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PAGE 3 — January 28, 1971
A T WCC CENTRAL COMMITTEE MEETING
ON OBSCENE MATERIAL
Catholic Membership Unofficial Topic
By Marjorie Hyer
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia
(NC) — Roman Catholic
membership in the World
Council of Churches (WCC)
was not on the agenda of the
WCC’s central committee
during its 12-day meeting
here, Jan. 10-21.
But the topic was a lively
one nevertheless in corridor
conversations and hotel-room
bull sessions, with even an
occasional allusion in plenary
debate.
The official agenda item
called only for a report of the
joint Vatican-WCC working
group named nearly six years
ago to explore not
membership but areas of
possible cooperation and
ways of improving
relationships between the two
major segments of
Christendom.
Speaking for the Catholic
side of the negotiations,
Father Jerome Hamer,
secretary of the Vatican
Secretariat for Promoting
Christian Unity, stressed the
value of the growing
collaboration between
Roman Catholics and the
WCC in many areas and on
different levels.
But Catholic membership
in the WCC, he said, requires
further study and should not
be undertaken until it can
involve all levels of the
Church, from local parish up
to the Vatican.
Dr. Lukas Vischer, director
of the WCC’s department of
faith and order, agreed that-
the collaboration and
cooperation are indeed
heartening. But if some new
impetus is not forthcoming
soon, he added, the
ecumenical movement might
soon “petrify.”
Roman Catholic
membership in the WCC, he
said, will go a long way to
provide the needed impetus.
There is reason to believe
that Dr. Vischer, in both his
platform remarks and his
even more vigorous
statements in private
conversation, reflected the
growing efforts of the WCC’s
Geneva headquarters to
nudge the Catholic Church
into a faster pace toward
membership.
Reactions of the central
committee members fell
somewhere between the two
positions. Many concurred
with Father Hamer’s view on
collaboration. Some
Protestant church leaders,
troubled by the vast rank and
file in their denominations
who know little and care less
about the WCC, had great
sympathy for his insistence
on involving the whole
Church in the decision, when
and if it comes, to join the
WCC.
The younger churches,
those growing out of
missionary endeavors, were
less inclined to be patient.
A Congolese pastor, the
Rev. J.B. Bokeleale, drew
considerable applause when
he told the assembly: “We of
the younger churches are
suffering because of you. You
have brought us a divided
church, your Christ has
divided us.”
Why go on praying to God
for unity, he said, since “God
wants the unity of all his
children. When we pray for
unity, we should pray to the
Vatican and the World
Council of Churches -- they
are the ones that need to
agree.”
There seems little
likelihood, however, that the
Catholic Church is going to
be filibustered into
membership before it is
deemed ready.
Father John Long, a
member of the Christian
U n i t y secretariat,
commenting privately on the
matter, reiterated the need
for involving the entire
Church in the decision. “It is
not just a question of tidying
up staff work between Rome
and Geneva,” he said.
Father Long, who was one
of two official delegate
observers at the sessions here
from the Vatican, cited the
dangers of hasty action in this
matter. “If we would go in
right now, it would make a
big splash, but it would create
a lot of expectations which, if
they were not fulfilled, would
cause disillusion later.”
Father Long also said that
some of the developments of
the meeting here should
speed up the deliberations on
the membership question.
He referred specifically to
a renewed emphasis expressed
here on the need for biblical
and theological understanding
and undergirding of many
actions taken here, actions
which caused one outside
observer to speculate that the
WCC central committee
appeared on the surface more
like a junior grade United
Nations than a religious
convention.
“There has been some
concern in the Catholic side
that there is too much stress
in the WCC on action,” said
Father Long. “But I have
been impressed by the
insistence of the central
committee on developing
deep theological foundations
for many of the actions - a
concern that we are acting for
Christian reasons, not just
humanitarian ones.”
The theological emphasis is
traceable in part at least to
the controversy into which
the WCC was thrown over
grants made last September
by the executive committee
of the central committee to
19 organizations dedicated to
fighting racism. Among the
19 were several groups based
in white-dominated countries
of Southern Africa which
have used violence in the
struggle for justice for Black
Africans.
Touched by criticism of
the action - the central
committee was forced back
to its biblical and theological
foundations to support the
responsibility of Christians to
come to the aid of the
oppressed. (The grants
specified that the WCC
money was to be used for
humanitarian purposes - legal
aid, welfare assistance to
families of detained men and
the like).
The committee learned
quickly from the anti-racism
controversy. Subsequent
resolutions, as they came to
the floor, were often already
armored with theological
justifications. Thus, one
resolution, which was
unanimously adopted, called
for the abolition of capital
punishment “as a significant
expression of our belief in the
sanctity of life.”
Nowhere was theology
offered in greater abundance
than in the document on
dialogue with men of other
faiths. The guidelines
produced for WCC
participation in such activity
were rated among the most
significant accomplishments
of the meeting.
The guidelines, which
council leaders called
“interim policy” only and
not a final pronouncement on
the subject, called on
Christians to “enter into all
forms of dialogue from the
standpoint of their faith in
Jesus Christ and their
obligation to witness to
Him.” But a need for genuine
listening and openness to
people of other faiths was
also stressed.
An extensive document on
human rights condemned
political kidnappings as well
as political trials used by
governments as repressive
measures. Neither the
document nor the floor
discussion of it specified any
particular government.
A special set of resolutions
on unity and human rights in
Africa condemned foreign
economic and political
interference in Africa as “the
most serious threat to the
stability and development of
African nations. Member
churches were urged to press
their governments to take
action against giving any aid
to foreign mercenaries in
Africa and to refrain from
participation in economic
projects “which entrench
racist and colonial minority
regimes in Africa.”
A resolution imploring
Great Britain to withdraw
from a proposed arms sale to
South Africa was passed and
communicated to British
Prime Minister Edward
Heath.
A made-in-America feud
between Orthodox churches
erupted here when the former
Russian Orthodox Greek
Catholic Church of America,
which was granted
autonomous status last year
by the Russian Orthodox
Church in Moscow, sought to
be recorded in WCC
membership under its new
name, the Orthodox Church
in America.
The Greek Orthodox
Synod of North and South
America has strongly resisted
the independence of the
Russian-related church. When
the name change was
announced here,
Metropolitan Meliton of the
Ecumenical Orthodox
Patriarchate of Constantin
ople sought to object
scrupulously to taking sides
in disputes among member
churches. When his objection
was ruled out of order, he
stalked out of the meeting in
protest.
A major concern of the
central committee was the
critical financial situation of
the WCC. A deficit of
approximately $50,000 was
incurred in 1970. A projected
deficit of $7 0,000 is foreseen
for 1971 unless economies
can be effected.
A priorities committee was
named to try to designate
where cutbacks should be
made in order to keep the
agency solvent. A new
reorganization of the WCC
structure, adopted by the
central committee, is
expected both to streamline
operations and, hopefully,
provide economies.
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AN ECCLESIASTICAL PROCESSION opened the 12-day Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, which closed Jan. 21. (NC PHOTO)
meeting of the central committee, World Council of Churches in
IN POLAND
Politicians
Control Church Future
By a Special
Correspondent
(NC News Service)
WARSAW (NC) - The
future of Church-state
relations in Poland now seems
dependent on the roles to be
played by two politicians
elevated in the recent
government shakeup.
Edward Gierek, who
became first secretary of the
Polish Communist party after
the December riots, and
Mieczslaw Moczar, who
became party secretary in
charge of the army and
security forces, are the
politicians in question.
Moczar heads the
organization of former
members of the World War II
resistance movement. Known
for his nationalistic and
anti-Semitic views, he has
support among the most
traditionally minded
segments of the Polish
population, including the
clergy.
Moczar’s views insure him
the support of Boleslaw
Piasecki, a member of
parliament and chairman of
Pax, a pro-government
association of Polish
Catholics that has been
repeatedly condemned by the
bishops in the past. An
official of the Polish
government recently claimed
that Pax represents a “large
segment of the Catholic
population.”
About 94 percent of
Poland’s more than 32
million people are Catholic.
During a 1968 power
struggle within the Polish
Communist party, Moczar
sought the support of the
Catholic bishops, especially
Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski of
Warsaw, president of the
Polish Bishops’ Conference.
But the bishops at that time
made no comment and
avoided getting involved in
intra-party rivalries.
Gierek, 57, long regarded
as a comer in Polish politics,
emigrated at the age of 10
with his family to the coal
fields of northern France. He
began working in the mines
when he was 13.
He joined the French
Communist party in 1931
and was deported to Poland
in 1934 for his part in
organizing a sitdown strike.
Gierek spent the Second
World War in Belgium where
he organized Polish emigre
coal miners in the Belgian
resistance to the German
occupation.
Returning to Poland in
1948, he began a rise through
the ranks of the Polish
Communist party and
obtained an engineering
degree from the University of
Cracow on the way.
Now, from his position as
party boss in the Silesian
mining region, he has been
elevated to first secretary of
the party, succeeding
Wladyslaw Gomulka.
V atican W eekly Comments
VATICAN CITY (NC) -
The Vatican City weekly,
commenting on the Polish
commu nist regime’s appeal
for Catholic help in restoring
calm to Poland’s discontented
masses, called it the usual
communist maneuver.
“The communists favor the
maneuver whenever they see
advantages to it,” wrote
Federico Alessandrini in
L’Osservatore Della
Domenica.
Alessandrini, director of
the Holy See’s press office
observed that during the crisis
touched off by December’s
price riots in Poland, the new
Polish authorities did not
appeal to various
“progressive” Catholic groups
which the communist regime
has favored in the past.
“Whenever the Polish
leaders have found themselves
in serious trouble they have
turned to the Church,”
Alessandrini said. “They have
promised concessions and
committed themselves in
writing to such concessions,
only to withdraw them later
when more firmly in the
saddle.”
Alessandrini observed that
such tactics should make
Italian Catholics think twice
before entering into political
arrangements with
communists.
“It is about time to realize
that the Church is not a pawn
in political maneuvers that
are more or less obvious.”
Alessandrini took the
Italian communist monthly
Rinascita (Rebirth) to task
for criticizing Poland’s
Catholic bishops. Rinascita
was upset at the bishops’
response to Polish Premier
Piotr Jaroszewicz’s avowed
determination to regularize
relations with the Church,
and his declared hope that
“the efforts of the
government will meet full
understanding from clergy
and faithful.”
The Polish bishops, in a
New Year’s message, set
down the conditions under
which such normalization
could be achieved. The
bishops cited freedom of
conscience and of religion,
freedom to contribute to the
nation’s cultural life, social
justice, freedom of speech,
and decent material living
conditions.
Alessandrini said Rinascita,
concentrating its f'ire on the
president of the Polish
Bishops’ Conference, Cardinal
Stefan Wyszynski of Warsaw
had pictured him “as a
reactionary who is inclined to
exploit this occasion in order
to continue his struggle
against the regime - a struggle
irreconcilable with the spirit
and letter of the (Second
Vatican) council.”
Gomulka was deposed after
December riots protesting an
increase in prices.
Gierek has not shown any
tenderness toward the Church
in the past. As party boss in
Silesia, he was hard but
logical in his application of a
policy aimed at restraining or
harassing the activities of
dioceses or parishes.
The Polish bishops will
probably adopt an attitude of
watchful waiting. The
situation is very different
from that of 1956, when
mass demonstrations by
students and workers in
Poznan against communist
rule and Soviet control
brought Gomulka to power.
At that time, the bishops
urged the people to vote in
elections, and the bishops
themselves, including
Cardinal Wyszynski, went to
the ballot boxes. The cardinal
had been released that year
after being under arrest since
1953.
The cardinal then
negotiated an accord with the
government renewing the one
he had signed in 1950, which
the government had broken
soon after its signing. For
several years now, almost
nothing of the second accord
has been in effect and the
Polish bishops do not take
the double deception lightly.
Nevertheless, tension
between Church and state has
diminished in the past two
years. And the long stay in
Poland of Archbishop
Agostino Casaroli, secretary
of the Vatican’s Council of
the Public Affairs of the
Church, sent by Pope Paul
VI, certainly contributed to
that easing.
Furthermore, Gierek and
the technocrats associated
with him, need all the
support they can get from the
population, most of whom
remain strongly attached to
the Church.
There are then chances for
a substantial reform of
relations between Church and
state, even if those relations
must continue to be
charac terized by a
fundamental opposition
between the two.
Laws Struck
By High Court
By Richard M.M.
McConnell
WASHINGTON (NC) - A
unanimous decision by the
United States’ Supreme Court
struck down two federal laws
- one old and one recent -
that had been used to keep
obscene material out of the
mails.
Justice William J. Brennan
Jr., in an opinion supported
by all of the other justices
except Hugo L. Black,
affirmed decisions by lower
courts in Los Angeles and
Atlanta that declared the
federal laws violated
constitutional guarantees to
freedom of expression.
The older law, dating back
to 1890, authorized the
postmaster general to decide
at a hearing weather mailed
material is obscene. If he
decided it was, he was
allowed to block delivery of
any mail to the sender of the
obscene mail.
The burden of winning
judicial reveiw of the
postmaster general’s decision
rested on the person whose
mail had been blocked.
Similar authority was given
to postal officials by a 1960
law that authorized the
postmaster general to get a
court order to allow him to
detain mail addressed to
anyone under investigation
for sending obscene mail.
Striking down the two
laws. Brennan said that they
abridged free speech because
they allowed a cutoff of
postal service without a final
determination of obscenity.
Quoting former justice
Oliver Wendell Holmes
(1902-1932), Brennan wrote
that “the United States may
give up the postal service
when it sees fit, but while it
carries it on, the use of the
mails is almost as much a part
of free speech as the right to
use our tongues ....”
Immediately after the
decision was announced,
postal officials declared that
the court action would not
seriously affect post office
efforts to prevent the mails
from being used to transmit
obscene material.
David A. Nelson, the post
office’s general counsel, said
that neither of the two
overturned laws had been
used since 1962 because of
uncertainty over their
constitutionality.
Nelson added that the
decision left intact the 1967
Pandering Advertisement
Statute, upheld by the
Supreme Court last spring,
which prohibits mailings to
individuals who have sought
prohibitory orders from the-
postmaster general.
In other action taken by
the court, a 7-2 majority that
included both of President
Nixon’s appointees to the
bench, ruled that the federal
voting law requires federal
permission for states to
change voting practices in
even a minor way.
Nixon appointees Chief
Justicy Warren E. Burger and
Harry A. Blackmun
concurred in the decision in
the light of a 1969 precedent.
They withheld full agreement
from the majority opinion,
however, which aimed at
preventing new voting laws
from limiting the right to
vote.
The court also ruled that
New York and presumably
other states could cut off
welfare payments to mothers
who refused ' to allow
caseworkers into their homes.
The decision, delivered in
Blackmun’s first majority
opinion since he entered the
court, reversed an earlier
federal court decision. It also
upheld the state against
claims by welfare recipients
that the visits amounted to
unconstitutional searches.
Blackmun declared that
the visits were not searches at
all, but reasonable
administrative tools for
delivering benefits to families
participating in the Aid to
Dependent Children (ADC)
program. He emphasized the
visits violated no
constitutional rights.
Justice Brennan, William
O. Douglas and Thurgood
Marshall dissented from the
majority opinion. Douglas
admitted that frauds
probably existed in the
welfare program, but added
that poor people are as much
entitled to privacy in their
homqs as rich people are.
Action that did not involve
immediate decisions but may
lead to new precedents later
stemmed from court
acceptance of a conscientious
objector plea and from
arguments dealing with the
constitutionality of a
federally sponsored abortion
law.
The court agreed to review
prizefighter Muhammad Ali’s
claim that the Justice
Department turned down his
conscientious objector plea
because it was racially
inspired and not based on
religious beliefs, as the law
requires.
Ali, formerly known as
Cassius Clay, was stripped of
his heavy-weight title by the
New York State Athletic
Association following the
Justice Department action.
The association has since
reinstated him and he is in
the process of staging a
so-far-successful ring
comeback.
The abortion arguments
stemmed from the case of
Washington Dr. Milton
Vuitch. Vuitch, found guilty
of violating the District of
Columbia’s abortion law, won
an appeal when federal
District Judge Gerhard A.
Gesell declared that the 1901
law was unconstitutionally
vague.
A U.S. government appeal
of Gesell’s decision was
entered on the grounds that
Gesell’s decision would
remove all limits on abortions
in the nation’s capital despite
the clear intent of Congress
to bar abortions there unless
“necessary for the
preservation of the mother’s
life and health.”
OBJECT OF PAPAL CONCERN - Archbishop Raymond
Tchidimbo, C.S.Sp. of Conakry, Guinea, has been sentenced to
life imprisonment at hard labor by the Guinea government.
Pope Paul VI said Sunday, Jan. 24, that he believes the
archbishop is innocent of charges against him. (NC PHOTO)