THE POPE’S ENCYCLICAL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21356, 9 June 1931, Page 8

THE POPE’S ENCYCLICAL

TO THE EDXTOK. Sib, —Mr J. F. Prendergast, in your issue of June 4, says that I have started an attack on his Holiness the Pope. To this I take some exception, for this reason; I do not as a rule attack persons, but only principles or things they stand for. His Holiness, through your cables, made certain statements, and I wrote in an endeavour to clear the air of the influence these might possibly have on people who do not always possess the ability or time to sit down and analyse these statements. Mr Prendergast says I suggest that 1 am indifferent about my soul. In this he is quite correct. There is plenty .of work to be done in this work-a-day world about seeing that we get enough to feed, clothe, warm, and shelter the human physical body; and surely Air Prendergast will not claim that this is not an essential if the human body possesses such a thing as a soul. The better pro-

vided for the body is, surely it must follow the more healthy and virile the soul would be. So to me lam for seeing that we are properly provided for here first, as man cannot live without bread, which, however, is essential if he is to live at all. Then “Mary Ellen” says: “ I say positively that a man must do all material actions from a spiritual motive or he loses his true directing incentive. Then again: Look, however, at a man with religion and one without. The first has principles and a moral code which he will surrender to no man. The second is a nice easy fellow, etc. Well, I claim to be a religious fellow, but as for being a nice easy fellow I cannot say. I do not claim to belong to any of the numerous sects that are functioning under numerous names, but I have yet to learn that a man is debarred because of this from calling himself religious. I am a Socialist, and in the principles of Socialism I believe and for them I work. These principles are briefly stated as common ownership against private ownership, and if “ Mary Ellen ” will take up her Bible and turn to the Acts, chapter 11, verse 44, and against to The Acts, chapter IV, verse 32, I think she will find the Socialist has sufficient grounds therein stated to justify him in quoting the Bible to back up his claims. Does “Mary Ellen” mean that unless a man has a spiritual motive his material actions cannot be truly directed? And then I would like her to define what she means by a spiritual motive. Would she regard the feeding of little children as spiritual? These are questions we must first be clear on before we can proceed further.—l am, etc., June 7. T. Neilsox.