DEFENCE OF WRONG

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26349, 2 January 1947, Page 5

DEFENCE OF WRONG

BISHOP DEPLORES NEW TREND CHRISTIAN STANDARDS HELD IN CONTEMPT NEW YORK, Dec. 30. Bishop Manning, who is retiring after 25 years as Episcopal Bishop of New York, gave the Australian Associated Press the following message: “ I send my warmest wishes to the people of Australia and New Zealand, for whose devotion and sacrifice in the great struggle for right and freedom America feels a special admiration, and to churchmen everywhere I say stand fast in the faith. Quit you like men and be strong.” Preaching a farewell sermon in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine Bishopric, he said: “ Everywhere there is heavy loss of faith in God and in the supreme law of right. Men have always been prone to wrongdoing. Formerly they knew it was wrong, but to-day they deny it it wrong, and they deny that, there is any supreme moral law binding upon all men. Much of our current literature and drama shows an open contempt for Christian standards of sexual morality and decency. “Amidst all this we are confronted with the sinister power of Communist materialism, which rejects the whole concept of Christian morality and holds itself bound by no promise that it may make, and wherever it holds power enslaves men in body, mind, and spirit, and seeks to dominate the world.”