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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 9, No. 11. August 21, 1946

Our Cathedral

Our Cathedral

Dear Sir,—

In reply to the letters published lately in "Salient" about the Cathedral, I should like to say that the main objection to building it is not, I think, the shortage of building materials and labour. Those problems will be fairly well solved by the time the Cathedral is started, I think. The reason I am against building this Cathedral is that I do not think it is a religious action, but a society gesture. I do not think the Anglicans are building to the glory of God so much as to have a grand building in which society marriages, etc., can be held, and in which, while the sincere can pray, the less devout can hold their dress parades, watch the Governor when he comes in, etc., in more fittingly grand circumstances than they can at St Paul's. One reason I say this is that in "the general plea for money, and especially in the advertisements for the Cathedral, the stress is on a Cathedral for Wellington the Capital City, not on a building in which to worship God. Another reason is that they are collecting money, not from people who believe that a church is needed, so much as from people who are importuned into giving, and even more, from firms who found a good opportunity to advertise in the newspaper columns which listed which firms had given, and how much they had given. That St. Paul's is old and needs rebuilding is obvious, but in this large, imposing, expensive edifice the glory of material wealth seems again to be taking the place of the glory of religion, as it did in the church of earlier days, leading to corruption and splitting; and striving for show and splendour seems once more to be entering into a religion that preaches against excess wealth, and against formalism. Perhaps It is not too late for the Church of England to reconsider its plans, arid build something less pretentious, less important socially, and more important religiously.

—C.