SO, IN CASE YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND HE PUAPUA

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Love's Labour's Lost Maori caucus

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told Parliament this afternoon that the 'He Puapua' report should have been withheld in case New Zealanders didn't understand it.

Oh, we understand it all right, Prime Minister. We understand that it's about dividing our nation along lines of Maori and non-Maori, and about handing most of the power over not even to part-Maori but to a handful of elitists who know an opportunity to grab the upper hand when they see it.

We understand that "He Puapua would divide our society into Maori who form 16% of the population on which 50% of political power would devolve by 2040, while the other 170 ethnicities in this country who constitute 84% of the population would share the rest. The 16% would enjoy their privileged position because they possess a drop or more of Maori blood. Without that drop, the rest of us are destined to become a rather crowded group of second-class citizens." https://www.bassettbrashandhide.com/post/national-labour-and-he-puapua?postId=ba28789e-bec5-4e7d-bdb2-ad86dc204713

“The Prime Minister is patronising New Zealanders," says ACT Leader David Seymour.

It sticks in my craw to quote Seymour, who approves of killing babies and old people. I'd rather quote Her Majesty's Opposition, even though their leader's no better - but where is the 'Opposition'?

Well, at last Judith Collins seems to be finding her old 'Crusher' form.

"Judith Collins and David Seymour both appear to have found the same wedge issue," writes the barely literate Stuff reporter Henry Cooke today. 

. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300292463/whose-race-card-is-this-anyway-judith-collins-and-david-seymour-both-appear-to-have-found-the-same-wedge-issue

'Stuff' complains that "Seymour and Collins are playing from a similar deck of cards"

Excuse me, Mr Cooke, if I point out that it didn't take much finding. This Labour Government handed your "deck of cards" to the opposition parties on a plate. 

Cooke describes this smoking bomb as "an obscure issue ...  Collins has seized on the report as the foundation to a wider argument she's been making about the “separatist” agenda of the Government ever since Little proposed setting up a Māori Health Authority; a skeleton key to the Government’s plans that has been hiding in almost plain site (sic, my emphasis) this whole time." 

And if, Mr Cooke, it has indeed been hiding in almost plain sight this whole time, whose fault is that? Yours, and the rest of Ardern's media toadies whose job it is to clarify such issues for the public.

"Nanaia Mahuta carefully selected her group of advisers to produce a vision of how New Zealand could be brought into compliance with the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. When the report came to ministers in 2019 it wasn’t released publicly, probably because the Labour government realized that it might be unpopular.

Such perspicacity ...  

"No mention was made of He Puapua at the time of the 2020 election. Instead, once re-elected, ministers seem to have decided to implement its separatist recommendations in dribs and drabs. Mahuta has given us Maori wards in local authorities, over-riding public opinion, and shortly Andrew Little will establish a separate Maori Health Authority. It will exercise power in the area of Maori health and also enjoy some rights - yet unexplained - to interfere in health decisions relating to the rest of us.

"He Puapua proposes separate court and justice systems and contains a timetable for the establishment of a Maori Parliament. We know, too, that the government intends to inflict a disgracefully one-sided history curriculum on our schools, pushing the notion that only Maori values have been important to New Zealand’s history, and that the values of the colonizers who brought reading, writing, arithmetic and a system of justice to a country ravaged by the musket wars in the early nineteenth century are of no historical importance.

How come He Puapua has now emerged as a political issue? It seems clear that some people with Maori ancestry perceive in the UN Declaration (on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples) an opportunity to propel themselves into elite status over and above the rest of their fellow Kiwis.

Ancient Maori society, as Mahuta well knows, was very hierarchical with its own royalty, chiefs and slaves; the modern He Puapua Maori agitators aren’t happy with equality that is everyone’s current lot and want to entrench themselves in superior positions.

Whether all of Ardern’s cabinet share this aspiration for Maori isn’t yet clear, although they haven’t denied it, and we are entitled to suspect they do.

One thing is clear: when Judith Collins gave her very carefully worded speech to the Auckland National Party conference last weekend, no minister denied that He Puapua was the Labour government’s long-term intention. Speaking for the government, Kelvin Davis’ only contribution was to abuse Collins. Shouting “racism” at anyone who questions anything to do with Maori seems now to be a universal comeback, no matter whether a sensible answer is needed or not.

 

self-explanatory

The fact that this government is contemplating entrenching racial divisions in New Zealand society reminds us how young and inexperienced the current ministry is.

The New Zealand Labour Party invested a lot of energy forty and fifty years ago fighting on behalf of those subjected to racial oppression in South African society. The Third Labour Government opposed the planned Springbok Tour to New Zealand in 1973 because its players were selected on the basis of race, and the entire Labour caucus in 1981, the year after Jacinda Ardern was born, protested vigorously against the arrival of a Springbok team in New Zealand, again because it was selected by race. Few if any of the current ministry seem to have any memory of what was once a key article of Labour faith: all people, irrespective of their racial origin, have a right to equal treatment."

https://www.bassettbrashandhide.com/post/national-labour-and-he-puapua?postId=ba28789e-bec5-4e7d-bdb2-ad86dc204713

Let's leave the last word to Stuff's erudite reporter Henry Cooke:

"It isn’t the end of the world for Collins that ACT is making the same argument as her. "

A better last word is this; a petition from former MPs Michael Bassett, Don Brash and Rodney Hide against two-government, tribal rule for New Zealand:

https://www.bassettbrashandhide.com/post/sign-petition-to-stop-two-government-tribal-rule?fbclid=IwAR3Gn4do5xneKdii2l7twq_AF0ySNkUdp7Li1hv5ACXp-RTSN1_aSw7ag-8

OH FR GRAYLAND GO START YOUR OWN POP-UP CHURCH

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Why doesn't Father Joe Grayland, parish priest at Palmerston North's cathedral, just slope off right now and start up another church of his own invention and more to his liking? 

Because once again, Fr Grayland is indoctrinating Catholics with pernicious meanderings that are anything but Catholic. And he can get away with it because Palmerston North still has no bishop. 

But really, he needn't go to the lengths of starting a new church. My Protestant friends on Facebook who got so worked up about the mystical experience of  the priest in Bogota would fall over themselves to welcome Fr Grayland into their denominations.

Because those Protestants don't believe in the Real Presence either. They'd get on with Fr Grayland like a house on fire. 

Father Grayland (who has a bunch of theological qualifications), invited a crony of his, a certain 'Tom Elich', evidently similarly endowed - who in the attachment Fr Grayland sent out yesterday went by the honorifics 'Rev Dr' rather than 'Father' - to contribute an essay on 'The Real Presence' for the edification of Palmerston North parishioners.

'Tom Elich' - who like Cardinal Call Me John Dew is evidently too 'umble to admit to being a priest

'Rev Dr Tom' Elich hails from Brisbane Australia. Maybe he's a slow learner; he asks rhetorically, "How do we understand real presence (sic)? What does it mean when Jesus holds bread (sic) and says, "This is my body(sic)?"

Rev Dr Tom Elich, who rejoices in a doctorate earned in Paris in mediaeval theology, seems not to know the doctrine of the Church he professes. He takes us someplace called Corbie in the ninth century and contrasts the differing beliefs on the Eucharist of two monks who lived there. One had "a literalist understanding ... of the eucharistic body of Christ (being) "virtually (qué?) the same as the historical body, born of the Virgin Mary. ... He supported his position with crude stories of bleeding hosts" (emphasis mine).

Monk No 2 had "a different understanding". (Truly, "there's nothing new under the sun" (Ecc 1:9).) He preferred to believe the Eucharist, while retaining "the form, smell and taste of bread and wine ... internally (had) ... "a divine reality perceived by the mind of faith".

The sacrament for No 2 monk cites Augustine (qué? but that's what Dr Tom writes) and "points (my emphasis) both to the body of the risen Christ and also to ... the Church".  In other words for monk No 2, the Blessed Sacrament is not literally Christ's Body but merely indicates It. That's what Dr Tom calls the 'sacramentalist view'. 

He then whisks his reader off to the eleventh century when Berengarius of Tours was "made to confess" that "the bread and wine ... are the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus  Christ" ... clearly he was teaching a sacramentalist position". Dr Tom would seem to mean that Berengarius had taught a sacramentalist position. The pluperfect tense would seem to be the one Fr Elich is after. 

"Clearly he was (had been, more like) teaching a sacramentalist position but was forced to adopt this ultra-literalist one." Well, yes, because this ultra-literalist one is the position of the Church. Then Dr Tom announces that "the sacramentalist view wins the day in terms of official theology". Presumably he means the theology which is or was (Dr Tom is no spring chicken) taught in Paris when he got his doctorate. He continues, "the literalist view has been remarkably persistent in the popular imagination until the present day".

Remarkably persistent, to the point that it is Church teaching, expressed not by 'the popular imagination' but by the catechism of the Catholic Church and any other reputable organ of the Church that one might care to name. Dr Tom goes on to assure us that it's not only 'popular imagination' that's at fault here, but 'popular belief'.He claims that the doctrine of transubstantiation is "a firmly sacramental presentation of the Eucharist"; that is  - going by his own specious definition - "the Eucharist is spiritual food, not carnal sustenance". 

"The problem for us is that we no longer understand reality in this way." Dr Tom may be employing the royal "we" - or the papal "we", or perhaps he's just saying that Fr Grayland and he no longer understand reality in this way. Fair enough.

Dr Tom's explanation of the Eucharist is "not really the explanation ... that some people imagine it to be". You're not kidding. 

"The accidents of the body and blood of Christ have no connection whatever to the Eucharist. This makes the eucharistic miracles of bleeding hosts or the appearance of Christ highly problematic ... the work of the mystical imagination." Ah, we get it now. Eucharistic miracles are a figment of overwrought imaginations.

The 700 year-old Eucharist miracle of Santarém, Portugal 

"Nor in fact can we imagine that Christ is in the host, or in the ciborium, or in the tabernacle." Speak for yourself, please, Dr Tom. There's that royal, or papal, or Fr- Joe-and-Dr-Tom plural again. 

"The liturgy encourages us to make the signs well - to have real bread that we can break into many parts, to receive communion from the cup. ... Acceptance of the sacramental nature of Christ's real presence liberates us from scruples. Dust from the consecrated bread which adheres to the ciborium, a stain on the purifier from the consecrated wine are not really bread and wine".

The Church you claim to belong to, Dr Tom, knows they're not bread and wine.They are the Body and Blood of Christ. 

Here, the satanic nature of the musings of Dr Tom (and by implication, of Fr Joe) become obvious.  His obfuscation about metaphysics serves to camouflage its effect, which is to promote further Eucharistic abuse and sacrilege. 

He has the infernal (I use the word advisedly) cheek to suggest we "embrace questions of fruitfulness". 

Yes, let's do that, shall we? Let's talk about the fruitfulness of the Novus Ordo liturgy, the gathering-round-the-table awfulness that Dr Tom is known for in Australia. Maybe he's outworn his discipleship there and is casting his eye over the Tasman. Maybe he and Fr Joe can slope off together and start their own new pop-up church. 

There's a funeral parlour in Napier where the SSPX are forced to celebrate their faithful, traditional Latin Mass; if Palmerston North were by the grace of God to be appointed a holy bishop (please, St Polycarp, intercede for us!) the SSPX should be given one of the three Napier city churches and Dr Tom and Fr Joe could pop up at Dunstall's Funeral Services.

Dr Tom's 'fruitfulness' reminds me of the '150 years of fruitfulness' that St Patrick's Waipawa celebrated last weekend: 150 years, drastically dropping Mass counts and just one ordination to the priesthood in living memory. 

Dr Tom also condescends "to compensate for the limitations of Thomas Aquinas' (for Dr Tom with his Parisian doctorate, the Angelic Doctor is not a saint) treatment of transubstantiation." 

For Dr Tom, "the whole Eucharistic Prayer ... offers God praise and thanksgiving." Oh yes, everything in Dr Tom's garden is rosy. No atonement for sin, as required by the Church, in Dr Tom's Eucharistic Prayer.

"... And allows us to enter into the memorial of Jesus' death and resurrection." No unbloody re-presentation of Calvary in Dr Tom's Eucharistic Prayer. No, it's just a 'memorial'. It would be kind of Dr Tom and Fr Joe to allow my Protestant Facebook friends to join them at Dunstall's. 

Dr Tom might be just daft. Or completely lacking in faith. Or full of pride, as in, "He can come in and say let's celebrate Mass Ad Orientum (sic) - and they can say what they like - but it has no more validity than anybody's personal opinion". 

Cardinal Sarah whose remarks on liturgical abuses the priest pictured above found "plain insulting"

Dr Tom was talking about Cardinal Robert Sarah, the then-prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. He added that Cardinal Sarah’s comments on liturgical abuses that neglected God as the central focus of the Mass were “just plain insulting to millions of Catholics around the world”.

“By everybody facing in the same direction facing the east is somehow more sacred, or recognising God’s presence more than any other (sic), that’s just insulting."

Dr Tom's essay (or whatever he likes to call it) concludes with the image of a rose that like the Blessed Sacrament is also "a symbol, a sacrament one might say."

Dr Tom, Fr Joe, you might say that. A faithful Catholic would not. Indeed, a faithful Catholic could not.

FR GRAYLAND, BISHOPS, BERGOGLIO TAKING LICENCE

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In Palmerston North Father Joe Grayland tendentiously denies the Catholic dogma of the Real Presence."Christ", he quotes an Aussie theologian chum as saying, "whom we receive as bread and wine from the table of the Eucharist".

In the US Father James Altman, who faced sanctions  in the election campaign for preaching that you couldn't be a Democrat (a socialist that is, like NZ's 'useful idiots' who voted for Ardern) and a Catholic, who now preaches against Biden and accuses US bishops of 'an abundance of cowardice' (just like ours) in their Covid response, is targeted by the MSM who falsely accuse him of "flouting COVID protocols" and sharing "vaccine misinformation".

Staying with the States, US bishops will shortly have to stop dithering, and decide whether politicians like Biden who tout policies denying Church teaching  can receive Holy Communion (as if the bishops don't know already).  As Right to Life says, “Biden’s evolution into a virulent supporter of abortion on demand has been solidified by his record number of pro-abortion executive orders and reversal of pro-life policies.”

In California a child murderer on death row is awarded sex-change surgery.

'Skylar' Delion after his sex-change surgery at the taxpayers' expense

                                   https://www.orangecoast.com/features/should-california-taxpayers-pay-for-a-killers-sex-change/

In Rome we find that the Holy See’s investment management and real estate office (APSA) invested for 20 years in pharmaceutical companies that produced the abortifacient morning-after pill.

And that Jorge Bergoglio has visited homeless and needy people getting a free COVID-19 vaccine shot - which he says all Catholics are 'ethically' bound to have - from his Vatican charity. 

do they need a vaccine that doesn't work?

In Canada, a bishop )+Ronald Fabbro, London, Ontario) says "baptisms should be discouraged". He’s responding to the latest draconian lockdown orders, but that cowardly response can surely only 'discourage' baptisms permanently. Which would be in line with Bergoglio's policy of non-conversion.

In Germany Catholic leaders support blessing same-sex couples with a massive service scheduled for May 10 in direct opposition to Rome’s chief doctrinal office. 

Cardinal Reinhard Marx wants these guys to be blessed 

In New Zealand: Cathnews (haha) devotes several column inches to the liar Terry Bellamak (whose ALRANZ cronies now call themselves 'Abortion Rights Aotearoa', wouldn't you know it) and her preposterous version of what happens at prayer vigils outside NZ's babykilling facilities. 

And that's just this week. 

Quite evidently, it's chaos in the Church and in society, all around the world. And while some commentators (who, moi?) would like to sheet it all home to Jorge Bergoglio, the rot set in decades before his riggedelection to the papacy - even before the Second Vatican Council. 

And now Father Joe Grayland at the PN cathedral can take licence with the truth of the Real Presence. In saying, at the 150th Jubilee of St Patrick's Waipawa, that we were there at Mass "to celebrate each other' (sic) Father took licence with the truth of the Eucharist. In dishing out Covid jabs Jorge Bergoglio takes licence with the health of the "homeless and needy" and with the generosity of those who donate to that Vatican charity. 

A case could be made for the Novus Ordo Missae (New Mass) and the licence with the truth that it permits and encourages being a prime mover in the licence taken with God's truth throughout the Church and in society. We all acknowledge, and not so long ago bowed down before, something alluded to as "the spirit of Vatican II" which manifested itself in liturgical licence worldwide: altars and altar stones with the relics of the saints, altar rails, kneelers and altar rails all gone. 

“According to the almost unanimous opinion of believers and unbelievers alike, all things on earth should be related to man as their center and crown.”

Now, that's not something Fr Joe Grayland said (although it could have been).  That's something the Second Vatican Council’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, said. Truly. Such was "the spirit of Vatican II." We may hope it's a thing of the past.

It was the Novus Ordo that embodied and enfleshed that 'spirit'. Concocted within 5 years by a committee with a Freemason in charge and Protestants advising - their non-scriptural addition to the Our Father, which wild horses wouldn't drag out of me personally, was inserted as a sop to the false ecumenism that the N O encourages - it gives Father free rein to do as he pleases. And has taught us that 'communidy' (as Stalinda calls it) comes before God.

The traditional Latin Mass allows no such nonsense. In the TLM we worship God, not man. The First Commandment comes first. The priest faces God, not the people.  "Say the black and do the red" is the rule. The texts are printed in black, the priest's actions are printed in red. There's no gainsaying the Latin Missal. Orthodoxy, not heterodoxy, holds sway. As Cardinal Pie once said, "There's no sanctity without orthodoxy". Behold the reason why sanctity is belittled and scorned by the Graylands of the N O persuasion.

And then there's the question of the Latin Mass texts - or rather, the N O texts, which omit almost all the former's scripture and prayers which refer in any way to sin or the wages thereof. Is it any wonder that after 50+ years of such anodyne blathering as 'the bread of life' and 'spiritual drink' that Father can get away with saying we're at Mass to "celebrate each other" and implying that there's no such thing as hell? And that attendance at Mass and reception of the Sacraments has plummetted?

The traditional Latin Mass in New Zealand needs to be restored to more churches, and to city churches, and we need more faithful, orthodox priests to learn how to celebrate it. 

As a conversation starter on this question, here's the opinion of the Lion Rampant of Benneydale, aka Leo Leitch, who'd like to see the Novus Ordo celebrated in Latin.  

"Well, Julia, the first thing is that Latin is a universal language, only appropriate for a universal Church. It was a marvellous thing that Catholics could wander the world and attend Mass anywhere, just as if they were at home. It would again be marvellous if Catholics could wander the world and attend the Novus Ordo in Latin anywhere. 

You’ll know that Vat II directed that only some parts of the Mass be in the vernacular; Latin was to continue to be the first language of the Mass. Vat II also directed that Latin continue to be taught in seminaries. 

The second thing is that our priests are incapable of improvising in Latin, so fidelity to the “script” occurs. I’m not sure whether a Latin Novus Ordo would discourage altar girls, extraordinary Eucharistic ministers et al, though. 

The third thing is that the Novus Ordo is a dialogue Mass, even in Latin. I very much prefer joining in the congregational responses. I prefer a Latin Novus Ordo over an Antiquus Ordo. 

I perceive that many adherents to the non-dialogue Antiquus Ordo have embraced a hostility towards the Novus Ordo because they associate it with the marginalisation of the Antiquus Ordo, rather than because of some theological or liturgical defect in the Novus Ordo."

Other contributions to this debate are welcome - as long as they're not in the order of  Facebook responses to the post about the priest in Columbia whose mystical experience during Mass compelled him to state that in future, Communion would be given only on the tongue while kneeling, which at last count had risen well over 60. 

But I needn't worry on that score: it's Protestants who are stirring that pot. Post-Vat2 NZ Catholics - even faithful ones who read this blog - aren't likely to get that worked up over religion.

From world-renowned Catholic historian Roberto de Mattei -

tps://voiceofthefamily.com/what-do-the-unanswered-criticisms-of-amoris-laetitia-teach-us-today/?mc_cid=cf3561361f&mc_eid=e15df344ac 

- ”The eve of possible schisms is not the time to divide the Catholic world but to unite it on the basis of the Tradition of the Church. 

"... In these difficult times, “a new more compact front of orthodoxy” ... is needed: a convergence and alliance of different initiatives of clergy and laity, each at their own level and according to the possibilities available to them, to confront the chaos that threatens us, entrusting ourselves and the success of our battle to the help of God, without Whom no success will ever be possible."  

 

Christ Asleep in the Boat, Eugene Delacroix

 

 

rd

ARDERN'S PLAN FOR 2 GOVTS UNDER TRIBAL CONTROL BY 2040

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self-explanatory

"Now life is so tough in this country that thousands of us can’t feed our children. Even if we can, the state will feed them anyway. Thousands of us can’t clothe our children properly.  Thousands of us don’t have the wherewithal to teach our children how to brush their teeth, and why they should do it. Thousands of us don’t bother sending our kids to school."

A week ago New Zealand celebrated Anzac Day, prompting Peter Jackson of the Northland Age to bring these unpalatable facts to our attention. 

And today a petition was launched against a Government plan to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), by former MPs Michael Bassett, Don Brash and Rodney Hide.

Ardern, Little&Co, Death Dealers to the Nation in more ways than one, intend to establish two governments in New Zealand by 2040, one for Maori and one for everyone else.

"These two governments would be subject to a monitoring group created by tribes and chaired by a Maori sovereignty radical, according to the plan that was submitted to Maori Development Minister Nanaia Mahuta on November 1, 2019.

All of this was done quietly. The Labour Party did not campaign on this in the 2020 election.

We think the plan to divide New Zealand governance along racial lines and under tribal authority and to set up tribal borders is an outrage. Has the Maori sovereignty takeover started? Has your Prime Minister started implementing this without telling you?
This is your country. A costly system that dilutes your rights and puts you under control of iwi groups could be under way and you are paying for it. The name He Puapua displays the intent of this proposal. “He Puapua”, which means “a break”, and usually refers to a break in waves, has been given the radical meaning of “breaking the usual political and societal norms”, according to the report.

Do you agree or disagree with the radical plan for two governments under tribal control?

Click here to sign petition.The uncensored He Puapua document, obtained under the Official Information Act, may be downloaded here.

So for a little light relief as it were, we return to Peter Jackson (not the beknighted one) at the Northland Age:

"What is our task ?   To make Britain a fit country for heroes to live in.”    So said British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, days after the signing of the armistice that ended WWI.

 

 “I cannot think what these men have gone through,” he said.  “I have been there at the door of the furnace and witnessed it, but that is not being in it, and I saw them march into the furnace. There are millions of men who will come back.   Let us make this a land fit for such men to live in.   There is no time to lose.   I want us to take advantage of this new spirit.   Don’t let us waste this victory merely in ringing joybells.” 

(Last) Sunday, for the 106th time, thousands of New Zealanders gathered at cenotaphs and in halls to honour those who served and died at Gallipoli.   They also remembered those who served, and died, in WWII, in Korea, Malaya, Vietnam, and other armed service abroad.   We did this to honour the memory of those who did not come home and those who did come home but in many cases paid a price that fell little short of the ultimate sacrifice.   We honour the men and women who came home broken in body and spirit.   We do this on April 25 every year.   What do we do for the other 364 days ? 

 

New Zealand in 1918, and even more so in 1945, was already close, much closer than Britain in 1918, to being a land fit for heroes.   But how it has changed.   Is this still the country thousands of New Zealanders fought and died for ? 

In June every year, like clockwork, we are told by the Minister of Police, whoever that happens to be, that reported crime over the previous 12 months has fallen.   There is a reason for that.  We have redefined crime.   We now tolerate behaviour that would once have been punished.  And many people have stopped reporting it, because nothing happens, or they have lost faith in the so-called justice system. 

Meanwhile, we have people shooting and stabbing each other.   Gang members shooting at other gang members in Auckland’s CBD.   Wellingtonians afraid to go into their CBD at any hour of the day or night.

 We have a health system, once the envy of the world, that is failing, not just Maori, as we are told repeatedly, but New Zealanders.   Our education system, once arguably the best in the world, is now demonstrably one of the worst.   We hear of first-year science students at university who would be unlikely to pass a Year 9 exam.   University students attending remedial reading classes.

School absenteeism rates are outrageous.   Some schools are reporting regular attendance rates of 20 per cent, a few even lower, 10 per cent.   We have schools in this country where 9 out of 10 children do not attend regularly.    

What do we do about that ?    Nothing.   Well not quite nothing.   We explain abysmal attendance rates by accepting that the education somehow failed these kids’ parents, so their parents see no value in sending them to school.   One thing we are not short of in New Zealand is excuses.

I don’t know why my father volunteered in 1939.   It might have been to defend our way of life, but I doubt it.   Our way of life wasn’t directly threatened by a war in Europe.   More likely it was because he, like many of his generation, were loyal to Britain.   But even if he wasn’t offering to die for our way of life, he clearly believed in it.   He believed in the family -  mum, dad and the kids.  He believed parents should be married.   He believed in commitment.   He believed in community.    

He raised his children to work hard, to take the opportunities that presented themselves, to respect their elders, to be polite and honest.   To be true to their word.   To avoid accepting charity, another word for social welfare.   He believed everyone had to make their own way in the world.   He believed everyone made their own bed, and had to lie in it.

Dad believed in the value of a good family name.   He was not alone in that.

In our final days at Kaitaia College in 1970, my friends and I were told by one of our teachers, Bill Wilson, that when we left Kaitaia, no one would care who our parents were.   And he was right.

In Kaitaia, people did care.   As a child, when I met an adult I didn’t know, I would invariably be asked, whose boy are you ?    I would tell them who my parents were, and would be judged accordingly. 

Bill Wilson was right.   In Auckland, no one gave a toss about our families and what they had or had not contributed to their community, or how they had behaved themselves in the past.  For the first time in our lives, we were judged as individuals. 

That came as a revelation to me.   I had grown up, never talking about it, but understanding that the worst thing I could do was to bring our family name into disrepute. 

Now we seem to have lost the capacity for shame that was once such a powerful moderator of our behaviour.   Our right, as individuals, to do as we please, has superseded our obligations to our community.   Who cares ?

Dad died in 1980, and in the 40 years that have passed since then this country has changed beyond all recognition.

For too many of us now, life is just too hard.   Social welfare has evolved from a proper, humane response to genuine need into a poison that has filtered down through every level of society.   It has become toxic.   It is destroying this country.

Dad left for Egypt in 1940, leaving behind a farm he was still in the process of buying, a wife and two small sons, who spent the war at Ahipara.   I suspect he had every expectation of coming home, but that obviously could not be guaranteed.   I know he didn’t expect to be gone for six years, four of those spent in a prisoner of war camp, and I very much doubt he expected to come home as broken as he was. 

He and my mother had already endured a depression.   They spent the rest of their lives enduring the effects of a war.   Dad was 67 when he died, with very little, in a material sense, to show what he had achieved.   Mum died 16 years later, aged 83, her reward for a lifetime of work being a modest house, a collection of tupperware and some much-loved cats. 

Now life is so tough in this country that thousands of us can’t feed our children.   Even if we can, the state will feed them anyway.   Thousands of us can’t clothe our children properly.  Thousands of us don’t have the wherewithal to teach our children how to brush their teeth, and why they should do it.   Thousands of us don’t bother sending our kids to school. 

Is this really what so many fought for ?    Would you expect them to look at what we have become, and to believe that what they did for us was a good investment in this country’s future? 

We should honour these men and women, but we should do that every day, not just today.  The best way we can do that is to live our lives, and raise our children, in a way that would make them proud.   A way that would have them believe that their sacrifices were not made in vain.   We should live according to the principles that they fought and died for — for family, respect for others, responsibility for our own lives and for the wellbeing of those who depend upon us. 

Making New Zealand a land fit for heroes is not the job of politicians.   They wouldn’t know where to start.   It is a job for us, as individuals, as families, as communities and as a country.  We should never forget what others have done for us, and show our gratitude for that in the way we live our lives.

Today isn't just duck-shooting day. It's the Feast of St Joseph the Worker, instituted by Pope Pius II in 1955 in response to the “May Day” celebrations for workers sponsored by Communists - and celebrated, appropriately enough, in 2021 as this nation squirms in the grip of Ardern's neo-communist Government. 

Childhood of Christ, Gerard van Honthorst

This silent saint, who was given the noble task of caring and watching over the Virgin Mary and Jesus, now cares for and watches over the Church and models for all the dignity of human work.

         St Joseph, please pray for New Zealand.