SOCIAL JUSTICE SUNDAY

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23965, 4 June 1943, Page 9

SOCIAL JUSTICE SUNDAY

CATHOLIC # CHURCHES IN AUSTRALIA From Our Own Correspondent SYDNEY, May 19. Nearly 3000 persons attended St. Mary's Cathedral to celebrate Social Justice Sunday, which was observed in all Catholic churches throughout Aus- c tralia. The address in St. Mary’s was a given by the Very Rev. Father Augus- c tine, C.P. (Passionist Order). Arch- a bishop Gilroy presided. t In his address, Father Augustine t said: "The Catholic Church condemns c Communism, Fascism, Nazism, r.nd modern capitalism, because they are j all systems of government which have s caused the Church pain and unspeak- r able suffering. To-day the Catholic r Church stands in the place of her Mas- v ter—the Divine Defender of Justice. It is therefore her indisputable right and duty to decide whether the bases j of any social system are in accord with th‘ unchangeable order of justice given , to us by the Creator through the na- f tural law and revelation. i "It is her duty to condemn any system which would deny men the healthy , atmosphere of truth and justice, and would give to men the disease-laden, * and often fatal, air of error and corruption. The Church condemns the systems I have named because they J have desecrated her altars, murdered her priests, violated her nuns, imprisoned her brothers, persecuted her * children, and proscribed her teach- ( ing.” . These systems were unjust, in that i thy robbed man of what was his by i God-given right. Father Augustine < said. The Church would see no man | denied his right to possess property. J to found a family, to worship God. and I not the State, to earn a just wage, nor i would it see any man deprived of eco- i nomic stability and decent conditions i of labour. , , , , "The Church stands to-day as she stood on the crumbling ruins of ancient paganism, with a plan that rebuilt and can still rebuild a broken world, Father Augustine said. "She has her constructive programme of social justice. which alone can bring peace and order to the lives of men. To-day. Social Justice Sunday, the Church would bring before the world the true and only solution of its problems. Her plan for reconstruction is old, but ever new—a plan of co-operation between capital and labour This Plan has work- : ed in the past, and will work in the future, if the Church has the co-onera- i tion of all men of goodwill—Catholic and non-Catholic alike.”