HEROD IN BELGIUM.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 182, 11 January 1915, Page 7

HEROD IN BELGIUM.

PASTORAL LETTER BY ARCHBISHOP KELLY. The following pastoral letter, by Archbishop Kelly, was read at all masses of .St. Mary'# Roman Catholic Cathedral, Sydney, and in all the churches of the archdiocese on Sunday week:— "To the Clergy and faithful: •'Dear Brethren. —In the actual circumstances of calamitous warfare in which we and so many are involved, a word to excite and direct our piety is suggested by the approach of the birthday of our Divine Saviour—the Prince | of Peace. "Every day we read accounts of the ghastly slaughter of brave men by thousands. Homes innumerable are being devastated; village* and cities are being pillaged and destroyed. Pitiful refugees throng the highways to neighboring countries. Hospitals are everywhere filled 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 crisis? Cod alone. Cod alone can deliver society self-abandoned to theories of life and of national welfare, which beget a policy of mutual destruction. Cod alone can over-rule the decrees of tyrants, fiod alone can give victory to the valiant in a just cause. Cod alone is Lord of! the living and the dead. 'Whether we live, or whether we die, we are of the Lord' (Rom. xiv). Moreover, it is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, especially for those who die in battle, that they may he loosed from their sins (2 Mac. xii). "For this particular holy season, and in addition to the Sunday and bi-weekly devotions already prescribed for the laity, and for our religious communities, also over and above the daily collect at Mass pro Tempore Ttelli, we exhort the faithful, to pray for the Belgians, so outrageously maltreated by ruthless predominance. When we gather round the Holy Cribs, representing the scenes at Bethlehem, let us remember the Belgian nuns and widows and, ■orphans who have been treated by mili- . tarv tyrants as the Holy Family were? once treated hy Herod. "Therefore, w'c would exhort all, the (Children in a particular manner, to mark the Feast of the 'Holy Innocents' this year by great devotion, and by most earnest supplications to heaven, on behalf of the suffering refugees of Catholic Belgium. Besides prayers, small contributions to be sent hy ua to the Cardinal Primate of Belgium for the immediate and direct relief of the destitute and afflicted, will be welcome j to the Divine Infant, and to the Virgin Mother, with her chaste apoiise, St. Joseph.—Your servant in Christ, X .Michael, Archbishop of Sydney.