Newspaper Page Text
8 GEORGIA BULLETIN, THURSDAY, JANUARY 23,1969
Methodist Leader
Jesuit
€1
Model For Union Seen
In Catholic Rites
Philadelphia, N.C.
The diverse rites and the many
religious orders in the Catholic
Church offer a model for
eventual Christian unity, the
retired Methodist bishop of
Philadelphia said in an interview
here.
Asked to comment on the
ecumenical outlook in
connection with the 1969 Week
of prayer for Christian Unity, the
former president of the World
Methodist Council, Bishop Fred
Pierce Corson, said:
“I know I’ve surprised some
of the Catholic brethren when
I’ve said 'that in the Catholic
system of rites and religious
orders we have the beginning of
the idea of how Christian
churches could be broight
together-with autonomy, yet
with order. Protestants are
amazed at the amount of local
decision and autonomy there is
in theRoman Catholic Church they
had considered ‘monolithic.’ Why
is it unthinkable that there
should be an Anglican rite or an
Evanglical rite, just as there is
today a Byzantine rite?”
Noting the importance of
prayer in hastening Christian
unity, Bishop Corson, who
Served as a Methodist
observer at the Second Vatican
Council said:
“Pope Paul and Pope John
both asked me if I would pray for
them daily, and I asked John and
Paul if they would pray for me
and my people, and I’ve received
spiritual strength and comfort
from the thought that, around
the world, there are thousands of
Catholics praying for me.
“If, in the Week of Prayer
for Christian Unity, we did no
more than create an awareness of
the need for mutual prayer, then
we would gain spiritual strength
and blessings from the thought
that we were experiencing the
communion of saints.”
Of possible barriers to
ecumenical progress, Bishop
Corson said:
“I an fearful that we’re likely
to assume that the recognition
we’ve already achieved is the
consummation of the ecumenical
movement.
“Group worship activity must
expand under guidance, of
course, and in an orderly manner.
It must expand until we achieve
what could be called a ‘pragmatic
unity’ in the church.
“We must also move now
toward recognition of one
another. Recognition is the key
word— not the recognition of
whether there is one church or a
uniform type of church
government but of whether we
acknowledged the inclusion of
all who are baptized as part of
the organic Body of Christ.”
“On the grass-roots level,’'
Bishop Corson said, “I’d start oul
with the premise that many oi
our so-called differences grow out
of our isolation. Thus, when we
come td speak, we come to know
and love each other more. The
emphasis on dialogue is good, but
METHODIST Bishop Fred
Pierce Corson of Philadel
phia comments on the Week
of Prayer for Christian
Unity in an interview with
Father John P. Foley of the
Catholic Standard and Times,
Philadelphia archdiocesan
newspaper and NC corres
pondent. (NC Photos)
we must also make a Conscious
effort to demonstrate our
oneness.
“Therefore, there should be
more services of worship, since a
massive witness of the churches
coming together in such a manner
can be most effective. Also, we
should learn to seek answers to
public problems from a common
point of view, since this enhances
the estimation of the church in
the community and helps to
bring about a favorable outcome
by cooperative effort.”
“Our first, real, immediate
need in ecumenism,” Bishop
Corson stated, “is practical
education, so that we have an
informed clergy and laity on both
sides regarding our oneness in
Christ. This will help to remove
many misunderstandings which
now occur.”
“Second,” he continued, “we
need to demonstrate the idea and
doctrine we enuciate. You can’t
understand ecumenicity in the
abstract. You have to experience
it to know it.”
“What we must always keep
uppermost,” Bishop Corson said,
“ is that ecumenicity is a growth
in religious experience and
cannot be forced. You deny the
religious spirit unless it is
voluntary.”
“For example,” he explained,
“I could receive Holy
Communion in a Catholic church
with great spiritual benefit to me,
but I can understand that, unless
we come to a mutual
understanding about the
Eucharist, I cannot do such a
thing. Certain conditions would
first have to be met.”
He said Catholics and
Protestants have discovered areas
of agreement concerning the
Eucharist, such as the
appropriateness of receiving
Communion under two forms.
Many misunderstandings
occur, Bishop Corson explained,
because of the problem of
vocabulary.
Theologian Denies Slandering
Birth Control Commission
“We carry over words from
the past.” he said, “which have
an implication unsuitable to
eucmenical relations.”
“For example.” he explained,
“before Pope John, a
non-catholic was called a
‘heretic.’ Pope John inaugurated
the phrase, ‘separated brethren,’ a
stroke of inspiration, in my
opinion.”
“Another term with a bad
connotation,” Bishop Corson
continued, “is ‘infallibility.’
Every Protestant knows what
ultimate authority is and he
respects it. As Methodists, we
have a judicial council which, at
times, makes judgements from
which there is no recourse,
whichs is something like
‘infallible.’ As a matter of fact, I
got into trouble once because I
was quoted out of context in the
press. I was quoted as saying,
‘There are times I’d rather have
the Pope make the decision than
the judicial council.’ The paper
left out my next phrase,
‘provided I could choose the
Pope!’
“Seriously, though,” he said,
“you can see how you have to
separate terms fr&m their
emotional context.”
“Actually, Catholics have
several phrases—such as
‘apostolate of the laity’-which
Protestants ought to use and, in
fact, are now using,” Bishop
Corson said. “Really, however,
we have to simplify the language
of the ecumenical movement so
that the man in the pew will
know what we’re talking about.”
Asked what had brought him
into ecumenical work, Bishop
Corson replied, “I think it was
the leading of the Holy Spirit,
just as it must have been the Holy
Spirit which prompted Pope John
to call an ecumenical council.”
“Fifty years ago.” he recalled,
“I was the pastor in Jackson
Heights, L.I.,of a united church
under Methodist direction which
had members from 26
denominations. We also had a
very fine relationship with the
Catholics in the area. Then in
1934, I went to the Orient to
visit our Methodist schools and
colleges there, and I became
familiar with Catholic
missionaries, expecially on
Taiwan.”
“After the Second World
War,” Bishop Corson continued,
“President Truman sent Bishop
McEntegart (the late bishop of
Brooklyn) and myself to Europe
to see what the chinches could
do to develop peace and
friendship. Also, for many years I
served on the executive
committee of the National
Council of Churches.”
‘‘But my immediate
experience in the Second Vatican
Council.” he explained, “was not
something planned, I was selected
by the World Methodist Council
to go and, before going, I didn’t
know it would turn out the way
it did. As I said, I think my
involvement was due to a ‘leading
of the Holy Spirit.’
“Now,” Bishop Corson said ,
“as Pope Paul emphasized to me
in private conversation, we must
make sure that ecumeiical work
reaches the grass roots and does
not remain at the pinnacle.”
VATICAN CITY (NCKThe
author of an article in the
Vatican City daily, L’Osservatore
Romano, defending the papal
condemnation of contraception
has denied that he insinuated that
the papal commission on birth
control yielded to financially
powerful pressure groups when
its majority recommended that
Pope Paul VI reverse the
traditional ban on contraception.
Father Joseph Greco, S.J.,
labeled this interpretation
“slanderous.” He said he had not
intended to make any reference
to the papal commission and had
not in fact done so.
The Rome daily II Tempo had
run a three-column headline on
its front page. “Article of
L’Osservatore Romano Tells of
Pressures of Financial Groups on
Pontifical Commission So That It
Would Approve The Pill.”
In the uproar following this
interpretation, a written question
was submitted to the Vatican
press office. It asked, “Who are
the pressure groups now
identified? (Father Greco had
written that such groups had
been identified) And who was
subjected to pressure?”
The Holy See’s press
spokesman, Msgr. Fausto
Vallainc, replied, “The article in
L’Osservatore bears the signature
of the author. Responsibility for
what was written lies entirely on
him. Therefore, go to him for
explanations.”
Father Greco’s statement in
L’Osservatore said, “The three
installments appearing in
L’Osservatore of my theological,
historical and pastoral study of
the encyclical Humanae Vitae,
entitled ‘The prophetic light of
Paul Vi’s encyclical Humanae
Vitae,’ have given one Roman
newspaper occasion to contrive
absolutely slanderous hypotheses
against the ‘commission of
theologians’ designated by the
Pope to study the problem of
birth.
“While 1 assume entire
responsibility for my article, I
must in conscience state that in
no way have I referred to the
commission, and that I had no
intention of doing so. Nothing in
the text—objectively—gives
grounds for that inference.
“Every insinuation of the kind
is a slander which I repudiate.”
The passage in which various
news media had seen implications
of lobbying or worse reads,
“Those who since 1963 and even
before that have had the
opportunity either directly or in
any other way of following the
work dealing with the question of
birth regulation cannot be
unaware that authentic pressure
groups, noticeably influential and
now identified, have operated
with vast financial means, helped
by the orchestration of the
instruments of the mass media
which, in this circumstance,
deviated unfortunately from their
high purpose. They were utilized
often, and in very strong doses,
for campaigns of massive
intoxication from which the
world’s atmosphere* will have to
be cleansed if mankind is to take
the road of truth and of life.”
The three-part article by the
Trench Jesuit took “some
episcopal conferences” to task
for diluting Pope Paul’s
condemnation of contraception.
The theologian, who is a
professor of canon law and
missiology at Rome’s Gregorian
University, did not cite any
national hierarchy by name, but
he did in fact criticize the key
argument of the French and
Canadian bishops about “conflict
of duties.”
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