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PAGE 3 — December 11, 1969
TO REPLACE NCC
All Christian Council Is
Proposed By Doctor Espy
BY MARJORIE HYER
DETROIT (NC)--A new
concept of a general
ecumenical council in the
United States, broad enough
to encompass Roman
Catholic as well as Protestant
and Orthodox denomina
tions, has been proposed by
the general secretary of the
National Council of Churches
to replace the organization he
now heads,
Dr. R.H. Edwin Espy
made the proposal in his
report to the NCC triennial
general assembly, meeting
here.
His proposed new
organization envisioned a
“consultative assembly” in
which all Christian
communions and agencies
could regularly gather to
share their views on major
issues in the life of the church
and the nation, speaking to
their own faithful with a
common voice whenever
agreement is given to them.”
Within the framework of
this general ecumenical
council, Dr. Espy proposed
the creation of a “broad
framework” comparable to
the specialized agencies of the
United Nations. Under this
umbrella would be gathered
‘‘highly focused
instrumentalities for
particular spiritual,
educational, theological,
social, communication or
service objectives,” he
explained.
These organizations would
be largely autonomous.
Member communions of the
larger council would be free
to decide which of these
groups they would support.
In proposing sch a general
ecumenical council, Dr. Espy
ssid that the giant strides
toward ecumenicity made
since Vatican Council II have
created a climate in which a
broader structure than the
present NCC is indicated.
“The 33 communions that
now comprise the council
membership gladly regognize
the faith and churchmanship
of the great Christian
traditions not among their
number and are especially
aware of the conservative
Evangelicals, the
Pentacostalists, the Southern
Baptists, the non-member
Lutherans and the Roman
HUMAN LIFE
WASHINGTON (NC)-The
Human Life Foundation,
created to sponsor research in
the area of human
reproduction, opened offices
here, with Lawrence J. Kane,
former assistant to the
president of Brandeis
University as executive
director.
The nonsec tarian
foundation, which was
created by an initial grant of
$800,000 from the National
Conference of Catholic
Bishops, will conduct fund
raising programs to broaden
its base of support for
research, according to
Edward B. Hanify, a Boston
attorney who is chairman of
the foundation board.
Hanify said the foundation
“will sponsor research in the
generation of human life and
reproductive physiology
along with the physiological
and psychological
ramifications of the human
sexual act.
“In addition to exploring
the medical implication of
human fertility control, the
foundation is interested in
the implications of human
fertility control in relation to
social and economic pressures
upon family life and in
relation to demographic
problems,” he stated. •
Hanify said a primary goal
of the foundation will be “to
Catholics,” Dr. Espy said.
John Cardinal Dearden of
Detroit, president of the
National Conference of
Catholic Bishops, who spoke
to the assembly, said in
response to a question that he
would “certainly study” the
new proposal, which Dr. Espy
had speculated could be put
into effect within five to ten
years.
In his message of greeting
to the 800 voting delegates to
the assembly, Cardinal
Dearden offered his “prayerful
wishes for God’s blessing on
your deliberations and your
actions.”
In today’s ecumenical
climate, he said, the
consequences of NCC actions
“are far-reaching. They will
affect us as well as you.”
Noting that it was only
five years since Vatican
Council II issued the
document on ecumenism, the
cardinal declared that “so
much has been accomplished
in that time.”
He particularly praised
“that type of dialogue that
will cause us to know and
appreciate” Christians of
different traditions.
Thus, Roman Catholics
may find themselves within a
year’s time facing the
decision of whether or not to
join the new, ecumenical
general council.
This possibility was again
posed in a resolution offered
by Episcopal Bishop Edward
R. Welles of Kansas City, Mo.
Dr. Espy’s proposal
contained no timetable.
In other actions, the
assembly voted unanimously
for an amendment to the
NCC constitution that would
press constituent
denominations to name at
least one person “under 25
years of age” to their
assembly delegations. The
amendment also urges that
one fourth of the denomina
tions’ delegates be laymen or
lay women “ preferably not
in the employ of the churches
or church organizations.”
A study of delegates to the
previous assembly held in
Miami Beach, Fla., in 1966
disclosed that two-thirds were
clergy and that a substantial
determine simple and
accurate methods of fertility
control through the use of
rhythm.”
“In the area of abortion,
the foundation is concerned
with medical facts which
determine exactly what
constitutes abortion and
a b o r t i f a c ien ts. The
foundation also has an
interest in euthansia, the
medical and social
implication of human
transplantation and the exact
biological significance of the
term ‘human.’ ”
Kane, executive director
of the foundation, is a
graduate of Brandeis and also
served as director of the
university’s office of public
affairs. A Korean war
correspondent for the Pacific
Stars and Stripes, he held
various public relations and
journalism posts in Buffalo,
Boston, and Waltham, Mass.
Hanify said the
foundation’s scientific
committee has begun
meetings to review grant
applications and to delineate
areas of research appropriate
to the new organization. The
committee is under the
direction of Dr. William A.
Lynch, a Brookline, Mass,
obstetrician and gynecologist
on the faculty of Tufts
University school of medicine
and Boston College school of
nursing.
number of non-clergy were
employed by churches or
church organizations.
In a major address to the
assembly, John W. Gardner,
chairman of the Urban
Coalition and former U.S.
Secretary of Health,
Education and Welfare,
cataloged a long list of
problems facing urban cities.
“Don’t just stand around
talking about poverty and
racism. Change something in
the real world-housing, the
schools, job training
programs, the administration
of the courts,” he said.
The former cabinet
member also called for
enough taxation “to deal
with what ails us.” Tax
reduction, “is no doubt
gratifying to the citizen,” he
said, “but dollars in his
pocket won’t buy him clean
streets, or an adequate police
force, or good schools, or
clean air and water.
“Handing money back to
the private sector in tax cuts
and starving the public sector
won’t buy him livable cities,”
Gardner said.
The proposals for the new
type ecumenical structure
come at a time when the NCC
has been confronted-both
from within and from
without-with the need for
drastic changes. New
ecumenical alliances, the
“crisis of faith” at all levels,
and the reverberations felt by
the churches from the general
urban crisis have all created
pressures- many of them
financial-for the NCC.
Dr. Leroy Brinninger,
associate general secretary for
administration, told a press
briefing that the finances of
the national council “are
essentially sound.” He
conceded under questioning,
however, that “about a
dozen” of the professional
staff had been dropped from
the payroll in the last six
months. Others are known to
be uncertain as to their future
with the council.
Giving from member
denominations, which
accounts for a large share of
the council’s income, is down
$500,000 out of a total
contribution budget for the
first nine months of this year
of $10.8 million.
In addition, council
officials expect a decline in
contributions from
foundations and individuals
who disapprove of NCC
positions on the racial crisis.
Major challenges to NCC
policy have come before the
general assembly from the
interdenominational national
committee of black
churchmen and from a group
of predominantly white
proponents of radical church
renewal who are here under
the banner of Jonathan’s
Wake.
The latter group, whose
members proclaim themselves
to be “post-denominational
and post-ecumenical”, have
taken their platform from the
Gospel account of the rich
young ruler who was advised
by Jesus to “sell all you have
and give to the poor.”
The Rev. Stephen Rose, a
United Presbyterian
clergyman-writer who is the
moving spirit of Janathan’s
Wake, explained: “We’re to
celebrate a Wake-a happy
funeral for the ecclesiastical
establishment.”
Case Dismissed
AUSTIN, Tex. (NC) -
U.S. District Court Judge
Jack Roberts (Dec. 2)
dismissed a suit by Mrs.
Madalyn Murray O’Hair, an
atheist, who sought to ban
U.S. astronauts from saying
prayers while off in space.
Judge Roberts said: “The
first amendment (of the
Constitution) does not
require the state to be hostile
to religion, but only neutral.”
He said to uphold the
contention of the Austin
housewife would violate the
religious rights of astronauts.
F oundation
Opens Offices
JONATHAN’S WAKE - Dissidents seeking radical church renewal at the triennial general
assembly of the National Council of Churches in Detroit (Dec. 1) proclaimed their point of view
by conducting a wake-Jonathan’s Wake-“a funeral for the ecclesiastical establishment,” as one of
them described it. (NC Photo)
N.C.C. Future Unclear
After Turbulent Session
&
BY MARJORIE HYER
DETROIT (NC)-The
National Council of Churches
survived the most turbulent
General Assembly in its
19-year history, but where its
future lies remains unclear.
Top priority on the agenda
as the triennial meeting in
Cobo Hall here began was
consideration of a document
that would set the future
course and goals of the
ecumenical organization. As
it turned out, vast blocks of
time in the five-day meeting
were taken up in listening to
the cries of the world, in
many voices and guises.
Time after time the
planned order of business was
set aside to hear from groups
or even individuals with a
special concern to lay before
the church body. Because of
the openness of the meeting
and the unflagging patience
of its presiding officer, Dr.
Arthur Flemming, the
council’s retiring president,
these intercessions rarely
took the form of hostile
confrontations, no matter
how sharply critical they
were.
There were sizeable
numbers of churchmen, both
in and out of the council,
who came to Detroit
convinced that the National
Council of Churches was, if
not dead, certainly mortally
ill. The week-long procession
of petitioners who called on
the church body to “do
something” about their
particular grievances gave
strong evidence that this
diagnosis was wrong.
The meeting smashed a
number of precedents.
Undoubtedly the most
significant was the style of
the meeting itself. Veteran
religious observers can recall
no other church gathering
which opened itself so
completely to any who would
speak to it.
The Detroit meeting, the
eighth assembly in the
council’s 19 years, marked
the first time the election of
officers became a contested
matter. In the end the
candidates presented by the
nominating committee were
all elected, but many of them
were contested by candidates
backed by caucuses of blacks,
Spanish Americans, youth
and other interest groups.
It was, of course, the first
time a woman, Mrs. Theodore
Wedel, was elected president
of the council. And it was the
first time that representatives
of youth-one of them a
19-year-old college
student-were elected as two
of the 18 vice presidents at
large of the council.
For much of its existence,
the National Council of
churches has been harassed
by radical right-wing
organizations who see a
communist plot in every
social resolution and
program. The right-wing
groups were in Detroit this
time, but they scarcely
surfaced.
As one NCC staff member
observed, “We’re beginning to
look over our left, rather than
our right, shoulder.”
Debate over the council’s
role in the racial crisis tended
to be sharp and acrid. For
delegates accustomed to the
traditional rhetoric of
churchly meetings, the
experience was uncomfort
able.
But the Rev. Henry
Parker, black Episopal
clergyman who leads the
Council’s Delta Ministry
in Mississippi, found it “a
healthy situation” to “get
away from that molasses
politeness.” And the Rev.
Leon Watts, a black
clergyman from New York
City who was defeated in his
bid for the office of general
secretary, stressed the need
for “dealing with conflict as a
creative reality in our
existence.”
There is “nothing insidious
in conflict,” he said, “and we
should not withdraw from
it.”
Though there were several
formal resolutions dealing
with the Vietnam war and the
draft, a request to the council
from a Michigan college
student focused the delegates’
thinking on the church and
war, conscience and civil
disobedience.
James D. Rubins, a
student at Hope College, told
the body that his efforts to
follow the Christian precepts
taught him by his church
convinced him that he could
not fight in Vietnam and
asked the council to receive
and hold his draft card.
The simple request
precipitated five hours of
debate. The vote against
receiving the card was 200 to
176, but failed to settle the
issue. Delegates were troubled
by the fact that church
bodies speak with great
eloquence in advising young
men to follow their Christian
conscience but then fail as
church institutions to run the
same risks for civil
disobedience the youths face.
Nearly 200 delegates,
acting as individuals,
indicated their willingness to
form a voluntary group to
back the youth’s stand by
accepting his draft card.
In formal resolutios on
war the council endorsed a
“pastoral ministry” to young
men who have fled to Canada
rather than fight in Vietnam.
The action followed a
consulation of U.S.
Protestant leaders with
officials of the Canadian
Council of Churches. It is
expected that the ministry
will be shared.
The body also commended
President Nixon for his
renunication of biological and
chemical weapons and
reaffirmed its stand on
peaceful dissent by
commending such protests as
the Vietnam Moratorium in
October and the New
Mobilization last month.
A statement on the ‘Song
My’ incident in Vietnam
called for a “full inquiry made
uner the aeigs of a
disinterested international
agency such as the United
Nations or the International
Red Cross in order that an
aroused world conscience may
be fully satisfied.”
The Vietnam war also
found its way into a resolution
on “no Christmas as usual.”
The council action called on
churches ‘‘to urge their
members not to celebrate
Christmas as usual with
oftentimes lavish expenditures
on Christmas gifts.” Instead, it
counseled the holding of
religious services for peace,
giving money for religious and
peace causes instead of for
expensive gifts,and a
moratorium on war toys as
Christmas presents.
The council’s general
board, which transacts
business between triennial
assembly sessions, was
authorized to begin serious
consideration of plans for the
new ecumenical agency, but
no time-table was set.
The consideration of future
goals for the body which
brings together 33 Protestant
and Orthodox denominations
was greatly curtailed because
there just wasn’t enough time.
And anyway, the elaborate
and carefully prepared
document on “Mission in the
Seventies” was made largely
obsolete by the events here.
DETROIT - John Cardinal Dearden, archbishop of Detroit and
president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops,
greeted the 800 delegates to the triennial general assembly of
the National Council of Churches, Dec. 1. (NC Photo)
pope on church today
Catholics Shouldn’t
Be Too Dismayed’
VATICAN CITY (NC) -
Pope Paul VI has urged
Catholics not to be “too
much dismayed” by
upheavals within the Church
today.
Speaking at a general
audience (Dec. 3), Pope Paul
took note of the problems
facing many Catholics today
but at the same time he said
that many of these problems
‘ ‘ often spring from
numerically small minorities
and very often from sources
which are not at all
authoritative.”
In the course of his talk,
the Pope also criticized a new
form of sociological inquiry
which, after examining a fact
or a set of facts, tends to
arrive at a norm isolated
“from the social and moral
context” of which the fact or
facts are part. He warned that
this form of inquiry can
“result in a moral uncertainty
which is socially very
dangerous.”
The Pope in the early part
of his talk noted that “a sense
of confusion seems to spread
even among the ranks of the
best sons of the Church, at
times even among the most
studious and the most
authoritative.
“There is much talk of
authenticity, but where can
we find it at a time when so
many characteristic things,
even essential ones, are
questioned? There is much
talk of unity, yet many try to
go off on their own. There is
much talk of the apostolate,
yet where are the generous
and enthusiastic apostles at a
time when vocations diminish
and when cohesion and the
spirit of conquest is
weakening among the
Catholic laity itself?”
In answers to his
questions, the Pope said: “We
must not allow ourselves to
be too much dismayed, let
alone frightened.”
Despite the numerically
small groups and modem
means of publicity which can
distort the slightest facts
remarkably, he said, “There is
still an immense majority of
healthy people, good and
faithful, to whom we can give
credit.
“Indeed it is to them that
we turn with out trust and
ask them in our exhortation to
remain firm and to become
more aware and active. The
Christian people must
immunize and affirm
themselves by their own
effort, silently and securely.”
The Pope said that public
opinion today “is also formed
by a method which we would
call a new one-sociological
inquiry.” He said this method
is “fashionable and presents
itself with a severity of
method which appears to be
wholly positive and scientific,
and with the authority of
numbers, so that the result of
inquiry tends to become
decisive, not only in the
observation of a collective
fact but also in indicating a
norm to be adapted to the
result of the inquiry itself.
The fact becomes law.”
This happens, he
continued, even when it is a
negative fact under study,
“and the inquiry tends to
justify it just the same as
imposing a norm. In addition,
the object of an inquiry is
generally partial and isolated,
as it were, from the social and
moral context of which it is a
part...”
Sociological inquiry is and
can be useful in analyzing a
particular situation, the Pope
said, but “for us, followers of
the kingdom of God, it will
have to submit its results to
different and superior
principles, such as those of
the doctrinal requirements of
faith and of pastoral guidance
along the paths of the
Gospel.”
Pope Paul then drew a
conclusion: “This makes us
meditate whether the ills
from which the Church today
suffers in its interior are not
mainly due to the
contesting-whether tacit or
overt--of its authority, that is,
of the trust, of unity, of
harmony, of the structure of
truth and charity as Christ
has conceived it and
instituted it and as tradition
has developed and handed it
down to us.”
CCD BISHOPS’
Committee Holds
Final Session
WASHINGTON (NC)~
The Bishops’ Committee of
the Confraternity of Christian
Doctrine has been
discontinued as part of the
reorganization of the United
States Catholic Conference,
according to Bishop Charles
P. Greco of Alexandria, La.,
who had chaired the
committee for the last 10
years.
The five-member
committee concluded its
work during the semi-annual
meeting of the American
bishops here.
The National Center of the
CCD is now a division of the
USCC Department of-
Education whose episcopal
chariman is Auxiliary Bishop
William E. McManus of
Chicago
Bishop Greco, speaking at
a dinner here for bishops’
committee members and the
staff of the National Center
of the CCD, said 35 fruitful
years had passed since the
original three-member
committee-consisting of
Archbishops John T.
McNichoIas, O.P. of
Cincinnati and John G.
Murray of St. Paul and
Minneapolis, with Bishop
Edwin V. O’Hara of Great
Falls, Montana, as
chairman-was appointed by
the U.S. bishops, on Nov. 14,
1934.
The National Center of the
CCD ws established the
following year, Bishop Greco
said, “and the Confraternity
was on the way to great
catechetical history in this
country.”
Bishop Greco briefly
reviewed the growth of the
bishops committee to 12
members from widely
different areas, each of whom
took personal and active
interest in promoting the
CCD is his particular region.
Through the years a total of
25 bishops served on the
committee. Among may
“firsts” sponsored by the
CCD committee is the first
Catholic translation of the
Bible into English directly
from he original languages,
which is due soon from the
presses. It is the work of
scholars of the Catholic
Biblical Association, itself
founded by Bishop O’Hara
and his CCD Committee in
1936.
Msgr. Russell J. Neighbor,
director of the national
center of the CCD, expressing
gratitude to members of the
committee for their interest
in the welfare of the CCD,
said CCD is enjoying good
health in many parts of the
country.
“The total enrollment in
CCD schools of religion
exceeds for the third
consecutive year the number
in parochial schools,” he said.
“And the CCD, from its first
days in this country,
promoted and provided
materials for the religious
education of parents and
other adults and continues to
do so.”