUDIATION

PROPOSAL DENOUNCED BY

BISHOP

“MORAL POISON AT WORK”

AUSTRALIAN PUBLIC LIFE

(Received G3rd February, 11.10 a.m.) SYDNEY, This Day. In a Lenten Pastoral, delivered at Bathurst Cathedral, Bishop Crotty denounced the repudiation proposals and hinted that the Church must soon enter definitely into politics to save democracy from the destruction threatening it. Preaching on the text “Where there is no vision the people perish” Bishop Crotty said that an English preacher recently placed first in the list of modern deadly sins the cult of politics divorced from principles, thereby putting his finger on the primary cause of our gathering chaos and the increasing poison in Australian public life. When a private individual foreswore his debts or lawful obligations it was a policy without principle and we were shocked—or used to be; and when the nation or its chosen representatives made the same infamous proposal the same moral poison was at work. The policy had slain the principle and moral murder was callous and complete. There was not far to seek for the reason. Moral principles had been pulled up from the roots in God. The acids of modernity had dissolved tho ancients’ faiths. The principle was frankly disavowed in public life to-day, and thereby the doom of democracy was sealed. The community ‘looked to the Church for a bold Christian non-party lead. The Church might assert to the principle of fellowship as vital to industry. There was no such tiling as unordered liberty. The church stood for equality of human nature, unity of human life and saeredness in attempts to secure just order by governments. The moment governments became obsessed by economic issues exploited by men both ignorant and unscrupulous they ceased striving for such order. Then the man who rose up to challenge them in tho name of freedom was not a rebel hut a saint.. Meanwhile it was useless for vested interests or noisy demagogues to attempt to silence Christian leaders in their public witness. They were in a position where it was demanded of them that they should speak the truth.