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ELLIOTT O ELLIOTT
ELLIOTT ELLIOTT
OPTICIANS PI ODIMA PIRTH R44E
OPTICIANS
John fllleR M Ex-I1' dr m Bros Sfudenf
Piccadilly Arcade
Tel.
Perth
Tel. B7988
B7908
PERTH,WEDNESDAY,MAY 80, 1945,
NO. 9,182'.
PRICE THREEPENCE.
In Australia We have Kept the Faith
SEVENTYZECOND YEAR,.
to Ourselves
A
Ancient Apostolic Church Has Become aChaplaincy By REIN'. A. CLEARY. Yes, throughout Australia, and indeed throughout the English speaking world, we Irish, and of Irish descent, have kept the faith. But, unfortunately like Father Healy's Scotsman, who " kept the Sabbath and everything else he could lay hands on," we have kept it to ourselves. We have built churches and schools we can be proud of, we have hospitals and homes and charitable institutions, clubs and societies and youth movements. books and papers and pamphlets and printing presses to produce them. But for the most part, all these things are for ourselves, The ancient Apostolic Church in our hands has become a chaplaincy. We are a sect amongst sects. Is this an exaggeration? I hardly think so. A priest who is assigned as chaplain, say, to an airforce camp, has no responsibility towards, in fact no jurisdiction over, the surrounding civil population. Ile does not, therefore, attend to their religious needs. He has not been appointed their pastor. He is a chaplain. His responsibility is confined to the personnel of the camp. The question arises, are all our priests chaplains to the Catholics of their parish, or have they an obligation to the other souls within their parish boundaries? If they have an obligation and are not fulfilling it, they are acting as chaplains and not as pastors, and the Church, founded for the salvation of all men, has become a chaplaincy to a section or national group. Needless to say. the law of the Church knows no such attitude. In the Code of Canon Law we find that Church authorities must regard nonCatholics living in their districts as commended to them in the Lord ( Cf. Canon 1.3.0. Par. 1), Our theory is all right. It is the practice that has gone wrong. Of course, any priest will instruct a non-Catholic who desires to enter the church. But bow is the non-Catholic to discover that the Catholic Church is the one true Church, and that he or she has an obligation to seek admittance? One convert, now a religious, told me that she came to a presbytery more than six times before she had the tour. age to ring the bell. The priests are , hand, no doubt, to welcome the re• quest of their non-Catholic parishioners to come into the Church, but, did not Christ tell us to go into the high , u-ays and byways and compel them to come in? Note the word "compel." If priests waited in their churches and presbyteries till their Catholic parishion trs came to ask for the Sacraments, there would soon be no Catholic flock, After them they have gone out sys-
For Value and Service
Why Not Apply Catholicism to All Our Fellow-Countrymen Catholics Are Failing in Their Duty to Non-Catholics tematically into the highways and the byways, and used at least moral compulsion to bring them in. But why has their zeal and charity stopped at the doors of the Catholic parishioners? Did not Christ die also for the nonCatholics? Do not they also need the preaching of the integral authentic word, the forgiveness of sins, and the
reception of the Divine Eucharist? Did not Christ say: " Other sheep I have that are not of this fold?" Did Ile not insist: " Them also I must bring and there shall be one fold and one shepherd?" I am proud to have come from perhaps the greatest missionary land in the world where, thank God, the flame of missionary zeal burns brighter to(lay than it did, perhaps, at any time since Columba and Colurnbanus. Many of my class-fellows and acquaintances are missionaries in Africa and in the Bast. But no one of these priests is content to settle down for the rest of his days to minister to the existing Christian flock in Nigeria or Hanyang. An essential part of his apostolate, a necessary adjunct of Church organisa-
tion is the Catechumenate, where the surrounding pagans are brought and gradually instructed in the Catholic faith. Why not apply this missionary technique to the English speaking world? Or, to bring the question nearer home, and to put it more bluntly, why not apply Catholicism to Aus. tralia?
ti This work of conversion to my mind is cardinal. Unless the Church as such, or in its local expression, viz., the parish, gives the lead and gives outward form and body to this principle, we must fail. In vain, and I speak from experience, in vain do we try to teach , the children in our schools, or their elders in our Churches the truth that there is only one true Church. They give to this truth only a notional assent and it will never become operative in their minds or conduct until then see the official Church, as they know it, living that truth in practice. Tbe., i will still regard the Catholic Church as they regard their favourite football team. or at best as the oldest and greatest of many more or less equal churches. A central block will with.
draw into isolation in an attitude not easily compatible with charity, and %; tainly not with apostleship. But the outer fringe will become more and more "broadminded" and, as the years go on, in spite of much legislation and many exhortations will continue to contract mixed marriages. The chil'dren of these marriages ,will be still less Catholic in outlook ,and so the drift goes on. It is but a matter of time and there will be no Catholicism. And this not so much, I think, through malice or ill-will, or even weakness, as through a failure to grasp in any real sense what Catholicism is. And they fail to grasp it because, in truth, they have never really seen it in action. Inside and outside the Church, the chaplain policy has been disastrous. What impact are we making on the surrounding world? Do not ask me why we should want to make an impact, or I will quote the -words of Cain, "Am Imy brother's keeper?" A Catholic is a person who is responsible for his fellow men. Look at your own district be it city or country. Ask yourself? are Catholics giving a lead in cultural, civic, professional and economic life. I am not thinking of the influence which can thus be wielded to secure positions for Catholics. Such an object is mere selfishness and has nothing at all to do with Catholicism. Whenever it has motivated Catholic life—and there have been, of course, times and places —it has done more harm than good. We are living in a time of crisis. Something akin to the chaos of the dark ages is about us. Only men and women with the traditional human and natural outlook are safe in many positions of responsibility. You cannot take a man's intellectual or moral sanity for granted to-day. Can you trust your6elf, for instance, to a doctor's surgery if you mistrust his ethics? And how many doctors' ethics are sound on all surgical problems? Was there ever a greater need for first-class Catholic doc. tors? And what section of national or civic administration is safe if it falls into the hands of some of the planners and experimenters who will organise human life without knowing what that life is or what it is for, but who will nevertheless, as in a recent medico-moral issue, brand you as unscientific and reactionary if you do not accept their theories. "Let your light shine before men," Our Saviour told us. I think, at least I hope, that the majority of our Catholic people give amagnificent example in their devotion to the Mass and in their effort to live upright moral lives. But when Christ said this, did He not also mean the light of revealed truth, and (Continued on Back Cover.)
Guilfoyle's Hotel Australia&t. u•;::• Registered at the O.P.O. Pauli, for transtafaion by 1t as a now
Per-