Cardinal Pell greets Supreme Court justices at St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney after the Red Mass
---
Christianity liberated women with the Judeo-Christian teaching of radical equality for men and women and the demands of exclusive, lifelong marriage between a man and a woman, the Archbishop of Sydney, George Cardinal Pell said in his homily at the annual Red Mass, reports The Catholic Weekly.
“For Christians a woman was no longer something like a possession of her father or husband to be disposed of at will,” he said.
In his homily at St Mary’s Cathedral on Tuesday to celebrate the start of the year for the courts, the cardinal said the quality of life of every nation can be “judged from the quality of its laws, the wisdom of the legislators and the integrity of those who administer the law”.
“On this score we have many reasons for gratitude and in every Red Mass we thank God for this blessing and for those who handed down these good things to us here in Australia,” he said.
“I think someone has explained the function of the law as placing tolerable limits to the intolerable.
“The law is also instructive, almost automatically, for many people who believe that what is legal must be moral.
“This is not necessarily true and Christians certainly acknowledge that sinful or immoral activity need not be illegal.
“However, the law by itself cannot persuade people to be good and just, to have hope and purpose, to go beyond the minimum required and practice self-sacrifice.
“These tasks have traditionally belonged to religion.”
FULL STORY Nation's quality can be 'judged from its laws' (Catholic Weekly)