Three years ago, after being granted permission by the New Jersey Supreme Court, Joseph Quinlan removed his comatose daughter from life support machines. Karen Quinlan’s heartbeat remained strong, and doctors, who say she will not recover, believe it may be years before she dies. Her parents told the Toronto Star last month that “God is using her for some reason.… We keep searching for it.”
Representatives of ten Protestant denominations endorsed proposals that would establish a common clergy and foster a mutual acceptance of members. At the fourteenth plenary session of the Consultation of Church Union (COCU), delegates affirmed a paper, which will be considered in re-edited form next year, that provided for an ordained ministry of bishops, presbyters (pastors), and deacons. COCU president Rachel Henderlite said that the COCU goal of forming a single church still might not be achievable during this century.
Sargent Shriver, former Peace Corps director and running mate of unsuccessful Presidential candidate George McGovern, challenged Christian laity to represent Christ in the market place. Shriver, now a private lawyer, sounded more like a preacher as he addressed the first National Assembly of the Laity last month, a grassroots Roman Catholic workshop at Notre Dame University. Shriver noted the zealous 15 million Soviet Communist party members, and asked, “Suppose we had 15 million Christians in the United States who really gave up everything to follow Christ? Wouldn’t that change the atmosphere … in the USA?”
The administrative committee of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) has recommended to its general board against procedures that would expel member congregations and make tighter criteria for membership. Denomination president Kenneth L. Teegarden had promised to raise those possibilities in light of the tragedy of its member congregation, People’s Temple. The committee opted against “policing congregations” and recommended instead the “shepherding” of such—annual visits by regional officials to every church and annual reports to be filed by pastors regarding their work.
Roman Catholic children must have their first confession before their first communion, according to Vatican-requested policy revisions in the new National Catechetical Directory—a 182-page guide to Roman Catholic teaching in the U.S. that has been five years in the making. Catholics traditionally placed confession before communion, but many parishes reversed that order in recent years when the Vatican allowed them to experiment.
