No Pure Race on Earth

Te Ao Hou, May 1957, Page 21

No Pure Race on Earth Racial Mixture is a law of God, said His Excellency the Most Reverend Romolo Carboni, Apostolic Delegate, in a meeting at Tuahiwi Pa last October. The Delegate who came as Ambassador of the Vatican State and is also in charge of Roman Catholic ecclesiastical matters in Australia, New Zealand and Oceania, was welcomed to Tuahiwi by Mr Henare Jacobs, the Hon. E. T. Tirikatene, M.P., and Mr Te Ari Pitama. In an address to the Maori people, Monsignor Carboni stressed his desire to see Maoris in every place and position in the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church in New Zealand and abroad. “It is a universal law,” he said, “that the different races of different places in different centuries move from one country to another, from one continent to another. For their very preservation, for their very strength, they mix together… there is no pure race on earth. What we call a pure race is an amalgamated race, resulting from different races. It is the law of God that the different races constituting the very same human family move from one country to another, from one continent to another and they mix with different races for their very preservation and strength. Here in New Zealand there are two or three different races and in the future there will be only one race resulting of the different races of today. There is a process which follows the laws of God—that process of assimilation and integration which should not be pushed unduly and should not be stopped. All the people of different races living together and particularly their leaders and authorities should be intelligent, wise and prudent to see in that process a law of God, a law made, not by human beings, not by human laws, but by God himself. That law shall not be changed, and we must discover, we must recognise, and we must follow that law. Here in New Zealand, the different races are mixed together in a very natural, supernatural and beautiful way. I congratulate all the New Zealand people, the people of European origin and the Maori people and their leaders in the Church and State. I do believe that the New Zealand people and Government treat the different races in a more human and Christian way than any other country in the world.”