CHURCH AND STATE

Taranaki Daily News, 24 July 1931, Page 8

CHURCH AND STATE

ROMAN CATHOLIC VIEWPOINT.

ADDRESS BY BISHOP LISTON.

“We in New Zealand are living in & fool’s paradise, if we do not recognise the changes that are taking place in the world of thought, bringing with them new customs, traditions and. beliefs,” said Bishop Liston in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Auckland, on . Sunday afternoon, when he delivered an address on the relations between Church and State. Special reference was made to the present tension in Italy. “While the State and the Church each has its own responsibilities and proper sphere of activity, the duty of the Church and its members is to see that Christian principles are respected in the activities of the State,” said Dr. Liston. The recent onslaught by the ruling civil power in Italy upon the Catholic Action Society had not been w- hunt benefit, because it had forced men to consider a wider and deeper problem, the relations of Church and State. The whole world, within and without the Church, was listening in, and it was natural to ask whither all this was tending. Since its foundation in 1923, the society had been merely a grouping of older societies. Among other things it had dealt with Catholic education, family life and young men’s clubs.

Men to-day were being led in wrong directions by a group of pernicious theories, which taught that the State was supreme in spiritual r; well as in temporal matters. It was said that men must determine the things of the State by their own interior light, without guidance from above. It was also said that the State was something apart from the spiritual world; that it could no' recognis eternal values; that it could not admit religion th the schools because it would cause trouble. The State was not concerned with the religious life, if any, of the children. The Church might be useful, but it must always oe subordinate to the needs of the people as dictated by the State.

"These errors are accepted in various European countries and partly in New Zealand,” said his Lordship. The State was free ami untrammelled in dealing with all the temporal affairs of man. The Church, on the other hand, had much to say to kings, to armies, and to those in schools and workshops, for it had the teaching ol Christ to impart and the laws of Christ to proclaim.

It was not a mutter for surprise, but rather was it to be expected that there should be conflict between the principles of the Church and those of a pagan State. Such a conflict had been in progress for many years in France, more kitely in Russia' and now was to be found in Italy.