PATH OF DECADENCE

Otago Witness, Issue 3429, 2 December 1919, Page 65

PATH OF DECADENCE

CATHOLIC FLAYS AUSTRALIANS. (From Oub Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, November 18. A gloomy view of social conditions in Australia was taken on Sunday by Monsignor "O'Reilly, who, in a public address at Goulburn, reminded his audience that 40 years ago Archbishop Vaugkan warned Australians that if religion were excluded from the State schools the result "would be a crop of infidelity and immorality. He had said that if they wanted •to keep Christianity alive amongst themselves 1 , to keep a sense of maidenly delicacy and modesty among their giiis and women-folk, they should cherish the principle of Catholic education. Archbishop Vaughaoi, he went on, was a, true prophet. The divorce courts were a' proof of it. A thousand cases were listed for hearing the other day in New South Wales. "Was there any man who pretended to be a good Australian who was satisfied with the present condition of morality ii: this State as revealed in the'divorce courts ;' "We are 'rapidly becoming _a disgrace to civilisa-tion," he proceeded. ~ Look at the decline in the birth rate and the systematic iniquities at the back of that blot on our civilisation. The time is rapidly oommg when that will happen to vls which happened to France, a country which oast off tho church." Our birth rate would bo lower than our death rate, and the nation would bo on the path of decadence which, unless it retraced its steps, lcacte to national extinction. The dressing of the women was becoming more and more an intolerable scandal. Many women, were anxioiis to take off as many clothes as the police would allow. The women who went to balla and theatres and moved in so-called modern society were appearing in such a condition that any man with a .spark of modesty could not visit them without feeling ashamed. He coi\ld not help thinking that some of the men who came back blinded from the front had compensations;.