Roman Catholics: Would You Believe …

Would you believe that the name of Pope Paul VI was booed at a rally near Vatican City last month? First time in fifty years, according to the Washington Post. The vocal venom came at a meeting of 1,000 persons who favor a liberalized divorce law for Italy. The Pope had said that civil divorce is a “sign of pernicious moral decadence” and had asserted church supremacy on the issue granted under the 1929 concordat between Mussolini and Pope Pius XI.

Or would you believe:

That two days after the Pope overruled a decision in his own diocese against joint prayer with Protestants for unity (after the service in question had already been canceled), a Vatican spokesman said ecumenical prayer remains “an open question” and the Pope’s ruling was an “exception.”

That Britain’s Father Wilfrid Stibbs, 54—former director of the international Legion of Mary—no longer believes in papal infallibility, and quit the church like his now-married friend Charles Davis. Or that Father Herbert McCabe, editor of a British Dominican monthly, stayed in but commented on the Davis turmoil that “the Church is quite plainly corrupt.” Or that the order’s director then banned McCabe from editing or writing.

That Monsignor Victor Popishil, a canon lawyer, writes in Diakonia that the church’s belief in the absolute permanence of marriage is “historically unfounded and theologically unjustified.”

That the hierarchy in France sent the Vatican a 4,000-word statement that rejects the concept of “a list of propositions to condemn” and says the “questioning of conscience” by Catholics should not be stopped by “authority alone.” They were replying to a worldwide Vatican directive last summer to watch for errors cropping up in Catholic teaching.

That liberal Catholic Professor Leslie Dewart contends in a special Commonweal issue on God that “the classical concept of God has become unviable. It can no longer enter fully and integrally into the life of believers themselves.”

That Archbishop Karl Alter started an investigation of the University of Dayton to see if theology teachers were being heretical.

That Monsignor Ivan Illich, director of a Mexican center that trains missionaries for work in Latin America, charged in America that the thousands of workers and millions of dollars sent to Latin America from U. S. Catholics in recent years have done great harm—for instance, by creating “a satellite to North Atlantic cultural phenomena and policy.” Cardinal Cushing, the Latin bishops, and the Vatican’s apostolic delegate to the United States all denied the criticisms.

That John F. Donnelly quit as president of the National Council of Catholic Men after learning that the five U. S. bishops in charge of lay organizations had no intention of conferring with NCCM leadership.

That two priests sent on a five-day disciplinary retreat after joining a Texas farm workers’ protest march said it was just a matter of “church protocol.”

That failure of real-estate investments forced the Salvatorian Fathers last month to sell three of their six seminaries. Or that the American Federation of Priests, founded by suspended priest William DuBay, is also losing money but is still surviving with thirty dues-paying members.

That Catholic grade-school enrollment dropped nearly 250,000 in the current school year, the first major loss since World War II. Or that eleven Chicago priests are opposing a $250 million fund drive, largely for schools, because the church is “fighting a losing battle” in maintaining a separate school system, which “is financially impossible.”

That a new catechism for six-year-olds from Paulist Press now in use in fifty dioceses in the United States discards the traditional question-and-answer approach in favor of modern teaching methods to help children “enter into a personal relationship with the triune God.”

That TV star Fulton J. Sheen, new bishop of Rochester, New York, is bucking a Vatican emphasis by having youths confirmed in church membership around high school graduation instead of at age 9 to 12. Or that the National Conference of Catholic Bishops said in a memorandum that deliberately failing to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday is not a sin, and not abstaining from meat on Lenten Fridays for “light” reasons is not a mortal sin. Or that a bishop in Chile has stretched Pope Paul’s permission for mother superiors to distribute Communion to their nuns: he let the head of a convent administer the sacrament to all parishioners.

That Cardinal Suenens of Belgium favors selection of future popes by a representative synod of world bishops rather than the College of Cardinals. Or that Catholics in Canada may restore the long-neglected order of permanent deacons to give married laymen a part in the ministry. Or that the Cleveland diocese is asking members to nominate and vote on names for a new bishop.

That the right-wing Catholic Traditionalist Movement last month began distributing protest cards for members to put in the offering basket instead of money. They state:

“I shall resume my customary contributions as soon as you will resume the celebration of at least one Mass each day, including Sunday, offered according to the traditional Liturgy; entirely in Latin, at a real Altar by a priest not facing the people, and conducted in a quiet atmosphere without hymn-singing and without lectors or commentators.”

Surprise.

Protestant Panorama

An open letter from Disciples of Christ executives asks denomination members to increase the “financial and personal resources of our brotherhood” to help the church meet the world’s overwhelming needs. The letter notes that “our stewardship has not enabled us to meet even those needs which, through our actions in assemblies, we have selected as our particular responsibility within the world church.”

A Lutheran Church of America agency is calling for a broad new appeal for capital funds. The church’s Board of American Missions voted to request the denominational executive council to approve such a church-wide appeal in view of rising costs. New ministry demands are said to be draining off the amount transferred each year to church property loan funds.

Whatever the Episcopal Church eventually does about resigned Bishop James A. Pike, he “does not have a seat or a vote” in the House of Bishops. So says John Henry Esquirol of Connecticut, chairman of the bishops’ constitutional committee. According to Esquirol, the ruling by his committee passed without dissent at the last meeting of the house. The question arose after Pike resigned as leader of the California diocese but retained his ecclesiastical rank.

Personalia

Two clergymen of the International Council of Christian Churches were reported expelled from the Cameroun, where they had come to confer with local Presbyterian pastors. Some days earlier a group of the pastors had walked out of their General Assembly, vowing to continue their denomination in defiance of a merger vote. The Christian Beacon blamed a pro-union Presbyterian police chief for the expulsion.

Army Chaplain (Colonel) James A. Connett, a Methodist, was chosen “Chaplain of the Year” by the Reserve Officers Association. He is a paratrooper.

Three Anglican bishops and a Methodist leader have been reported arrested in Communist China and placed in an “indoctrination” camp. The Church Times of London says the churchmen and other leading Christians were imprisoned by the Mao regime.

Dr. Arne B. Sovik was chosen executive secretary of the Board of World Mission of the Lutheran Church in America. Sovik, a clergyman of the American Lutheran Church, has been associated with the Lutheran World Federation for the past twelve years.

Ralph L. Keiper was named to a professorate in pastoral theology and evangelism at Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary, Denver. Keiper is now employed by the Evangelical Foundation of Philadelphia and serves as an associate editor of its monthly publication, Eternity.

The board of Berkeley Baptist Divinity School last month put outgoing president Robert J. Arnott on immediate “leave of absence” until his resignation becomes effective this summer. While BBDS seeks a new president, the seminary will be administered by Richard Hoiland, retired executive of the American Baptist Convention’s Board of Education and Publication. (See Dec. 23, 1966, issue, page 35.)

A Presbyterian, Penry Jones, takes over the religious broadcasting department of the British Broadcasting Corporation this month. He is the first layman and the first non-Anglican ever named to the post. Until now he has been religious broadcasting officer of the Independent Television Authority.

General Secretary Edwin Tuller of the American Baptist Convention goes to Viet Nam this month on a preaching mission to servicemen for the National Council of Churches. President Arnold Olson of the Evangelical Free Church is traveling there also, under the aegis of the National Association of Evangelicals.

Deaths

ALBERT W. T. ORSBORN, 80, who headed the Salvation Army from 1946 until 1954; in Bournemouth, England.

GEOFFREY O’HARA, 84, a Presbyterian from Canada who wrote the popular church solo “I Walked Today Where Jesus Walked” and other religious songs; better known by the general public for the World War I-vintage stuttering song “K-K-K-Katy”; in St. Petersburg, Florida, of anemia.

Miscellany

Enrollment in Lutheran elementary schools fell off last year for the first time since 1942. There was also a drop in the number of schools.

Mississippi’s Committee of Concern is allocating the last $300 in its treasury to the Shady Oak Baptist Church, which burned to the ground January 20. The committee has been instrumental in rebuilding forty-two burned Negro churches in Mississippi during the past two years. Its chairman, Episcopal Bishop John M. Allin of Jackson, has issued a plea for more donations.

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