Britain: The Talk Is About or Around Unity
Bv JOHN A. GREAVES
LONDON — <NC) —Talking
about or around Christian unity
has become a major preoccupa
tion in Britain this spring.
All such talks whatever else
they achieve are successful in that
they help sustain and boost the
urge for friendship and under
standing enlivened here so dra
matically by the impact of Pope
John XXIII. But they also indi
cated something of the practical
difficulties facing even the most
obvious mergers inside Protestan
tism, let alone union between
Protestantism and the Church of
Rome.
Anglicans, Presbyterians, Meth
odists and Baptists were all involv
ed with an eye on Easter Day,
1980, which the non-Catholic
Churches set last year as a target
date for reunion. Other important
talks were being held in mid-May
at meetings of the Convocations
of Canterbury and of York, the
two provinces of the Church of
England.
The preceding^, week’s talks
brought into focus the following
picture:
1. METHODISTS AND ANGLI
CANS: The reunion of these two
great British churches appears at
present to be the most practical
and the most likely, with both
sides having in the recent past
made great efforts to reach agree
ment. Local Methodist synods vot
ing on the official report on these
talks showed overwhelming accep
tance of “closer relations” though
some called for fresh negotiations.
An ultimate decision may be made
at the annual Methodist confer
ence in July.
in the same report on relations
between the two churches, the
Church of England (the Angli
cans) indicated generally that it
is not yet ready to give unquali
fied acceptance of the proposals
for union in the precise form
drawn up by a joint committee
of the two denominations in six
jreari of discussions.
The problem was to be further
debated during the Anglican con
vocations. The greatest practical
obstacles are the actual merger
of Methodist churches into the
state-established religion and the
thorny problem, in the case of
full communion of ordinations.
2. PRESBYTERIANS AND
CONGREGATIONALISTS: The
General Assembly of the Presby
terian Church of England is al
ready engaged in negotiations for
unity with the Congregational
Church. At its May meeting the
Presbyterian Church supported a
resolution “to examine the pos
sibilities of union on a wider
scale.”
In Scotland the Assembly of the
Congregational Union agreed to
resume conversations with the
Church of Scotland — Scotland’s
State Church, which is Presbyter
ian — with a view to producing
a plan for a basis of union. It
reversed a decision last year to
postpone such bilateral talks in
favor of multilateral talks with
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various denominations.
But the Scottish C jngregational
ists also proposed to meet other
denominations in Scotland and
“to pray and work for the inau
guration of union by a date agreed
among them” adding that they
“dared to hope” this would be
later than the target date of Eas
ter, 1980.
3. BAPTISTS: The Assembly of
the Baptist Union supported a mo
tion calling for a closer associa
tion of the Baptists with “current
theological discussions on Chris
tian unity.”
Anglican Archbishop Frederick
Coggan of York addressed the 2,
000 delegates on the final day
of their assembly as representa
tives of the 300,000 Baptists in
Great Britain and Northern Ire
land.
Their annual report, read at
the assembly said: “Baptists have
been somewhat slow to engage
themselves in the current theolo
gical discussions. There are mark
ed differences of emphasis and
opinion among the~i as there are
indeed in many other Christian
bodies but in the case of Baptist
denominational unity is not main
tained by creed, hierarchy or lit
urgy. This means, however, that on
the basic issues Baptists have tes
timony of their own to give as well
as testimony to which they should
be ready to listen.”
Archbishop Coggan told them:
“God is summoning Christians to
unity and we dare not shut our
eyes to that summons.”
The Anglican Churci has about
three million practicing members
in England and Wales and about
100,000 in Scotland.
liie Methodists number about
one million regular churchgoers;
the Presbyterians about 1.5 mil
lion; the Baptists 350,000 and the
Congregationalists 250,000.
Prelate Asks
Racial Peace
BOGALUSA, La. — (NC)— Boga
lusa is “not a city which illustrated
what is wrong with our past, but
rather what can be right about our
future,” Archbishop John P. Cody
said in a sermon at racially-tense
Bogalusa.
The Archbishop of New Orleans
spoke at Annunciation church
where he conferred the sacrament
of Confirmation upon an integrated
class of children.
“No one can, with good con
science, deny that the Negroes of
Bogalusa — the Negroes of all
Louisiana — have been denied the
rights, the opportunities, the hu
man dignity accorded to other
men,” the Archbishop told the
children and their parents and
others packed into the church.
“But men of good will,” he con
tinued, “have set a course in Boga
lusa to right those wrongs and put
Louisiana on a new path of free
dom for all.”
Bogalusa, a lumber mill town of
21,000 persons 50 miles north of
New Orleans, has been the scene of
civil rights demonstrations and a
counter rally and march by white
“conservatives.”
James E. Farmer, national di
rector of the Congress of Racial
Equality, has made several appear
ances at Bogalusa to lead the Ne
gro demands for equal opportuni
ties.
Ugly Word'
LONDON — (NC) — Conversion is now an “ugly word” and
repugnant to many, according to John Cardinal Heenan of West
minster.
Writing in the Catholic Gazette, a monthly published by the
Catholic Missionary Society here, the cardinal said: “In our uncom
plicated way of thinking, conversion to us has meant turning to the
true Faith from any form of belief or, indeed, from unbelief. We now
know that for the Protestant, conversion has a much more restricted
meaning.
“To him conversion is the turning from evil to good, from in
fidelity to faith, from Mammon to God. When therefore we described
a former Anglican or Methodist as a convert, we were thought to be
equating Protestantism and paganism.”
“The fact is that we have no other word but ‘convert’ to describe
people admitted in adult life to membership of the Catholic Church.
Until recent months, nobody thought the title strange,” he said.
Cardinal Heenan also said: “The dialogue of course does not yet
consider reunion. It would be idle to expect non-Catholics to enter a
dialogue if its primary object were to convert them to Roman Ca
tholicism. . . The work of conversion is entirely different.”
Movie Set Now Church
ORCHID ISLAND, Formosa —
(NC) — A church built as a movie
set on this tiny island off the
southeast tip of Formosa is now
being used regularly as a place
of worship by the aboriginal in
habitants.
A film company asked Father Al
fred Giger, a young Swiss priest of
the Bethlehem Mission society, to
play the part of a Catholic mission
er in a movie being made on the
27-square-mile island. In gratitude
for his cooperation the company
i
constructed a sturdy wood building
and donated it to the priest when
shooting of the film was com
pleted.
Some 800 of the 1,600 Yami tribe
aborigines of the island, 40 nautical
miles from Taitung, have been con
veted to Catholicism by Father Gi
ger during the last 10 years.
The Yamis, like all aborigines of
Formosa, are of Malayan stock, and
isolated on the island famed for an
abundance and variety of orchids,
are the most primitive.
Truth an Issue
As Archbishop
Debates Rabbi
TORONTO, Ont. — (NC) —
When there are contradictory be
liefs, both cannot be right, Coad
jutor Archbishop Philip M. Pocock
of Toronto stressed here in a
dialogue with a Jewish rabbi.
“Tolerance has nothing to do
with a denial of logic and meta
physics,” the Catholic prelate said.
The archbishop took speedy issue
with a statement by Rabbi Reuben
Slonim that, for the sake of tol
erance and a better ordered so
ciety, church and synagogues
should de-emphasize theology in
relation to one another, and con
centrate on ethical behavior.
Archbishop Pocock stressed the
objectivity of truth. He said:
“I do not believe that contradictory
statements can both be true, Chris
tians believe that Jesus Christ is
Divine. Jews believe that he is
not Divine. There are two contra
dictory statements. If Christians
are right, Jews are wrong; if Jews
are right, Christians are wrong. We
are not both right, and tolerance
has nothing to do with a denial
of logic and metaphysics.”
They agreed on many points in
the dialogue on Christian-Jewish
relations at the Primrose Club
here. The event marked publica
tion of Rabbi Slonim’s book, “In
the Footsteps of Pope Paul.”
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