The Democratic landslide in last month’s election produced a Roman Catholic plurality for the Eighty-ninth Congress. The denominational breakdown on Capitol Hill in recent years has given the lead either to Roman Catholics or to Methodists, and in the previous Congress Methodists had a slight edge. In the new Congress that convenes next month there will be 14 Roman Catholic Senators and 94 Representatives for a total of 108. Methodists will claim 24 Senators and 69 Representatives for a total of 93.
There will be at least three clergymen in the Eighty-Ninth Congress, including Democratic Representative Adam Clayton Powell, who is pastor of the huge Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. The often controversial Powell has been chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor.
Walter H. Moeller, Democrat from Ohio, is a Missouri Synod Lutheran minister who will be returning to Congress after a two-year absence. Moeller lost a bid for re-election in 1962 but won this year.
A Baptist minister from Birmingham, Alabama, John H. Buchanan, won a seat in Congress by defeating the Democratic incumbent by a two-to-one margin. Buchanan, a graduate of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, resigned a pastorate in 1962 when he made his first bid for Congress as a Republican. He lost that election. His campaign this year was closely tied to the Goldwater program. Buchanan has also been finance director of the state Republican organization and president of the Alabama Republican Workshop.
An interesting sidelight on the denominational makeup of the new Senate is that five of its members grew up in Methodist parsonages. Walter F. Mondale of Minnesota, B. Everett Jordan of North Carolina, George McGovern of South Dakota, John Tower of Texas, and James B. Pearson of Kansas all are sons of Methodist ministers. Jordan, McGovern, and Tower are still Methodists, and Mondale and Pearson are now Presbyterians.
The denominational identifications shown herewith represent a cooperative effort of religious newsmen in Washington. Senators are shown in italics.
A denominational census of governors in the United States shows 13 Methodists, 8 Roman Catholics, 7 Baptists, 6 Presbyterians, and 6 Episcopalians for the new year. Here is a complete list:
Methodist: Avery (R.-Kan.), Breathitt (D.-Ky.), Burns (D.-Fla.), Clement (D.-Tenn.), Connally (D.-Tex.), Hughes (D.-Iowa), Johnson (D.-Miss.), McKeithen (D.-La.), Moore (D.-N.C.), Russell (D.-S.C.), Smylie (R.-Idaho), Tawes (D.-Md.), Wallace (D.-Ala.).
Roman Catholic: Brown (D.-Calif.), Burns (D.-Hawaii), Campbell (D.-N.M.), Dempsey (D.-Conn.), Egan (D.-Alaska), Hughes (D.-N.J.), King (D.-N.H.), Volpe (R.-Mass.).
Latter Day Saints: Rampton (R.-Utah), Romney (R.-Mich.).
Lutheran: Boe (R.-S.D.), Rolvaag (D.-Minn.).
Unitarian: Goddard (D.-Ariz.).
United Church of Christ: Love (R.-Colo.).
Spanish Delay
The long-awaited bill defining the status and rights of Spain’s Protestant minority apparently will not become law before a final vote is taken on religious liberty at the Second Vatican Council’s next session.
Religious News Service reported that such a postponement was indicated by Archbishop Vicente Enrique Y Tarancon of Oviedo when interviewed by Ya, a Roman Catholic daily in Madrid.
It had been expected that the bill would be submitted to the Cortes (Parliament) at its last session this year, just before Christmas, despite reports that opposition to it had been hardening slightly in government circles.
Archbishop Enrique expressed regret over the “resultant delay” in approving the bill caused, he said, by the fact that there was no final vote on the religious liberty declaration by the Council Fathers. He noted that “among those supporting the idea of a rapid vote on the declaration were American prelates, for whom the matter if of the highest possible importance both from the pastoral and political point of view.”
At the same time, he defended the Spanish bishops against any charge that they were responsible for the postponement of the vote. “Only 25 of Spain’s 80-strong hierarchy attending the council did, in fact, sign the petition for postponement, and one of the Spanish cardinals in Rome did not sign the petition,” he said.
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