Operation Yorkville
A three-day fast by a Jesuit priest prompted Mayor Robert F. Wagner of New York to pledge a new war against the sale of pornographic material to children. Father Morton Hill, 46, said Wagner had failed to redeem pledges made last summer for a curtailment on obscenity. Hill is associated with “Operation Yorkville,” an interreligious group started in 1962 to battle pornography. His hunger strike was supported by a partial fast undertaken by a Jewish rabbi.
Protestant Panorama
Inter-Lutheran Consultation reported “encouraging progress” following a two-day meeting in Chicago. The group is seeking a formula to establish a new cooperative agency for 8,500,000 Lutherans in the United States.
Methodist General Conference will be asked next spring to pass legislation requiring all Methodist pastoral charges to have a “secretary of Christian vocations.” The move is designed to step up recruitment for church-related careers.
United Church of Canada broke “an understanding, if not a gentlemen’s agreement” in establishing a congregation at Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, the Presbyterian Record, official organ of the Presbyterian Church of Canada, charged in an editorial. Editor DeCourcy H. Rayner said the new congregation competes with a Presbyterian work established there forty years ago.
United Church of Christ will approve no new applications for financial aid to segregated churches after next July 1. The denomination’s Board for Homeland Ministries, in making the restriction, also asked churches and conferences to work only with contractors who agree to comply with fair employment practices.
Conservative Congregational Christian Conference ratified the establishment of an international fraternal union. The new organization, to be known as the International Evangelical Congregational Union, is designed to foster closer liaison with Congregational churches overseas.
Miscellany
Trustees of Baylor University, largest of the Southern Baptist schools, voted to admit qualified Negro students for the first time.
A lottery to obtain funds for schools and camps will be conducted by the Norwegian Lutheran Mission next year. Prizes include six automobiles, a piano, and a boat.
Ernst Seliger, 59-year-old Jehovah’s Witness, was released from a Brandenburg jail last month after spending thirteen years in Communist detention.
A draft of a new penal code for West Germany provides for making more rigid present laws on blasphemy. Religious leaders are sharply divided on the question of retaining blasphemy laws. Some civil authorities have been reluctant to prosecute blasphemy and abuse of religion.
The Washington Post published extensive quotations from a purportedly Communist document that calls for exploitation of the papal encyclical “Peace on Earth.” The newspaper refused to disclose how it obtained the ten-page document.
A resolution, first in the 26-year history of the Christian Business Men’s Committee International, called upon citizens and lawmakers to “make it possible for our children and our children’s children to receive as part of their normal education the many evidences of the existence and reality of God, and that His Word, the Bible, be read and cherished as part of our great American heritage.”
Deaths
DR. SAMUEL M. SHOEMAKER, 69, noted Episcopal churchman and author; in Baltimore (see opposite page).
DR. W. R. CULLOM, 96, founder of the School of Religion at Wake Forest College; in Wake Forest, North Carolina.
DR. JAMES F. RAND, 47, librarian of Dallas Theological Seminary; in Dallas.
A riotous crowd stormed the theater in Olten, Switzerland, to protest a production of The Representative, the controversial drama by Rolf Hochhuth. Windows were smashed and fights broke out. Police arrested thirty-six persons.
The Supreme Court ordered a speedy trial of a case wherein three children could be taken from their parents, who, for religious reasons, refuse to permit them to be vaccinated. The case stems from infractions of the compulsory school attendance law.
Religious bias is barred in a declaration against all forms of racial discrimination adopted by the U. N. General Assembly’s Social Committee. The vote was 89 to 0, with seventeen abstentions. The United States along with several western European nations and British Commonwealth members abstained. Mrs. Jane Warner Dick, U. S. delegate, said her government was sympathetic with the purpose and principles of the declaration, but objected to detailed directions.
Personalia
Jackie Robinson, retired baseball figure, named president of United Church Men.
Dr. Charles C. Cowsert named secretary of stewardship of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S.
Dr. Ewing T. Wayland named editorial director of Christian Advocate, professional journal for Methodist pastors, and Together, Methodist family magazine. He succeeds Leland D. Case, who will become an editorial consultant.
The Rev. Richard R. Gilbert named executive director of the United Presbyterian Division of Radio and Television.
Baptist layman Brooks Hays named national chairman of Brotherhood Week, February 16–23.
They Say
“As far as the execution of his public duties goes, it is largely irrelevant whether the Presidency is filled by a divorced man.”—The Commonweal. Roman Catholic lay weekly.
“Pornography was everywhere, and everybody was there but the Church.”—Evangelist Billy Graham, after a stroll on Times Square.
