TIME IS RUNNING OUT

MY DEAR PEOPLE,

The sun shines on one half of the world; the other half is dark and cold. One half of the world is free: the other half is held down in the cold steel clutch of Communism. If that cold clutch is relaxing, no thanks are due to most of us. So far from praying and suffering for those suffering millions, we turn our thinking away from them. It should disturb us; it should distress us.

The free half of the world is in process of rapid and still more rapid evolution. Consider Africa. In ten years' time there will be no more paganism there. There will be Christians, Mohammedans and all sorts of crack-pot unbelievers. The struggle for the soul of Africa, which so perturbs the Holy Father, is our struggle or it ought to be.

Up to a few years ago, the missions in various colonies were at the receiving end. To-day, the African is up and doing for himself. I know a diocese in Tanganyika where all the mission parishes are self-supporting. They contribute to the Propagation of the Faith and to Peter's Pence. They contribute to the Church five times more than the Bishop receives from Rome. What comes from Rome is all spent on extension—on new churches, new schools, on the seminary.

As the standard of living in the missions goes up, the cost of missionary effort mounts with it. Education is the principal field of competition. If the missionaries decide to remain in that field, their work and their equipment must conform to government

standards. Churches and dwelling houses built in the missions must likewise conform to those standards. They will last longer, but they are more costly to build. Travel is dear, and ever dearer. And travel must be more and more frequent. Can we forget the native seminaries, in which Christ fashions his priests, his bishops, his other Christs?

The conversion of the infidel is in the hands of young people. They are rising to the challenge with understanding, with devotion, with enthusiasm—priests, religious and a growing army of lay-helpers. Only the other day I met in Rome seven young Americans, boys and girls, engineers, air pilots, journalists, art students, on their way to work in Nigeria—black and white, hand in hand.

We who are left to work and pray at home must bestir ourselves to greater effort. The children, through their Holy Childhood efforts, put us grown-ups to shame. Of course we are hard up and always are! Let us admit the facts: we are softened by our standard of living, confusing luxury with necessity. We are God's spoiled children, living in the lap of spiritual privilege.

The National Councils of the Propagation of the Faith and of St. Peter Apostle for Native Clergy beg each of you this Mission Sunday in 1957 to consider your brother in Russia and to thank God on bended knee for your freedom. They beg you to consider your brother in missions in the free world and to remember that continual watchfulness and care is the price of freedom. Be generous to God, as He has been generous to you.

I remain,

Yours sincerely in Our Lord,

+ FRANCIS WALSH, Bishop of Aberdeen,

National President of the Work for the Propagation

of the Faith and of the Work of St. Peter Apostle

for Native Clergy.