be political?

Should the New Guinea church be political?

The Anglican church in Papua-New Guinea has been involved in another controversy about whether or not the church should concern itself with political matters.

The argument this time arose from the reported comments of two assist ant bishops—the Rt. Rev. George Ambo. who has oversight of the church’s Northern Papua Region, and the Rt. Rev. Henry Kendall, in charge of the Eastern Papua Region. Appar ently both of them spoke against early self-government for Papua-New Guinea during interviews with the territory’s Select Committee on Con stitutional Development, This provoked vice-president of the Cape Nelson Council, Mr. Gladstone Ned, into declaring that Anglican missionaries should concern them selves with church matters and not with politics. He said the Anglican church was intruding too far into politics, and that religion and politics should not be mixed.

Commenting on the content of the bishops’ remarks, Mr. Ned made the valid point that the Anglican church itself was already self-governing and had a target date for “independence” (a reference to the church’s 1980 tar get date for completing indigenisa tion).

However, the issue was not whether the bishops were right or wrong in what they said, but whether it was in order for them to speak at all.

In reply to Mr. Ned, an Anglican spokesman said that, in the view of the church, everything in life was the concern of God and therefore of the church. This meant that religion and politics could not be divorced and that the church had a duty as well as a right to speak out on political matters.

The Anglican church in the terri tory has a reputation for making sug gestions and pronouncements of a political nature. But the last time it got involved in a really big “church and politics” controversy was 18 months ago, when the Bishop of Papua-New Guinea, the Rt. Rev.

David Hand, called for the replace ment of the Minister for External Territories, Mr. Barnes. • New Guinea primitive art was selling at rock-bottom prices in Sydney during April when the Paulian As sociation put on a sale at Cusa House in aid of their mission and secular work in the territory and elsewhere.