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Good Friday is the anniversary of Christ's death on the cross, and the Easter festival shows that he lives despite efforts to kill him off, according to the archbishop, who is tipped by many to become the next head of the church in Australia and leads the largest Catholic diocese in the country.

''Last century we tried godlessness on a grand scale and the effects were devastating,'' he said.

''Nazism, Stalinism, Pol-Pottery, mass murder and broken relationships: all promoted by state-imposed atheism or culture-insinuated secularism.''

It was an illusion to think we could live a better life without God, he said, although he acknowledged that the ''violence, abuse and un-lovingness'' of many believers through the ages had driven some people away from the church.