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About The Georgia bulletin (Atlanta) 1963-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 26, 1965)
s / PAGE 2 GEORGIA BULLETIN THURSDAY, AUGUST 26, 1965 ANTirnMMJJNISM Religious Liberty Declaration Defends All Faiths’ Rights BY RELIGIOUS NEWS SERVICE It is estimated that at the present time half the human race is deprived of religious freedom by atheistic Communist regimes. This is totalitarian Communism’s starkest indictment. But even in countries of the so-called free world, religious freedom is often infringed upon to a serious or minor degree. It is little wonder, therefore, that the declara tion on religious liberty slated to come before the Second Vatican Council when it opens its fourth and final session in September has been hailed as of primordial and universal importance by both Catholic and non-Catholic observers. RICHARD CARDINAL Cushing, Archbishop of Boston, has been quoted as saying that if the Council fails to deal with the issue, the entire ecumenical movement will collapse. Protestant leaders have agreed to religious liberty as vital for continued ecumenical discussion. Catholic missionaries, on their part, have insisted that re ligious freedom is a central problem in achieving harmonious contacts between Christianity and the non-Christian religions. With every likelihood seen that the Council will adopt it without any substantial change, the draft on religious freedom declares that in human so ciety, religious liberty is to be respected not only by Christians and for Christians, but by all and for all persons, individuals and religious groups. Marking the first time that the Catholic Church will make a solemn, official proclamation on the question, the document inevitably constitutes an implicit rebuke to countries around the world where, for one reason or another, religious rights are not fully respected. THE SHARPEST reproach will be aimed, natur ally, at the Communist nations which insist that religious beliefs and adherence should be under state control, and where policies of ruthless an ti-religious persecution have been followed, at least until recent years whenpressures have been eased or modified. But there will also be good reasons for soul- searching in nominally Christian countries where religion flourishes, but where Protestant or Cath olic minorities experience some degree of dis crimination. There are, too, non—Christian coun tries which have failed to respect the rights of religious minorities. In the latter category are free India, from whence persecuted Moslems have been forced to flee, and Islamic Pakistan where Hindus have found it necessary to take flight, even without any of their possessions. In Nepal, a Hindu State, Protestant and Catholic missionaries are largely restricted to holding services, with evangelism and conversions banned. IN SOME MOSLEM countries, religious dis crimination is openly rampant. Who could, as one writer asked recently, conceive of a Catholic cathedral of a Protestant church in Saudi Arabia? In London recently, reports disclosed that more than 1,400 people were killed during the July massacres in the Southern Sudan when the Nor thern Moslem Arabs vented their fury on Sou thern Christians and Animists. This bloodshed recalled the brutal violations of elemental human and religious rights in the Congo where, according to Vatican sources, 167 Catholic missionaries have been slain by ram paging rebels. In another African country — Somalia — the constitution makes it illegal "to spread or propagandize any religion other than the true religion of Islam." This is in contrast to the situation in predominantly Moslem Morocco, whose constitutions guarantees religious freedom and which is a signatory of the United Nations statement branding religious intolerance as a violation of the U.N, Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Among the Western countries, where the an ticipated Vatican II declaration is regarded as of especially vital significance, is Spain. In this traditionally Catholic country, a bill has been drafted granting full legal status to the small Protestant minority and easing restrictions against which it has long complained. However, parliamentary action on the bill has been held up pending the promulgation of the Vatican declara tion. THE SPANISH Protestants have experienced many restrictions obviously prompted by fears of the effect of unhampered Protestant proselytiz ing on the Catholic unity of the country. How ever, some important concessions have been granted in recent years, and sentiment is grow ing in important Catholic circles in favor of a new and genuinely ecumenical atmosphere in the country. Commenting recently on the situation in Spain, Father John B. Sheerin,'C.S.P., editor of the Catholic World (published in New York) and of ficial observer at many World Council of Churches meetings, had this to say: "In Spain, some theologians argue that the state has a right to defend the fabric of society against subverts from outside the country. They maintain that the Catholic religion'is so inextricably in tertwined with Spanish culture, history and tra dition that they constitute one social fabric and foreign evangelists are aggressors against whom the state can defend itself. "PLAUSIBLE as they might seem, surely a man’s duty to follow his conscience takes pre cedence over the state’s duty to its culture. The evangelist has no right to engage in ‘prosely- tism’ which means unfair and dishonest methods of evangelism, but he does have the right to preach the Word anywhere in the World.’’ Greece, predominantly Eastern Orthodox, is another country where fears of proselytism have created what outsiders regard as grave infringe ments of religious freedom. In 1961, Dr. E. Stanley Jones, the famed American Methodist mis sionary-evangelist and author, declared that in all his world travels he had found more religious tolerance in a non-Christian country like India than he did in Greece. "It was a deep disappointment to me," he said, "for the Greeks, who in many ways were the founders of democracy, now seem to deny the dramatic right to profess, practice and propagate one’s faith. cK' Members of the Jehovah's Witnesses sect have been imprisoned in Greece for engaging in proselytizing activities, and even Protestant min isters have been expelled from the country for ■ the same reason. There have also been restric tions on the building of new Protestant and Cath olic churches and on the printing and distribution of non-Orthodox religious publications. TALY HAS long been a classic example of a country where Catholicism occupies a privileged place and the Protestant Churches are forced to accept a second-class status. Eire, or the Repub lic of Ireland, differs in this respect inasmuch as Protestantism enjoys full and equal rights there along with Catholicism, even though this is the recognized religion of the great majority. How ever, in Northern Ireland, which has strong Pro testant traditions, Catholics, according to recur rent reports, are exposed to much bigotry and subjected to many economic and social disabili ties. In some countries, religious discrimination survives not in any conscious or deliberate form but solely because of reasons of tradition of history. Thus, in England, the King or Queen and the Lord Chancellor must be members of the Church of England, and all the Church's archbishops and bishops are ipso facto members of the House of Lords. The Prime Minister, in the name of the Crown, appoints the bishops as vacancies occur. Even in the determination of forms of worship, ultimate power is in the hands of the political parliament. TO MANY ENGLISHMEN, the Establishment is the symbol of the official acceptance of Chris tianity as the national religion, but there is a growing movement of opinion for disestablish ment in favor of entire freedom. In the Scandi- anavian countries, where Lutheranism is the state religion, tradition-- if not democracy—requires that the monarch be a Lutheran. In Sweeden, the Catholic Church cannot own property without specific permission of the gov ernment. A ban in Norway against the Jesuit order was revoked only in 1956 after having been in force for nearly 150 yards. In Switzerland, Catholics are still fighting for the elimination of "outdated provisions’’ in the federal constitu tion which ban activities by the Jesuits and the founding of new Catholic convents. It was front page news two years ago when a decree was read by a Catholic bishop canonically establishing a convent for Carmelite nuns in the province of Skane, Sweden, the first of its kind to be erected in the country in nearly 400 years. For the Greek Orthodox, the Vatican II declara tion on religious liberty will have special rele vance because of repressive measures adopted by the Turkish government last year against the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul. These were denounced by the General Synod of the Greek Evan gelical Church as part of a plan to exterminate the Christian element in Turkey. THE VATICAN Council draft clearly stresses the obligation of the state to protect and encour age religious liberty, saying the Catholic Church expects from state authorities a recognition of the right of religious liberty in social co-existence. These stipulations are identical to those set forth by an American Protestant expert in an es say published some years ago. Declaring that the onus is on governments to protect the religious rights of all citizens, Dr. M. Searle Bates, a member of the faculty of Union Theological Seminary in New York, had this to say: "BECAUSE THE state has the strongest and most extensive means of coercion, including in most instances the control of education and com munications, and the state is often the only insti- tition which individuals and groups cannot defy or escape, the state is a central focus of concern in issues of religious liberty. "Needless to say, the state is also the means of organized protection for the freedom of believing persons and their churches, securing their rights of conscience and worship, of association and of property for the performance of religious func tions, of speech and publications, of education and of service, all as proper expression of their faith and essential to its continuance and propagation." Dr. Bates was the author of "Religious Liberty: An Enquiry," a book published in 1945 in which he said that "experience of totalitarian oppres sion and persecution...is driving important ele ments of mankind to prize more highly the values of liberty and to struggle to establish and pro tect them.” At the same time, he added: "the significance of religion to the individual life, to the local or national community, and to interna tional and interracial relations, is more widely recognized. 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Morrisroe, 26, of Chicago was listed in critical condition at Baptist Hospital in Montgom ery. -flJOId 0*J$9W *HIp tO OOrtWH.^fTTS . was shot, is. the county ...seat. During, the earlier ckftppnjgfra- . tions. in Selma the Rev. James . Reeb, a Unitarian minister, and Mrs, Viola Gregg Liuzzo, a volunteer civil rights worker from Detroit, were killed. (Father Morrisroe went to Birmingham at the beginning of his vacation to ‘look and learn" from the civil rights projects, McDermott said. "He had no plans to get involved, but, typically, he couldn’t hold back.”) , S?R'T STflPJ? F?!> p, they’d be living .and enjoying mented. (McDermott said, however, that Ruby Sales, one of the rights workers, had told him they went to the store to get some food. (’There was a man in the door with a shotgun who said, ‘Don’t come in’here.’ So they turned away, and as they turned away, this guy opened fire at practically point-blank range," McDermott said. Tom Coleman, 52, a special deputy sheriff, was charged with first degree murder in the shooting (Aug. 20). Less than 24 hours later he was released on $12,500 bond. THE TWO clergymen were shot shortly after being releas ed from jail for involvement in a civil rights demonstration. (In Chicago, a fellow curate of Father Morrisroe at St. Co- lumbanus church described him as a "tremendously dedicated, principled young man’ ’ who had a "tremendous impact on any body he associated with." (Father Edmund Burke, as sistant pastor at St. Colum- banus, said the wounded priest left Chicago Aug. 8 to spend his vacation in Alabama and was due back Aug. 28. (BESIDES doing the "normal work of an assistant pastor" in the heavily Negro parish, Fath er Burke said Father Morrisroe also is a member of the Chicago Catholic Interracial Council and participated in marches pro testing de facto segregation in Chicago public schools. Hewas, one of eight priests arrested June 12 for blocking traffic during one such demonstration, (Father Morrisroe "has been the priest who really built a bridge between the people and the parish," said John Mc Dermott, C1C executive direc tor. ("Father Morrisroe won the admiration and love of the peo ple because he took risks him self, he extended himself." McDERMOTT said Father Morrisroe went to Selma, Ala,, In March for the march to Montgomery, state capital, to protest abuses of voting rights. Selma is in Lowndes county and Hayneville, where the priest Father Morrisroe, Daniels and several other civil rights workers were arrested in Fort Deposit and released (Aug. 20) a week later. COUNTY Solicitor Carlton L. Perdue said Coleman admitted the shooting. Coleman was ar raigned on murder charges and released on bond less than 24 hours after the shooting. He pleaded not guilty. Perdue said the group went to the store to demonstrate.' "If they’d been tending to their own business, like I tend to mine, MINNEAPOLIS (NC) — The idea of merging the National Newman Apostolate and the Na tional Federation of Catholic College Students was criticiz ed here by a veteran Newman Club chaplain. Father George Garrelts, New man chaplain at the University of Minnesota, said he favors increased contacts between stu dents from Catholic and non- Catholic colleges, but added that "it would seem more effective if the contact were not struc tured," It was disclosed recently that the National Newman Apostolate and the NFCCS would consider a proposal to launch a three- year study of a merger at their national conventions later this month. WHILE advocating more dis cussions on a variety of topics between students from Catholic and secular campuses, Father Garrelts said "they do not (MSGR. Francis W. Byrne, chancellor of. the archdiocese of Chicago, said two priests— Fathers Thomas McDonough and Patrick Curran--had been sent to Montgomery by Auxil iary Bishop Cletus O’Donnell, administrator of the archdio cese, to represent the arch diocese. (Msgr. Byrne said Father Morrisroe was born Oct. 29, 1938, in Chicago and was or dained June 25, 1964, by the late Albert Cardinal Meyer. St. Columbanus is his first assignment.) need_ organization to do this. They need disposition to do it and the preparation for it.” . He said problems differ from one type of campus to another and a single organization with a unified approach would not be adequate. ‘There are some Catholic’ fraternities and sororities that have failed in my estimation because they have the same ap proach organizationally to both types of campus," the priest said. 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