Archbishop of Sydney

His Eminence,
Cardinal George Pell
Cardinal Priest of the Title of S. Maria Domenica Mazzarello

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Home > Our Archbishop > Sunday Telegraph Column 2001 > Article	Printable Version

A Future for Christianity?

By + Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney
10 June 2001

Why does Christianity continue to thrive? One hundred years ago many of the educated expected Christianity would disappear in advanced societies. Despite the increase in the number of Australians with no religion, no one is predicting that religion in general, or Christianity in particular, is finished.

Seventy percent of Australians still call themselves Christian. The appointment of an Anglican archbishop is still important enough for his views to be attacked by non-Christians. Powerless or irrelevant institutions are ignored.

Atheist groups are aged and languishing. Many people without religion are not secularists but likely to be interested in unconventional mystical, magical and religious doctrines. For many the alternatives to faith are not doubt and secularism but fear, superstition, and even escape into drugs.

What does Christianity have to offer the people of today, healthier, better educated, more prosperous, aware of the wider world through television and the internet?

People endured public catastrophes and private tragedies for centuries before Christ came among us 2000 years ago. The other great religions also offer their responses. But we are all sometimes forced to wonder, no matter how hard we try to busy ourselves in distractions, and a ceaseless round of activities. Prosperity cannot guarantee happiness.

Why did that marriage have to break up? Why did that young fellow drift into drugs? Why is a young wife and mother struck by cancer? Why are we Australians so privileged in comparison with most people in history?

Is there any life after death where the victims of this life will be compensated and the genuinely evil punished? The list could go on, but people are restless at some period in their lives and most people seek direction and meaning. The big questions can't be squeezed out forever.

Christianity has spread from a handful of followers in Palestine 2000 years ago because Christianity has a superior capacity for coping with life's chronic problems.

Opponents still claim that all Christ offered was a pie in the sky; that he urged the poor to pray, while the rich continued to play. Nothing could be further from the truth. Christianity changes daily life.

The Roman Empire where Christ lived was a cruel place. Gladiators regularly died in huge amphitheatres around the Mediterranean fighting animals or one another. There were millions of slaves. Abortion and infanticide were common, few baby girls survived into adult life. Sickness and filth were endemic. Family life was chaotic and women had few rights.

A future world without Christianity would also be a crueller place than our own imperfect society; cruel in a way Nazi Germany and the Soviet Empire were cruel.

In those ancient times without social services, Christians offered help and hope to the poor and homeless; a new sense of family to widows, orphans and newcomers; solidarity and community to different ethnic groups and nursing services to the victims of epidemics and fires.

This meant hard work and sacrifice for the core members of the Christian communities. There were not many "free-riders" then, because Christians were often persecuted by the state authorities.

Then and now, there is no cost-free Christianity, and even cut-price Christianity, if the discount is severe enough, will wither and die in a few generations.

Christianity spreads through the friendship and example of its followers. Faith and love are attractive, especially to those who suffer and those searching for meaning, for a purpose.