HEROD IN BELGIUM

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2353, 8 January 1915, Page 7

HEROD IN BELGIUM

. ty- -i. PASTORAL LETTER BY 'ARCHBISHOP KELLY. . The- following paßtoral letter, by Archbishop Kelly, was read at all masses at. St. Mary's Roman Catholic Cathedral, Sydney,, and in all the churches of the archdiocese on Sunday week J "To the Clergy and Faithful: Dear Brethren.—la the actual circumstances of calamitous warfare in which ire and bo many are involved, a word to excite and direct our piety is suggested by the approach of the birth- ' day of our Divine Saviour—the Prince of Peace. "Every day we. read accounts of the ghastly slaughter of brave men by thouhands. Horn6s innumerable are being devastated; villages and cities are being pillaged and destroyed. Pitiful refugees : throng the highways to neighbouring oountnes. Hospitals are everywhere failed with wounded and dying soldiers. Upon the sea also, and even in the air, dangers upon dangers of death and destruction are multiplied. "Who can save in such a orisiß? God alone.can deliver 1 society self-abandoned to theories of life and of national welfare, which beget a policy of mutual destruction. God alone can over-rule the decrees of tyrants. God alone.can givo victory to the valiant in a just oause. God alone is Lord of the living and the dead. 'Whether we live or whether we die, wo are of the Lord' (Rom. xiv). Moreover, it is a holy and a wholosomo thought to pray for the dead, especially for those who uio m battle, that they may be loosed from their ems (2 Mac. xii). "For this particular holy season, and m addition to the Sunday and bi-weekly devotions already prescribed for the laity, and for our religious communitics, also over and above the daily col- • leot at Mass pro Tempore Belli, we oxhort the faithful, to pray for the Belgians, so outrageously maltreated by ruthless predominance. ' When we gather round the Holy Cribs, representing the scenes nt Bethlehem, lot ua remember the Belgian nuns and widqws and orphans who have been treated by military tyrants as tho Holy Family were once treated by Herod. "Therefore, wo would exhort'all, the children in a particular manner, to nlark the Feast of the 'Holy Innocents' ' this yeaT by groat devotion, and by most earnest supplications to heaven, on behalf of the suffering refugees of Catholic Belgium. Besides prayers, small contributions' to be sent by us to the Cardinal Primato of Belgium for i tho immediate and direct relief of the ! destitute and afflicted,- will be welcome to the Divine Infant, and to the Virgin : Mother, with hor ch&ste spouse, St. < Joseph.—Your servant in Christ, X Michael, Achbishop of Sydney. ; • I • I ! ' ] | 1 * i J