NEWS
When Billy Graham came to the Fort Worth-Dallas area two decades ago, he stayed for a long seven-week crusade. When he returned for ten days last month at the new Dallas Cowboys Texas Stadium that seats 65,000, more people responded to the invitation the first four nights than during the entire crusade twenty years ago.
The Dallas crusade was attended by 456,400 people; on several nights about 75 per cent were under twenty-five years of age. Some 69,000 cars and 4,100 buses rolled into the parking lots. And on the second Friday, a rainy night, more than 61,000 persons jammed the stadium. Police reported that several thousand carloads of people never made it into the parking lot.
By the crusade’s close, 12,830 decisions had been recorded. Human-interest stories would fill a book:
Two Delta Airlines stewardesses were counselors at all three major U. S. crusades (Chicago, Oakland, and Dallas). They arranged their schedules so they could be in the right city at the right time.
A group of forty kids from Lewisville, Texas, collected 4,275 soft-drink bottles and used the money to rent four buses for the crusade.
A couple from Iran came forward to receive Christ. A Fort Hood soldier was converted in the stadium parking lot.
Johnny Cash and his wife paid their own way to come, and Cash put a $7,500 check in the offering basket.
Counselors reported that the question asked most frequently by the young people who came forward was: “How do I lead my parents to Christ?”
Not everything went well, however. The stadium was finished and usable but the parking lot hadn’t been completed; hundreds of autos never made it because of massive traffic jams.
The weather was uncooperative, too. The crusade started off with the temperature hovering over 100 degrees. Next it plummeted to the fifties. Then the rains poured down. Although spectators in the stadium were protected, the speakers and musicians were not.
Then, fickle weather changed again. On the closing Sunday the skies were sunny but the humidity was high and the temperature on the podium reached 103. Graham told his team he came close to blacking out four times as he preached his final sermon—on preparing for Judgment Day.
Night after night the crowds, which averaged 45,000, listened to music by Ethel Waters, Norma Zimmer, George Beverly Shea, and the choir. Cash and crew were warmly welcomed on the eighth night; Johnny said he plans to devote more of his time and attention to gospel songs and working for the Lord.
A noted Texan was on hand for the opening night: former President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Those giving testimonies included Tom Lester of Green Acres; Cowboys coach Tom Landry, who chaired the executive committee; Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach; and players Danny Reeves and Rayfield Wright. The footballers spoke to a large group of young people gathered in the Stadium Club prior to a “youth night” service.
At the closing service Campus Crusade founder and president Bill Bright told of Explo 72 that will gather in Dallas next June; 100,000 young people are expected to assemble for training to evangelize the world, Bright said. The evening meetings of Explo 72 will be held in the Cotton Bowl and will be televised nationwide. Graham is honorary chairman.
The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association sponsored a five-day School of Evangelism in Arlington, Texas, presided over by Kenneth L. Chafin, evangelism head for the Southern Baptist Convention, and directed by Victor B. Nelson.
Graham, a member of the 15,000-member First Baptist Church of Dallas pastored by W. A. Criswell, told of his love and concern for Texas during the final crusade meeting. He promised to return. Texas didn’t have to wait long; he was scheduled for a one-night stand in Longview on October 17.
The crusade budget was met on the seventh night. Offerings above the $394,000 costs were designated for televising the Dallas crusade worldwide later.
Graham’s concluding message was on God’s day of wrath. He urged his listeners to make certain that their names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. Many did.
Bishops In Rome: No Final Solutions
With Josef Cardinal Mindszenty, the Catholic primate of Hungary who recently ended his fifteen-year exile at the U. S. Embassy in Budapest (see editorial, page 25), at his right side, Pope Paul VI opened the third session of the world Synod of Bishops September 30 with an eighty-minute mass in the Sistine Chapel.
In a homily delivered to the 210 bishops, the Pope exhorted the prelates to “be united in spirit and ideals” and to build up the church, not caving in to pressures of opinion, over-anxiety, fears, and troublesome publicity.
Although it was still too early during the opening days of the month-long synod to pinpoint how strong these varied pressures might become, disagreement over the possibility of making priestly celibacy an option soon loomed large on the official—and unofficial—agenda.
Still, the synod has a purely advisory role. It is an assembly of the world’s Catholic bishops for the purpose of discussing vital topics—specifically the priesthood and world justice—and then giving advice to the pontiff on how to steer the rocking barque of Peter in a more pastoral and effective manner.
John Cardinal Dearden, heading the American delegation of five, said the synod could hardly be expected to provide final solutions, a point that should have surprised no one. Variant opinion at the first working session bore this out. Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski of Poland, second of nine speakers in the initial debate on the priesthood, said there was “nothing to be discussed on that subject” because the doctrine had been set out by the Vatican already.
The crisis in the ministry, he said, is in “great part due to insufficient knowledge of conciliar teachings.…” Bishops should be more “faithful to their mission” and be an example of “docibility to their clergy.” The Polish cardinal also handed a stinging attack to the press for “distorting and politicizing” the bishops’ reports and urged that synod proceedings be kept secret. He rapped fellow bishops who released copies of their speeches to the press (his own was given newsmen by a synod press official).
Before sending their delegation to Rome, Canadian prelates voted overwhelmingly in favor of the ordination of married men in areas “where the need is very urgent.” And by a vote of thirty-eight to thirty-one they favored the ordination of married men under ordinary circumstances.
Synod-watchers tended to see the issue shaping up as a loyalty contest to the Pope versus outside influences. Educated guesses were that married men might get approval for ordination and that if so, great play might be made of this as a compromise solution at the synod.
Meanwhile in the United States, the National Catholic Reporter said in a copyrighted story that a $500,000 study on priestly life and ministry questions the doctrine of apostolic succession. The study was commissioned by the U. S. Catholic hierarchy (see May 21, 1971, issue, page 45). The report questioned the notion “that twelve apostles appointed immediate successors, from whom in turn further successors were commissioned in an unbroken historical chain to the present.”
A majority of the bishops at the synod represent the “Third World” countries where attitudes on social justice, revolution, and radicalism are crucial to the bishops’ consideration of social reform. These decisions may overshadow those on celibacy.
