In Washington, church leaders are resorting to the weapon of political action in an effort to save the U.S. foreign aid program from being cut sharply by the Congress. The governing board of the National Council of Churches has appealed to half-a-million local ministers across the country explain the church position on foreign aid to their congregations and to urge members to write their congressman.
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Milwaukee, Wisconsin: A Catholic chaplain says parents must prepare their children to hold marriage together and stabilize family life. The Rev. Alexander Sigur says parents must, as he puts it, “provide the pattern of character integrity, personality fulfillment, individual and family stability which radiates far more effectively than all other education.” Of course this is true of not only Catholic parents; some Protestant ones well could heed his suggestions. For all children have a right to expect more from their parents than many are getting. Parental selfishness must bear the blame for much so-called juvenile delinquency of today, delinquency in the form of normal family life deprivation as well as delinquency in the form of behavior of young people.
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Washington: An organization of Catholic bishops says the number of Catholic Negroes in the U.S. has almost doubled in the past quarter century. The organization says there are now 530,000 Negroes among the 16 million Negro population who are members; while of the nearly 400,000 American Indians, some 110,000 are Catholic.
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Chicago: A Methodist bishop charges that there is rigorous isolationism based on color in top educational and artistic circles. Bishop Lloyd C. Wicke, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, criticized both cultural and religious leaders for what he called discrimination attitudes in artistic and education circles. He also said there is color discrimination in Pittsburgh’s 120-member symphony orchestra.
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Rome, Italy: Italian Protestants have scored a major victory in their years-long battle against police restrictions. A decision by the constitutional court has upheld their right to perform religious ceremonies without giving advance notice to police. It ruled the prior notification order is unconstitutional as applied to religious functions.
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Washington: The world president of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church has appealed to members throughout the world to pray on March 30 for Christians being persecuted in Colombia, South America. The president, R.R. Figuhr, charges that severe and prolonged persecution had been directed against Protestant Christians in Columbia over a period of years. In recent months, he says, this has increased in both severity and extent.
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Washington: The government’s Social Security Administration says more than half the U.S. clergymen have been given Social Security coverage. But the agency warns that April 15 is the deadline for those still out. An administration spokesman says estimates of clergymen in the U.S. vary from 164,000 to 200,000, and about 100,000 have decided to go into the program.
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Many Protestant churches throughout the U.S. begin today a week of special emphasis on the ministry of the churches to the homeless, hungry, and destitute persons of foreign lands. On next Sunday, March 31, special offerings will be made in response to this year’s “One Great Hour of Sharing.” The $11.5 million appeal is sponsored by the Department of Church World Service of the National Council of Churches. Through this service, 35 denominations and communions cooperate in ministries of compassion to those in distress overseas.
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Philadelphia: A Chicago Baptist minister has urged his fellow members to move together against segregation and discrimination. The Rev. Dr. J.J. Jackson added, “In a time like this, every believer is challenged.” He was among the speakers at the Philadelphia Baptist Association, which marked its 250th anniversary.
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A two-day session of exploring “the current Jewish revival” will be held in New York City today and Monday. Leaders of the three branches of Judaism – Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform – will take part.
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Vatican City: Pope Pius is reported in excellent health following his latest routine medical checkup. The pope was examined on Wednesday by Swiss specialist Paul Niehans. On Thursday, the pope appointed Monsignor Joseph McGeough, a native of New York City, as the Vatican’s first diplomatic representative to Ethiopia. Monsignor McGeough has been attached to the Vatican Secretariat of State since 1938.
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Knoxville, Tennessee. The Rev. Robert H. Manning, rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church of Mt. Prospect, Chicago, declared this week that conversion is more than a change of mind, that it involves the whole orientation and resetting of the personality; whether the change is sudden or gradual, it must be lifelong. Such a statement is refreshing, for so many people apparently believe that this thing called conversion is something that takes place in an instant, and that the person, presumably previously the worst of scoundrels, becomes through relatively little effort of his own, a veritable saint. Such notions are the sheerest of nonsense. The most that can happen instantaneously is a change of mind as to direction. The rest is up to the individual. And for most of us this rest involves a long, long struggle toward an ever-higher plane of living. But, the good Reverend [Manning] goes on, this conversion is, contrary to the usual assumption, something that involves the amendment of life by God. This, too, is mere gibberish. If such were true, then all one would have to do would be to sit and wait until God acted, and if no action was forthcoming, then the responsibility for lack of it would be upon the divinity.
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Catholic-Protestant sources of tension and conflict were dealt with in a recent article in America, a Jesuit weekly publication. The contents were too controversial to be cleared for broadcast over CBS’s Church of the Air radio show, but they involved three major elements.
One was the matter of birth control. Some Protestants look upon this as a positive virtue, while the Catholic Church views this practice as contrary to natural law. Another major difference is the attitude toward parochial schools. The right to educate his child in a Catholic school is an undisputed one of the Catholic parent, but, Catholics complain, Protestants often misunderstand the parochial school and regard it as a divisive influence in American society. The third source of misunderstanding, according to the publication, is the matter of censorship. The Legion of Decency and the National Office for Decent Literature do not regard themselves as censors. Rather, the magazine insists, they publish moral appraisals of movies and books. But they are looked upon by Protestants as intolerant. And, what is more, Protestants often feel impelled to go see a movie just because Catholics have condemned it.
Father Davis, writer of the article of protest, prescribes that Protestants and Catholics get together and talk over not merely their differences, but also the vast areas of agreement on matters of common concern. And he thinks that Catholics should take the initiative in this.
Well, a quick appraisal of the record on these three items seems justified at this point. As a Protestant affiliate, this reporter takes the attitude that is probably shared by most that birth control is a matter of individual decisions and that there is little if any religious or moral significance attached to it. However, he reserves to the Catholic the right to take a different view as long as he, too makes it an individual affair and does not attempt to impose his views on others against their will and judgment. But Protestants themselves ordinarily do not understand completely the official attitude the Catholic Church has taken in the matter, but assume that it is opposed to such control in any form, which is not true.
Our ignorance of our Catholic colleagues is profound also with respect to parochial church schools. And often we fail to keep in mind that Protestants too maintain church schools to which children are sent, though mainly these are beyond the high school level. Church schools of all faiths have done much to give variety and richness to our educational pattern, and nobody can seriously question the probable force for good they have been in emphasizing religious and moral aspects of education which the public schools, by their vary nature cannot or should not do. But the good father is less complete in his insistence that the Legion of Decency has not engaged in censorship. Movies have been banned many times because of pressure exerted by the legion and members of the Catholic Church, following the legion’s lead and recommendations. “The Miracle,” “Martin Luther,” and others readily come to mind. Both Protestants and Jews themselves have not been blameless in this matter. For example, some years ago Jews tried to prevent presentation of the picture “Oliver Twist” because it portrayed a leading character, a Jew, in an unflattering role. Nobody questions the right of the Catholic Legion of Decency to appraise the moral tone of movies and books to let the public know what its attitude is. But, when it tries, and sometimes succeeds, in bringing pressure on communication media to prevent those who do not agree with its appraisals from seeing movies or having access to purchase of books it would ban, it is going beyond the bounds of its right in our scheme of things. Most Americans do not want censorship, whether it comes from a church-affiliated organization, or from any other pressure group in the community.
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A short lesson in theology came to my attention this week that contains enough food for serious thought that I should like to see what you think of it. It goes like this: “On six days a week we live in an ordered solar system where cause and effect are operative. On Sundays thousands go to church and enter a world of make-believe, where axes float, asses talk with their masters, gods become men and men become gods, people walk on water, the dead come to life, and virgins have babies.” Why is it that we want to think about, but definitely not to think through our religious beliefs? Do we not dare subject such beliefs to the same rigid scrutiny we give to more mundane and secular affairs? Perhaps it is this inability or unwillingness of so many of us to do so that is making Christianity lose perhaps the biggest opportunity in its history, namely to apply its inherent qualities realistically to the social and moral needs of an industrialized society. Instead of doing this, we become even more emotional and subjective, and the cult of religiosity becomes a fetish with many, and the Peale-Graham-Sheen axis gains in popularity for the unthinking mass that wants to feel rather than think. Was it not the Master himself who said that “In that day many will say here he is or there he is,” but believe them not. And from the same source came the assurance that if ye know the truth, the truth shall make ye free. How many of us are objectively seeking truth, and how many of us mistake simply what we want to believe as truth?
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Which leads to a final item, an excerpt from Bertrand Russell, whom few would call orthodox in religion. He says,
“The skepticism that I advocate amounts only to this: 1. That when the experts are agreed, the opposite opinion cannot be held to be certain; 2. That when they are not agreed, no opinion can be regarded as certain by a non-expert; and 3. That when they all hold that no sufficient grounds for a positive opinion exist, the ordinary man would do well to suspend judgment. These propositions may seem mild, yet if accepted, the would revolutionize human life.”