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UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST-PRESBYTERIANS
Churches, Gulf Oil Corp.
Lock Horns Over Angola
By Maxine Shaw
(NC News Service)
WASHINGTON (NC) -
The struggle hasn’t escalated
to the dimensions of a United
Farm Workers grape boycott,
but for more than a year two
major religious denomina
tions have been locking horns
with the powerful Gulf Oil
Corporation over the issue of
the company’s operations in
the Portuguese colony of
Angola.
Dealing with a white
colonial power in black
Africa is immoral. The United
Church of Christ and the
United Presbyterian Church
have maintained and both are
asking Gulf to leave Angola.
Gulf, the fourth largest oil
company in the U.S., replied
that its business is oil, not
politics.
In late 1970, both
churches began putting more
pressure on Gulf.
The United Church of
Christ, through its council for
Christian Social Action,
called on the church’s two
million members to return
their gulf credit cards,
“accompanied by personal
letters of protest.” Last
summer the denominations’
Ohio conference made the
same request.
The Presbyterians chose a
different tactic. Church
boards and agencies
representing the
denomination’s three million
members were asked by their
church’s Council on Church
and Society to buy shares in
Gulf and then voice then-
objections to the Angolan
operations at the
stockholders’ upcoming
meeting in April.
Although they have taken
I no direct action on the issue,
the United States Catholic
Conference’s Division of
World Justice and Peace has
“studied the (other
churches’) Gulf Oil project as
a model for Church action,”
Father Patrick P. McDermott,
assistant director of the
division said.
He praised the action
because it “was taken by a
recognized, reputable voice of
the Church,” and because it
was “public and directed
specifically at the cause of
the injustice and not the
results of the injustice.”
He said the success of the
action could be judged “by
the immediacy of the
response it evoked from Gulf
Oil with their threat of legal
action against the United
Church of Christ.”
At the time of the Ohio
actio, B.R. Dorsey, president
of Gulf Oil, sent a letter to
the United Church of Christ
demanding a retraction and
stating that the corporation’s
attorneys were in the process
of determining “what legal
actions could be taken to
obtain redress.”
W illiam Cox, public
relations coordinator for Gulf
told NC News recently,
however, that the oil
company would not take any
legal action against the
church.
He said only about 20
people returned credit cards
as a result of the Ohio
resolution, where “close to
40 wrote in and asked for
credit cards on the basis of
the statement.”
The churches have claimed
that Gulf’s presence in
Angola “provides support for
the suppression of African
national liberation
movements.”
They believe Gulf should
leave Portugal because:
-The prospect of major oil
reserves makes Portugal more
likely to hold on to her
colonies and financially more
able to do so.
-Gulf’s agreement with
Portugal states that in times
of national emergency (such
as an uprising by the nation’s
black majority) the
Portuguese can require Gulf
to turn over to them their
entire oil production.
-Angola is potentially a
major source of oil for
neighboring Rhodesia and
South Africa, where the black
majority is officially
discriminated against.
Gulf’s answer to the
churches has been that “oil is
where nature put it. If
somebody doesn’t keep
finding it, industrial nations
will run out of this prime
source of energy . . .Angola,
as other areas with which we
deal, is a vital source of oil.
That’s why we’re there.”
Gulf also insists that they
have helped the native
Angolans by providing new
jobs and job training.
According to the
company’s official, the
contract with Portugal is not
unique. “Any government we
deal with has the right to buy
all their oil themselves -
under any circumstances.”
PRIEST WILL GIVE AWAY POOL WINNINGS - Father James
Curtin, winner of S240.000 in a soccer betting pool in
Birmingham, England, will give most of the money away to
charity. He will keep S9.600 for himself and donate the
remaining amount to various charities. (NC PHOTO)
Sees New Era For
By Gerard Hekker
NEW YORK (NC) - When
venerable conductor Leopold
Stokowski stepped to a
podium in the sanctuary of
St. Patrick’s Cathedral last
November, the seated throngs
broke into long and
enthusiastic applause -- the
first such outburst within the
gothic walls since Pope Paul’s
visit there five years earlier.
The Stokowski concert was
a landmark in the cathedral’s
history. More are coming,
portending a new era in the
Church’s relationship with
me pertorming arts.
St. Patrick’s Cathedral has
announced that the
Stokowski concert was the
first of a series. For the
inauguration of the Christmas
season, the cathedral was also
the site of a special
ecumenical event that gave
further evidence of the trend
toward patronage of
non-religious arts in church.
The Yule tide event was a
Ceremony of Lessons and
Carols at which Sir John
Gielgud gave one of the
readings. The carols were
sung by the joint choirs of St.
Patrick’s and the Episcopal
INTERVIEW IN TEXAS WEEKLY
PAGE 3 — January 14, 1971
PUERTO RICO BISHOPS
Oppose Artiftcal
Contraception
SAN JUAN (NC) - The
Puerto Rican bishops - who
last year gave their qualified
approval to a government
birth control project - have
now announced their unified
opposition to any official or
private promotion of artificial
contraception.
The recent statement --
signed by all six of the
island’s bishops - is intended
to “completely clear any
ambiguity” caused by
previous statements, they say.
In February of last year
the bishops conference -- with
two dissenting votes - offered
their support to a government
family planning program in
exchange for a government
promise to include the
promotion of methods which
are “not against the doctrine
of the Church.”
But this conditional
support was misunderstood,
the bishops said in their
recent statement, “presenting
us as favoring artificial
contraceptives, abortion and
sterilization.”
Bishop Antulio Parrilla
Bonilla, who teaches at the
state university and has no
ecclesiastical duties, was one
of the two bishops who
refused to approve of the
government program.
He called it “the utmost in
naivete” to except the
government plan to respect
the individual freedom of
conscience.
Bishop Fermiot Torres of
Ponce also criticized the
program, calling it “a short
sighted vision of moral and
social problems,” and saying
it could lead to greater social
problems and contribute to
“the complete dissolution of
the family.”
Archbishop Luis Aponte of
San Juan, his auxiliary Bishop
Juan de Dios Lopez, and
bishops Alfredo Mendez of
Arecibo and Rafael Grovas of
Caguas originally approved of
the governme nt program.
They said they envisioned
it as “an intensive campaign
of education of couples so
that they freely know how to
exercise their right to a
responsible parenthood ....
in accord with the dictates of
their consciences.”
Church & Performing Arts
Cathedral of St. John the
Divine. Presiding were
Catholic Archbishop John J.
Maguire and Episcopal Bishop
Horace W.B. Donegan.
Protestant churches in the
New York City area have long
been “homes” for cultural
endeavors. St. Clement’s
Episcopal Church, just off the
Broadway theatrical district,
is the permanent home of the
American Place Theater,
which has presented many
notable contemporary plays
including “Hogan’s Goat” in
the church’s chancel area.
During the Medieval
period, the Church was an
active and innovation
supporter of the arts. The
10th-century liturgical drama
- usually presented at Matins,
Lauds, Prime, Terce Sext,
Nones, Vespers and Compline
- was the forerunner of the
mystery play, which led to
the miracle play, which led to
the morality play.
By the end of the 12th
century, however, the
presentation of morality
plays had been moved to the
front steps of the church,
where the facade of the
structure was used as a
massive backdrop. By 1600
and the advent of the
Reformation, religious drama
had been abandoned in most
of Europe.
The current “renaissance”
of cultural activity in
churches has assumed an
admittedly classical mode. At
the next concert in St.
Patrick’s Cathedral, a
performance of Rossini’s
“Petite Messe Solonnelle”
will be given.
During the recent
Christmas season in New
York City, most music was
traditional. Yet the more
modern sound of electronic
music has begun to intrude.
DALLAS, Tex. (NC) -
The best future for real
Christian unity lies more in
finding a true consensus of
faith and ministry than in
trying to forge a
superstructure Church
through formal action, says
an expert who has spent years
in the ecumenical field.
The Rev. Dr. Albert C.
Outler, theologian and church
historian at Southern
Methodist University, thinks
the current global pattern of
change has put the
ecumenical movement into a
state of suspended animation.
The leaders in Christian
unity work are now suddenly
faced, he believes, with the
fact that Christian unity
“either means a hugh
ecclesiastical conglomerate
that even an industrial genius
could not preside over, or it
means a radical shift in the
conception of how much
machinery Christians need in
order to participate
effectively in the life of the
Spirit, in the Word and
sacraments and church order
to live as the Church in the
World.”
Dr. Outler was considered
the dean of the Protestant
observers at the Vatican II
Council and is regarded by
many as the nation’s most
articulate Catholic watcher.
He appraised the current
status of the unity movement
in a question-and-answer
interview with Steve
Landregan, editor of The
Texas Catholic, weekly
newspaper of the Dallas-Fort
Worth diocese.
The interview:
Q. What is the present
status of the ecumenical
movement?
Outler: It is in a state of
suspended animation. Live
and urgent, but no longer in
its earlier state of vigorous
activity or of vita! forward
motion. This is partly due to
the immense sociological,
psychological, cultural
mutation that is occurring all
over the world at large. The
place of the Church, the role
of religion and the influence
of the spiritual vision on
existence are all in process of
being radically transformed.
It is not that men are
becoming less religious or less
radically rooted in the
mysteries of the Spirit in the
world, but the conventional
and traditional forms of life
in the Spirit are changing for
practically everybody in the
modern world. The Church is
therefore also involved in the
radical alteration of its
conventional and typical
forms of organization and
administration.
Q. You say the Church is
in the midst of this. Is the
social revolution in the world
having a profound effect
upon the Church?
Outler: That’s part of it, of
course, but I think the other
side of the coin may be more
significant. Some of the most
important premises of this
revolution have come to the
world from the Christian
heritage, from Christian views
of man’s freedom and
responsibility to participate
in God’s moral imperatives
for justice and brotherhood
and peace in the world, and
for human dignity for all
men. This is the practical
implementation of the vision
that in Christ there is no east
or west, no black or white, no
racial or cultural or national
distinctions that are truly and
finally just in and of
themselves.
The nerve of the
situation is that both the
Church and also the political
organizations and institutions
of society that have depended
on the power of arbitrary
authority are in the process
of having to accommodate
themselves to new modes of
authority that arise from
influence and conviction
rather than compulsion. This
is the deepest thing that is
happening just now, the most
profound and radical thing.
The organizations of
society for the last two
thousand years have been
governed, at least in large
part, by implicit taboos that
were interiorized by and
accepted by generation after
generation of men, women
and children, and that were
conveyed from age to age by
tradition. This was a partial
meaning for Christian
culture: the insertion of the
appropriate taboos that then
would govern general
behavior within broad limits
of decency, obedience and
peace.
It seems to me that this is
altering, for good or ill, and if
this is so, then every one of
the social and political
merchanisms of permission,
remission and control that
have worked in the Church
and the body politic for the
past two thousand years are
in the process of current
change, with more to come.
If this is the case, then we
are in a very new situation
that we don’t fully
understand. That is certainly
one way of looking at the
fact that in every church in
Christendom, there is at the
present time a crisis of
obedience, a crisis of
authority, a crisis of
voluntary participation and
financial support.
Q. Would you say that it is
a crisis of bureaucracy?
Outler: Yes, partly. You
see, bureaucracy doesn’t have
the leverage or the power that
it once had. Time was when a
bureaucrat could send a
directive down the line and
when it came out at the
bottom there was something
close to reflex obedience.
This does not obtain in any
of the institutions of Western
society anymore -- the
Church or the law courts or
even the military.
Q. Are you saying that any
reunion of Christianity then
will not result from the
formal action of Church
organizations but will depend
upon conviction of individual
Christians that unity is the
will of Christ?
Outler: Yes, but more than
that. It must come from the
individual Christian’s
conviction that such an
action is part of his obedience
to Christ. This I think is the
deepest thing. But there is
more. Consider the fact that
the ecumenical movement has
spent most of its energies for
the past 50 years on
doctrinal, ethical and
liturgical questions. The old
dividers - the great issues that
people associate with the
Reformation, the wars of
religion and the quarrels
between theologians.
These are the things by
which people in different
churches knew that they were
different - from Roman
Catholics or Presbyterians,
etc. - in belief, in liturgical
practice, in interpretation of
Christian morals. On these
grounds we have grown to be
so close to consensus, in the
main, that Christian unity
would not require a whole lot
more before it would be
possible, if doctrinal
consensus were the main
obstacle to unity. But with
reference to the problems of
policy and structure, the
nuts-and-bolts questions of
ecclesiastical organization, we
are no further down the
ecumenical road then we
were 50 years ago.
The reason for this is
probably that the people who
manage the nuts-and-bolts
thought they had 200 years
instead of 50 for their
theoreticians to work.
Suddenly now they are
confronted with the fact that
Christian unity, in terms of
polity and organization,
either means a huge
ecclesiastical conglomerate
that even an industrial genius
could not preside over, or it
means a radical shift in the
THE REV. DR. ALBERT C. OUTLER during interview. (NC
PHOTO)
conception of how much
machinery Christians need in
order to participate
effectively in the life in the
Spirit, in the Word and
sacraments and church order
to live as the Church in the
world.
So far, the people manning
the curial agencies of the
churches have got the
message that structures must
be changed but they are
operating thus far on the
assumption that THEY must
change the structures by
combinations and
re-arrangements of existing
structures and personnel.
Every church I know of is in
the process of re-examination
of its structures and no
church that I know of has
taken that far enough so that
it is in some real aspect
responsive to the frustrations
of the people at the local
level or of the priesthood and
the people at the grass roots.
Q. Do you mean that until
such time as there is this grass
roots demand and response
the ecumenical movement
will remain in the state of
suspended animation?
Outler: I think so. As of
now, when you start thinking
about Church union you
think about putting
structures together “at the
top.” But when you put
structures together “at the
top,” either one is absorbed
into the other or both are
carried over with a kind of
multiplication of apparatus
and personnel, or a higher
structure is arched over the
merged structures and so you
get apparatus piled on top of
apparatus. This way lies
confusion and frustration and
a kind of kickback to the
bare thought of union. If
union means this, then no
sensible layman is going to
buy it.
Q. Is there another way?
Outler: The other way, it
seems to me, is to ask “what
are the minimum
requirements for a mingled
membership and ministry of
separate Christian brethern:
so that your Baptism and
Confirmation and my
Baptism and Confirmation
and the Baptism and
Confirmation of others whom
we can recognize as
“Christian” can be translated
into terms of mutual
membership in the People of
God?”
That’s the first and main
thing, and in many ways that
is almost all that ecumenism
really is all about. For the
scandal of Christian disunion
is that you’re baptized and
confirmed in the name of the
Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit, and I am baptized and
confirmed in the name of the
same Father, the same Son
and the same Holy Spirit --
and we are not members one
of the other.
The second aspect of
fruitful Christian Unity is the
mingling of ministries. This is,
of course, part and parcel of
the mingling of memberships.
If the priest who is authorized
by the Cahtolic Church to
represent the whole of the
People of God when he
consecrates the bread and
wine into the Body and Blood
of Jesus Christ for you,
cannot do so for me, but if he
has at the same time
acknowledged that my
baptism and confirmation are
in some sense valid and
authentic, we are still in the
scandal of division.
Q. What would it take to
mingle the ministries of the
churches?
Outler: It can’t be done
simply by slushing them
together, or by bowing and
smiling and shaking hands.
I’m talking about a genuine
sifting of those who have in
some sense or other a
consensus fidelium, a
consensus sacramentum, who
understand one Lord, one
Faith, one Baptism in the
biblical sense with a good deal
of elbow room for
disagreements about
incidentals.
Q. Do you feel that the
Second Vatican Council has
brought this possibility closer
to reality?
Outler: Much closer. We
are able now to talk as we do
in these bilateral
conversations between
Roman Catholics and the
respective parts of the
non-Roman Catholic world in
terms of membership and
ministry in ways which amaze
me - and I am accustomed to
strange and wonderful things
in the ecumenical experience.
In the Catholic-Methodist
talks we have discussed faith
(justifying faith, sanctifying
faith) and we have talked
about “life in the Spirit,”
about Liturgy, about
ministerial orders, in ,terms
that are not simplistic, but in
terms of formulas that could
be proposed to a council or a
congregation for executive
action.
There is a sizeable
literature that has not been
disowned by the
Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith that
talks in terms of irregular and
insufficient ministries being
made regular and more fully
sufficient without
reordination. It speaks of
memberships being
recognized on the basis of
baptism, confirmation, and
some kind of assessment of
the profession of faith in
Word and life.
This puts us pretty close to
the place where you really
can begin to think of mingled
membership and ministry
even if you cannot think of
the curial apparatus of the
United Methodist Church, of
the Lambeth Conference and
the Roman Catholic curia in
Vatican City being put
together in some sort of
worldwide ecclesiastical
cartel.
I can’t imagine THAT, nor
do I find the idea in my sense
attractive or fascinating. The
first, of reunion by means of
rediscovered sacramental
unity, I find profoundly
moving and vitally hopeful.
This brings us back to the
laity, who are the Church
visible, as “Lumen Gentium”
says - when the Church
visible is visibly united, then
the rest of the ecclesiastical
institution will have to be
organized as sensibly as it
can, as practically as it can,
and this I am willing for
practical and sensible folks to
work at and develop
minimum structures. But
must it take them forever? I
don’t believe it!