CHILDREN OF MARY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22976, 2 March 1938, Page 5

CHILDREN OF MARY

ADDRESS IN CATHEDRAL DANGERS TO FAMILY LIFE Nearly 2000 Children of Mary assembled in St. Patrick's Cathedral last night to hear an address by the Rev. leather J. Nerney, S.J., of Melbourne, national director of the Sodality in Australia and New Zealand. The cirls, who wore their blue cloaks and white veils, completely filled the Cathedral, including all the aisles, the crowd even extending to the street from the doors. The danger of the attacks being made on the family, and thus on the very foundation of the social order, by Communism, by other totalitarian countries and by some democratic countries, which inoculated it with a slov' poison, was emphasised by Father Nerney in his address to the girls. "Totalitarian countries imprison family life," said Father Nerney. "In Nazi Germany the family is regarded merely as a means toward the expansion and supremacy of the 'Aryan' race. Germans have been deprived of their natural freedom of marriage and a dictatorship in education is forcing parents to submit to the Nazi methods of paganising Germany through the schools. In Italy also attempts have been made to monopolise the education of the young in the interests of a political party and to inoculate them with ideas which make for the worship of tho State." Father Nerney concluded by referring to the danger in democratic countries of regarding marriage as a civil contract only, of allowing easy divorce and birth prevention. "The family is the natural and fundamental unit of society," Father Nerney said. "It is more sacred than the State and has it« own rights, which the latter must protect. TJpon a sound family life depends ultimately the prosperity of Church and State."