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V PAGE 2 GEORGIA BULLETIN THURSDAY. DECEMBER 19, 1963 ECUMENICAL SIGNIFICANCE? Pope’s Holy Land Trip Stirs Excitement And Speculation VATICAN CITY (RNS)—Ex citement carefully controlled by the exigencies of protocol cha racterized ecclesiastical Rome in the days following the almost casual announcement of Pope Paul VI in his closing discourse to the second session of the Vatican Council that he pro posed to make a pilgrimage of prayer and penance to "the Holy Places where Christ was born, lived, died, rose again and ascended into heaven." Such a journey involves vi siting two countries still tech nically at war, for Bethlehem, the Way of the Cross, Golgo tha, the Sepulcher and the Mount of Olives are in Jordan, where as Nazareth, the Mount of the Beatitudes, Cana, the side of the Lke of Tiberias most fea tured in the Gospel narrative, as well as the Cenacle, are in Israel. THE RISING expectation that the pilgrimage will be of major ecumenical significance con trasts with the meager and per functory applause in St. Peter's Basilica when the announcement was made "as a final word" toward the end of an otherwise undramatic closely - written address. The discretion displayed in Vatican circles is dictated by two factors: caution, lest the trip be misinterpreted as hav ing political purposes and, again, lest it appear in any way to force the hand of die leaders of the Orthodox Churches, not ably sensitive on questions of protocol and prestige and mis trustful for many centuries of "Latin duplicity." THE CONTROLLED press of Cairo promptly and shrilly complained that the Pope's pil grimage is public support for the state of Israel. The foreign minister of Syria, Hassan Mreywed, welcomed the visit "as enabling His Holiness to see for himself the justice of the Arab cause." The silence of Osservatore Romano, semi official Vatican City daily, was designed to spare Orthodox sus ceptibilities. It did not even publish the exuberant reaction of the Ecumenical Patriarch who termed the pontiff’s idea "inspired by God.” In a sermon on the Feast of St. Nicholas (Dec. 6) His Bea titude, Athenagoras I, was so lemnly earnest (if somewhat prolix) in declaring that "it would be truly a work of divine providence if, during this pious pilgrimage of Paul VI, all the heads of the Churches of the East and the West could meet in the Holy City of Zion. There in common fervent prayer and in the spiritual recollection of the Christian spirit, on their knees, tears in their eyes, and in a spi rit of unity, on Golgotha which was wet with the most holy blood of Christ and before the Sepul cher whence sprang reconcilia tion and forgiveness, before tion and forgiveness, they could, for the glory of the holy name of Christ and for the profit of all humanity, open the way to the complete reestablishment of Christian unity according to the sacred will of the Saviour." THE INITIAL reaction of the Patriarchate of Moscow to the proposal from Constantinople (Istanbul) was measured, a spokesman noting "its extreme importance" and promising that "it will surely be the subject of a long and careful examina tion by the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church be fore a decision is taken." The sincerity of the senti ments of Patriarch Athenagoras are well-known in Rome. As Greek Othrodox archbishop in Boston he was a close, personal friend of Cardinal Cushing. But the scope of his authority, it,is realized, must not be exaggerat ed. The continuing hostility of the Hellenic Greeks under Met ropolitan Chrysostomos, to any contact with Rome is a factor the Ecumenical Patriarch must bear always in mind. More over, his control over his own Church is largely a moral one, the affairs of the Patriarchate of Constantinople being gov erned by a synod consisting of il bishops and presided over by the patriarch. THE SYNOD ELECTS the pa triarch and may depose him as has happened not infrequently, the last case being that of Pa triarch Meletios whose encycli cal letter of 1920 proposing a league of churches paralleling the new League of Nations did much to bring the Orthodox in to the life and work movement, one of the ecumenical organi zations later to fuse with the World Council of Churches. The synod has, then, enormously more power than the Roman Cu ria. It is not merely conser- Should BY MRS. DANIEL SCHEAFLEY (St. Louis, Mo.) Would die substitution of the Three Kings for Santa Claus be a contribution the Christian churches could make toward interracial understanding and , unity during these troubled .times? Santa Claus as a symbol of Christmas is of compara tively recent origin and not un iversally used. He is an Ameri can concept, die name, but not die figure, being derived from St, Nicholas who visited the chi ldren of die Dutch colonists in New Amsterdam. In all parts of die Christian world children are brought gifts during the Christmas season, but the givers vary. In Aus tria die Christ Child puts toys in die children's shoes on Ch ristmas Eve. Bishop Nicholas comes to the children in Munich on December sixth. Ba- buschka in Russia and Befana in Italy are old women who re ward good children on the Feast “PET.„yoii bet!” ra For Convenient Home Delivery In Atlanta Call 636-8677 PET MILK COMPANY DAIRY DIVISION OCTOPETE OCTOPETE HAS GOT EIGHT FEET IN CHILD LIFE SHOES THEY LOOK SO NEAT. Because they must last a lifetime, your child’s growing feet deserve extra special care. . .the care they get with fine, properly made CHILD LIFE Shoes, fitted for com fort and growing room by our trained stab. LUCY’S FAMILY SHOE STORE land of happy feet L 4067 Peachtree Road NE ATLANTA 19, GEORGIA vative as most bureaucracies are but is rootediy anti-Roman, harboring the memory of the past injustices of the West dat ing from the Fourth Crusade which sacked Constantinople. Father Pierre Duprey, a brilliant, charming White Fa ther, formerly of theSeminaire de Ste. Anne a the Pool of Pro- batica in the Old City of Jeru salem and now on the staff of the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity, was sent to Istanbul with a wholly private letter informing Patriarch Ath enagoras of the Pope’s travel plans. Given the tradition of hospitality of the Orient, it seems unlikely that the Ecu menical Patriarch will not be in the tiny chapel of Calvary in the Basilica of the Holy Se pulcher at the time of the pon tiff's visit, since that portion of the shrine is under the juris diction of the Greeks. IN THE MEANTIME the gov ernments of Israel and Jordan are making arrangements to welcome their guest, Israel an nouncing an inter-cabinte com mittee of supervision with six sub - committees. Inevitably, there will be contacts between Israeli and Jordanian officials concerning, among other is sues, security measures and travel facilities for the press. Here is an added boon. Apart from the brief, annual contacts concerning pilgrims to Bethle hem at Christmastime, officials of the two governments meet only in the mixed armistic com mission under U.N. supervi sion. It is not altogether impos sible — although improbably — that the Pope’s presence might occasion a meeting between King Hussein of Jordan and Pre sident Zalman Shazar of Israel. Anything could hapen when even Radio Moscow blurts its astonishment at this "sensa tional news." The news is "sensational’’ because the world, particularly the Catholic world, had been accustomed to viewing the Pope as a permanent fixture of Rome, almost as a monument. Return ing tourists describe to friends the ravens in the Tower of Lon don, the Tivoli Gardens in Co penhagen, the Louvre in Paris, the Leaning Tower of Pisa — and "then we saw the Pope in Rome." EVEN WHEN the Lateran Treaty of 1929 put an end to the self-imposed exile of the "prisoner of the Vatican", the Pope's auto trip to his summer villa at Castel-Gandolfo, a Ro man hillside suburb, causes the newspapers to speculate on w hat day he will go. For the Pope grants audiences. He sits in the center of Christendom and peo ple come to him. Thus, the last two gatherings of the Catholic bishops of the world in a Gen eral Council have been held in Rome. True, Pope John XXIII took to dropping into hospitals, seminaries, even visiting the Regina Coeli jail in the Eternal City where he explained to the prisoners that "since you could not come to see me, I decided to come to see you." Before the opening of the Vatican Council Pope John took the train to the shrines of Loretto and Assisi but the pilgrimage was deem ed a sentimental excursion of a pious old man. And now a Pope leaves the Western world to jet to the Near East where perhaps he licopters will take him from sacred scene to sacred scene. The style breaks with tradi tion but the route has im mense significance. It is a re turn to sources: "We will see that blessed land whence Pe ter set out and to which none of his successors has return ed," Pope Paul declared. It was the centrality of Christ that was the dominant theme of the papal discourse opening this past session of the Coun cil: "We should proclaim Christ to ourselves and to the world around us; Christ our beginning, Christ our life and our gide Christ our hope and our end." How normal, on reflection, this pilgrimage to “the spots made sacred by Christ" and at Beth lehem, the birthplace of the Prince of Peace to summon solemnly all mankind to new efforts for peace and unity. THERE IS MUCH speculation about the immediate inspiration of the pontiff's pilgrimage. It is known that as Cardinal Mon- tini he told a bishop of Gali lee that a visit to the Holy Land was the dream of his life. The confidence was made to Melkite Bishop Georges Ha kim who each year invites groups of bishops to the Holy Places of Palestine. At the end of the Council’s second session, 200 archbishops and bishops were officially received by the Israeli government. French sources pridefully suggest the influence of an un usual French priest in the de cision. FATHER JOSEPH Gautier, a former seminary professor from Dijon, is a slim, intense man in his early forties with a passion for the poor. Unable to give himself to the discon tinued priest-worker move ment in France, 1 ike Charles de Foucauld and St. Ignatius be fore him, Father Gautier went off to the Holy Land to identi fy himself with the humble life of Christ in the humble sur roundings Christ knew at Na zareth. Working among the poo rest, he decided to try to im prove their appalling living con ditions and, with the help of the Israeli government, form ed a housing cooperative. Young men from Europe came to join him. Today on a wooded slope of Nazareth 250 small, white ce ment units exist. When two years ago I met Father Gau tier in the wooden shack that serves as private chapel, bed room, library- and construction headquarters, he impressed me as both a mystic and a man of action. With a smile he re counted his inquiry at a gov ernment office about the feasi bility of becoming an Israeli citizen. "Why bother", he was told. "You are a member of histadrut, it’s the same thing!" Histadrut is the country’s trade union movement. LAST AUGUST 15 in the name of "Twenty Companions and Carpenters of Nazareth” Fa ther Gautier addressed a let ter to Pope Paul that made two points. The first asked that the successor of Peter "confirm" his brethren in supporting the ideas of a group of bishops with whom Father Gautier had discussed the necessity of the Church’s concerning herself with the poverty of the mass of mankind. The second pointurg- ed a pilgrimage to the Holy- Land. On October 11 Giacomo Car dinal Lercaro, himself an apos tle of the poor, told Father Gautier that the Holy Father had received the documenta tion of the Nazareth group and had charged the Archbishop of Bologna to pursue its study. No mention was made of the invitation to the Holy Land. SIGNIFICANTLY, it was Car dinal Lercaro who in the clos ing days of the first session of the Council begged that the Church be the Church of the poor, that the misery of hu manity and its evangelization be the principal preoccupation of the Council. During this session there were reminders of the urgency of that theme. The director gen eral of the Food and Agricul tural Organization told the an nual conference of that U.N. specialized agency, meeting in Rome in November, that near ly half a million people are star ving andthatamillionmorelack the essential necessities of life. The situation is deteriorating. A report in August of the Of fice of Economic Cooperation and Decelopment predicted that the average income of people in the developed countries (481 million in all) would increase 36 per cent between 1962 and 1970 while in the underdevelop - ed countries (1,432 millions of people) the average income w ill increase only 9 per cent. At present income in the develop ed countries is 14 times that of the underdeveloped coun tries; in seven years it will be 17 times greater. OTHERS IN THE Catholic Church, more influential than Father Gautier, share his pre occupation. Each week during the second session of the Coun cil an international group of bishops and experts, under the chairmanship of Pierre Cardi nal Gerlier of Lyons, worked to elaborate a new orientation of the Church toward the prob lems of mass poverty, a new respect among the clergy for manual labor. W ith an explicit approval of Pope to Cardinal Lercaro, the group included Maximos IV, the Melchite Pat4iarch; Auxiliary Bishop Holder Camara, well- known in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro; Auxiliary Bishop Al fred Ar.cel of Lyons who as a bishop worked as an artisan; of Mwanza, Tanganuika, the blunt Dutchmanwho is watching, and with sympathy, Africa stir; Bishop Franjo Franic whose episcopal residence and office in Split, Yougoslavia, is a sin gle room; and Bishop Charles Himmer whose diocese of Tou- rnai includes the played-out coal fields of Belgium’s Bour- rinage. THE GROUP WANTS to have its ideas color every future schema, it wants a permanent WRITER ASKS The Magi Replace Santa? of the Epiphany, January sixth. In Spain and Latin America ch ildren look forward to the arri val of the Three Kings on Jan uary sixth with gifts for them. SAINT MATTHEW tells us only that Magi came from the East with gold, frankincense, and myrrh for the Infant Savior. We do not know who they were nor how many, but we have more than a thousand years of popu lar tradition which has made them kings, usually three in number, Gaspar, Balthasar, and Melchior, represent the th ree great races of mankind as they were known in die Mediter ranean world. That one of the Magi was to be a dark-skinned Affrican seems to be foretold in the words the psalm which are quoteu in the liturgy for the Feast of the Epiphany: "Let great ones come forth from Eg ypt, let Ethiopia stretch out her arms tj God," (Psalms - 67 .32)’’ The Magi in their act of ado ration symbolize the essential unity and equality of all man kind, these three wise and gre at men kneeling as brothers, humble before their Fadier. Using the Three Kings in Ch ristmas activities in church and church - related institutions in stead of Santa Claus would ef fectively illustrate the Christ ian’s view of racial differences, and because of the ancient or igins of the legends it would be at once understood that this has always been die doctrine of Ch ristianity a refutation of racist interpretations of Scripture. THE CUSTOM OF presenting die Three Kings of different ra cial origins would immediate ly furdier interracial co-op eration and understanding in a practical way. We in America, who have inherited from a se gregated past neighborhoods and church .congregations wh ich give us little opportunity to know and work wldi those of a different color , would have to reach across the barriers that divide us to find a black or wh ite King to work with us on project in which all have the same status. The demonstration of re cent months have brought into sharper focus the descrimina- tory practices which hobble American Negroes. It seems to me that there is now a gre ater awareness of the injustices but if this new perceptiveness is to be a step toward equa lity of opportunity and integra tion many positive programs should be undertaken. HOUSING, EMPLOYMENT, and education are vital needs but in none of these can inte gration really be successful un til we come to the realization that jobs, houses, and schools cannot be isolated, ripped out of the social fabric in which they exist. Integration must be a re ality in every aspect of commu nity life if it is to be wholly successful in any. secretariat at the Vatican for the multiple schema 1“, "the presence of the church in the modern world," to be central in the next session, as us theme should be dominant at the Eu charistic Congress at Bombay next fall. On November 28 Pope Paul assured the group, through Cardinal Lercaro, that schema 17 will be given full considera tion at the next session but af ter the amended document on "The Church." As for the reasons for Pope Paul’s pilgrimage, it is most prudent to take the simple ex planation of the papal discourse. Undoubtedly, there was, also, a realization that the visit would augment the prestige of the Or ient and make possible a fra ternal encounter with some heads of the Orthodox Churches who have been waiting seem ingly for Rome to take the first step. panoply which John once said was that of "a Persian sat rap." A youngish French theo logian, Father Rene Laurentin, humorously if ebullently hopes that "on his return from the Holy Land Paul VI will accept the offer of an American mu seum to buy the Sedia Gesta- toria (the raised platform on which the Pope is borne) Sedia which the Pope is borne) and the money given for new houses in the poor village of Naza reth." At a minimum the pilgrimage proves that a Pope is (if the word can be used without ir reverence) portable and that Pope John XXIII was right once again. Some monihs before his death he told a missionary bis hop from Africa; "I am too old too old to return your visit. At best 1 can only travel by train. But my successor will be much younger than I and he, will go visit you in an airplane." HOWEVER, FATHER Gautier and his high-placed friends pra\ that it means, too, a deliberate gesture of indentification of the papacy w ith evangelical simpli city of life and a future mini mizing of that ecclesiastical Buy Y. ur Slax From Mu'* MAX METZEL. Oastr MAX'S MEN'S SHOPS 3494 Prachtrer Industrial Blvd ChamMt* Plaza Shopping Canter Phone 431-1911 9T3 Peachtree, N E Ph. ne TR i 0342 — At 10th It. CLARK [LAUNDRY-DM cleaning TWO COMPLETE PLANTS 1007 Peachtree Si.. N. E. - TR. 6-7391 3189 Maple Drive. N. E.. Buckhead — CE. 3-5311 * 6 C onvenient Pick-up Branches to Serve You Better: 896 Peachtree St., N. E. - TRinity 5-2876 914 Piedmond Avenue, N. L. - TRinity 4-7819 1572 Piedmont Ave., N. E. - TRinitx 5-1710 1987 Howell Mill Road, N. E. - TRinity 6-1771 Northwood Shopping Center - GLendale 7-9037 Lenox Square Branch 4263 Roswell Rd. 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