Seminary Enrollment

Since hitting a low point of 21,025 in 1964, enrollment in seminaries holding membership in the American Association of Theological Schools (AATS) has been slowly gaining. It appears to have reached a plateau over the past two academic years.

Institutions reporting in both 1968 and 1969—not including nineteen new AATS schools—had an increase of one-half of one half of one per cent: 28,033 in 1968 and 28,177 in 1969. All 171 U. S. and Canadian schools represented pushed the AATS total enrollment to a new high of 29,690.

Interestingly—but perhaps not significantly—seventeen non-AATS seminaries surveyed by CHRISTIANITY TODAY show an upturn of 9.8 per cent in enrollment from 1968 to 1969. The schools—all with at least fifty students currently enrolled—had a total of 2,178 students a year ago last fall, and 2,391, or 213 more, in the fall of 1969.

Figures supplied to CHRISTIANITY TODAY (see chart below) include candidates for the master of divinity degree (which is rapidly replacing the B.D.), or its equivalent, as well as students in post-graduate, continuing-education, and (in several cases) non-degree programs.

NON-AATS SEMINARIES WITH MORE THAN 50 STUDENTS

The largest non-AATS seminary (and one of the ten largest seminaries in the nation) is Dallas, with a record enrollment of 445 last fall, up seventeen from the previous year’s 428.

Information was requested from non-AATS seminaries thought to have at least fifty students. One of the seventeen queried, Bob Jones Graduate School of Religion, refused to release any information. It was learned, however, that the graduate school of religion there has 130 students in various programs, most of which are one year in duration. A master of divinity degree is offered at Bob Jones and normally requires three years to complete.

In releasing its statistics last month, the AATS noted that certain comparisons “can be misleading.” Students in “post-ordination” continuing-education programs were not included in 1969 enrollment totals, for example.

Despite some closures and mergers, the trend has been toward increasing enrollment in AATS schools, according to AATS executive director Jesse Ziegler. He predicts there will be 200 member institutions within a year or so.

All but one of the new AATS affiliates are Roman Catholic; the traditionally Protestant association began receiving Catholic and Orthodox applicants in 1966. There are now some forty Catholic member-schools. (The AATS is the only organization in North America that accredits graduate theological institutions.)

Ziegler noted that “one of the most notable features of the report is the sharp decline in the number of non-college graduates in professional programs.” This category declined from 1,338 to 781 between 1968 and 1969. Ziegler explained this by saying that churches increasingly are demanding fully qualified clergy. This in turn has resulted in major upgrading of seminary entrance requirements.

AATS Canadian schools reported 848 students in 1969, compared to 876 the year before, a drop of 3.2 per cent.

Of all AATS-related students, 67 per cent were working on ministerial degrees, 5.5 per cent were interns, and 5.6 per cent were registered in Christian education.

AATS statistics usually are broken down by denomination; this was not done for 1969. Instead, according to Ziegler, there will be a “sample comparison” for thirty “representative” schools to show enrollment, finances, faculty and library data, and minoritystudent ratios, to be published early this year.

Much of this “theological fact book” will be compiled from computer research siftings. (The AATS has received a $450,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to further its accreditation and research.)

Statistics from 90 per cent of the U. S. Roman Catholic diocesan seminaries (they do not belong to the AATS) have been compiled. They indicate a 1.4 per cent drop in enrollments from 1968 to 1969. The greatest slippage is at the high-school level, or minor seminaries, where there are 2,313 freshman students this semester, compared to 2,458 the year before.

There are 1,729 men preparing for the priesthood at the college freshman level, while there were 1,790 in 1968. First-year graduate (theology) students, however, total 1,067 now, compared to 967 in 1968.

A spokesman for Catholic diocesan vocations said the data from the nearly 500 seminaries was “complex and difficult to analyze.… What’s happening is that some who formerly were called seminarians aren’t [in that category] anymore.”

From other information on seminaries:

• A survey of five denominations by a research bureau at Garrett Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois, showed that many of the ablest younger ministers are leaving the pastoral ministry to take staff positions, teach, engage in social work, and enter business.

• A total of 1,626 degree candidates were enrolled in the six seminaries of the Boston Theological Institute last fall. Catholics (421) lead the enrollment, with 250 United Church of Christ students second. There were fifty-two black students in the six seminaries.

• The combined enrollment at the six seminaries of the Southern Baptist Convention showed almost no change over a year ago. Enrollment for 1969 was 4,578, compared to 4,575 in 1968.

• Seventy-six per cent of the 498 students in the eight Disciples of Christ-related seminaries last fall were preparing for the pastoral ministry. Another ninety-four Disciples students are studying in non-Disciples schools.

Hromadka Dies

Dr. Josef Hromádka, 80, the Communist world’s leading Protestant theologian, died of a heart attack in Prague last month. He recently quit the presidency of the Communist-dominated Christian Peace Conference in a dispute over the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia, which Hromádka condemned. He taught theology in a Prague seminary and was a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary during World War II.

Roberts’S Ratings: Rising

Actress Anita Bryant gave a clear witness to Christ as the only answer on the fourth prime-time hour TV special produced by evangelist Oral Roberts (both she and the Pentecostal-healer-turned-Methodist are from Tulsa and of Cherokee ancestry).

Christ is the answer to youth who “cop out” by blaming their parents for things that go wrong, added the actress. The show, appearing on more than 160 stations across the nation just before Christmas, typifies Roberts’s “new look” in evangelism (see March 28, 1969, issue page 40).

New lookers apparently will keep the quarterly specials going this year. Two are already scheduled, one at Easter and a second in June. Roberts’s mail is at an all-time high, and the programs “are almost self-supporting,” according to a Roberts aide. Mail to his Tulsa-based university admissions office has doubled, too, indicating that the animated singing and slithering of the World Action Singers and the melodic, rich voice of son Richard Roberts have caught on with the younger set. (Another half-hour, Sunday TV show for the church crowd—and one suspects, a much older audience—is also successful, Roberts’s spokesmen say,)

The Christmas special show also had the luster of the Ralph Carmichael Orchestra behind it, and an assist from Mark Hatfield, Roberts’s longtime friend, who read “The Incomparable Christ.” Roberts closed a short sermon with his usual injunction. “Let’s touch each other and pray,” he said, taking Anita’s hand.

Although there was no appeal for funds, Roberts offered a Christmas recording to all. And, perhaps as an index of his rising respectability (and visibility), he told viewers to write simply to “Oral Roberts, Tulsa, Oklahoma.” “That’s all the address you need.”

Silent Night

National Council of Churches president Cynthia Wedel announced early last month that “surely not one of us can object to prayer,” referring to prayers for penance and peace to herald local Viet Nam Moratorium activities on Christmas Eve. But special services were scant, according to reports—or lack of them.

In the nation’s capital, for example, where November’s moratorium march attracted nearly half a million protesters, only fifty people heard Paul Moore, Jr., the newly elected Episcopal bishop coadjutor of New York.

Apparently, most people who stirred the night before Christmas did so for traditional candlelight and carol services.

Lutheran Ecumenism Boost

Lutheran churches considering union with non-Lutheran denominations will get help and encouragement from the Lutheran World Federation. The LFW’s executive committee, meeting in Denmark last month, said that aid—rather than efforts to prevent union conversations—is “consistent with respect for both the fellowship and autonomy of member Churches.”

The LWF will be restructured from seven to three main commissions: studies, church cooperation, and world service. About two-thirds of the world’s 75 million Lutherans are represented by the LWF.

From Tents To Stadiums To Straw …

Evangelist Billy Graham made his first public appearance at a rock music festival between Christmas and New Year’s and was so pleased with the response that he plans to attend more.

Graham told a youthful audience of about 2,500 sprawled on a straw-covered field at the Miami-Hollywood (Florida) festival to get high on God instead of drugs. Some accepted the challenge. About 100 youths later congregated in a striped tent to receive literature about Christ.

Freezing temperatures kept attendance (estimated to be 10,000) far below the promoters’ expectations. Arrests for drug use were few, but even as Graham spoke, some youths passed out stickers calling for the legalization of marijuana.

Wearing a bright gold jacket, dark trousers, and a yellow shirt, a beaming Graham told the youth: “Tune in to God today and let him give you faith.” In a press conference afterwards, Graham said he had been prepared to be shouted down at the festival (promoters had invited him to come). Instead, he noted, he felt a “tremendous response.… I’ll be happy to come to any rock festival where I’m asked.”

The evangelist, who of late has been tailoring his ministry to reach far-out youth in particular (he sometimes puts on a false mustache and beard and stalks rock gatherings to get the feel of what young people are thinking) had an immediate taker: California promoter Bill Starns invited him to speak at a nine-day rock spectacular tentatively slated for Easter in San Luis Obispo.

Hanging Is Dead In Britain

Permanent punishment—the death penalty—for murder has been permanently abolished in Great Britain. The public galleries of the House of Lords were filled for the historic vote last month. The measure already had been approved almost two to one by the House of Commons.

Eighteen Anglican bishops in black and white robes sat with Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey and voted against hanging for murder, a penalty Parliament temporarily suspended for five years in 1965.

All western European countries except France have now abolished the death penalty. There is a trend toward its abolition in the United States and the Soviet Union as well.

Eleven of the fifty statesAlaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, North Dakota, Minnesota, Oregon, Rhode Island, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. have outlawed capital punishment, and in New Mexico, New York, and Vermont, it is permitted only for special cases such as the murder of a prison official. There have been no executions in the United States since 1967, and more than 500 prisoners are awaiting a Supreme Court ruling on capital punishment.

From 1930 through 1964, 3,857 persons were executed in the United States for state and federal crimes. The crimes of which they were convicted were: murder, 3,324; rape, 455; armed robbery, 24; kidnapping, 20; burglary, 11; spying, 8; and aggressive assault, 6. Of those executed, 178 were teen-agers. According to the Library of Congress Legislative Reference Service, there have been seventy-four known wrongful convictions for criminal homicide since 1883; eight of these were executed.

Although the death penalty was prohibited in the Soviet Union in 1947, it was revived three years later for traitors, spies and “wrecker diversionists.”

South Bend Echoes

Echoes from the second special General Convention at South Bend, Indiana, last September were still reverberating through the Episcopal Church at year end. In New York, two Episcopal laymen filed a suit in the State Supreme Court seeking to bar the denomination from transferring $200,000 to the Black Economic Development Conference through the National Committee of Black Churchmen.

The laymen charged that the grant, approved at the South Bend meeting (see September 26 issue, page 42) is illegal because the BEDC “supports violence.” The plaintiffs did not mention in their suit that $43,000 has already been transferred to the militant organization born last April at the time James Forman issued the Black Manifesto. (That money launched a Detroit-based publishing house this month—see January 2 issue, page 43.)

David Arms, a marketing economist, and Walter Gates, a business executive, claim that the Episcopal grant is an “illegal subterfuge” and that the BEDC does not meet the “non-violent” criteria required of Episcopal-funded organizations.

Their suit asks the court to declare the convention’s actions “null and void,” and to restrain the church from further solicitation for the grant. It names the NAACP or “some other established Negro self-help group” on record as advocating non-violence as rightful recipient of the money already raised.

Arms and Gates also contend that the grant was illegal because the convention was improperly convened and the grant voted “under duress and threats.”

In another controversy, Muhammad Kenyatta, Philadelphia director and national vice-president of the BEDC, occupied the Wellsprings Ecumenical Center in Philadelphia to protest the center’s refusal to act as a “conduit” for funds to the BEDC.

After Kenyatta (who was the leader of the South Bend confrontation) and other BEDC leaders reportedly forced their way into the building with a tire iron, and several remained overnight, the Wellsprings board of directors backed down and agreed to accept $2,000 from a United Church of Christ agency for the BEDC. But author-pastor Robert Raines of Germantown’s First Methodist Church, chairman of Wellsprings, said that he expected the center and the BEDC would continue in “dual use of the facilities” though Wellsprings did not necessarily totally endorse the BEDC.

Brazil Church Surges Ahead

Brazil’s Protestant churches are increasing more than twice as fast as its population. According to figures recently released by the Missionary Information Bureau, the country has an annual population growth rate of 3 per cent, while Protestant church membership is gaining at the rate of 6.7 per cent each year.

After Indonesia, Brazil is said to have the fastest-growing church in the world: it now has 3,244,000 Protestants, more than double the number of Protestant church members in all other Latin American countries combined.

Two-thirds of Brazil’s Protestants are Pentecostals from the fast-growing Assemblies of God, the Christian Congregation, the Brazil for Christ movement, and independent Pentecostal groups. Evangelistic emphasis is seen as the reason for the phenomenal rise of the Pentecostal churches.

Fifty-eight per cent of the church membership is concentrated in the south of Brazil, which has only 10 per cent of the area and 37 per cent of Brazil’s 90 million inhabitants.

The report also shows that Brazil now has 12,884 pastors, 23,776 deacons, and 15,890 presbyters. There are nearly 30,000 meeting places for Christians; half of these are organized churches, and the rest are preaching points. Including wives, there are 3,000 non-indigenous missionaries in Brazil.

Half of Brazil’s people now live in the cities, and about 52 per cent of the population is under twenty years of age. The trend in literacy is up. In 1920, about one-third of those fifteen years and older could read and write; today two-thirds can.

PETER CUNLIFFE

Looking Romewards

Not only from the evangelical camp is the roll of secessionist drums being heard in England at present. Fifty Anglican clergymen recently made a secret, or at least unpublicized, call on the Archbishop of Westminster, John Cardinal Heenan. Members of the 115-year-old Society of the Holy Cross, they strongly oppose new moves toward merger with Methodists (the union scheme was narrowly defeated last summer; see August 1 issue, page 38).

The society wishes to set up a “uniate” church on the lines of those found in the East which, recognizing the supremacy of the Pope, are self-governing. The idea was one likely to elicit a frosty response from Heenan, who otherwise welcomed what his secretary was at pains to call an “entirely unofficial” delegation.

Though smaller and more extreme than the Church Union, a body which itself was notably unenthused by the Methodist plan, the Holy Cross has 300 clergy, now augmented by 10,000 layfolk concerned about the threat to the “Catholic” wing of the Church of England. “We are not an effete organization,” says the society’s head, Father Alfred Simmons. If the worst happens and the diluting Methodist hordes are allowed to pour in, the society will take legal action to ensure that with them into secession will go a fair share of Anglican property and endowments.

J. D. DOUGLAS

Greek Orthodoxy: The Junta Defied

A small group of Orthodox clergymen in Greece have launched an attack on church leaders. And in doing so, the group, led by Bishop Chrysostomos, Metropolitan of Piraeus, is indirectly challenging the nation’s military government.

The metropolitan was known for liberal views even before the coup that brought in the current political leaders. He was a close friend of the late George Papandreou, the ousted prime minister who was an idol of youth. When the military staged the coup in April of 1967, Chrysostomos felt the pinch.

The junta picked the king’s special chaplain, Ieronimos Kotsonis, who then had a reputation for being progressive, to lead the conservative Church of Greece. Ieronimos was not a bishop, however, and his appointment over a number of senior bishops was a surprising move.

The new archbishop soon showed his loyalty to the new government. When young King Constantine staged a counter coup in December of 1967, he got no support from Ieronimos. Instead, the archbishop swore in General Zoitakos as regent to fill the throne vacated by the fleeing king.

Last March, Ieronimos supported a purge of the Holy Synod, the twelve-member governing body of the church. A new church charter acceptable to the military also was adopted. But an apparent conflict between the new appointees and the precepts of the new statute went unnoticed. Within a few months the flaws of the ecclesiastical action were brought to light before a number of judges were dismissed for their non-compliance with the spirit of the revolution.

The liberal metropolitan and four other bishops, all left out of the new synod, are now questioning the legality not only of the new synod and the new charter but also of the appointment of Ieronimos and the ouster of the old archbishop.

In a land like Greece, where religion cannot be fathomed as independent of politics, the bold stand of Chrysostomos and his colleagues is seen as a daring defiance of the ruling military junta. The voice of these dissenting clergy is thus being added to the more general discontent with present leaders.

The battle has led to a threat by Ieronimos that he might expel Chrysostomos, who in turn warned that he would initiate a lawsuit. Two mediating bishops were reportedly appointed to investigate.

THOMAS COSMADES

Marxist Abcs

“We must combat religion—that is the ABC of all materialism and therefore of Marxism …,” says an article in the Communist theoretical magazine Hungch’i (Red Flag). The official article condemning all religion breaks the long silence by Red China concerning its attitude against the churches.

“Scientific Communism and religion are antagonistic. The struggle for the realization of the ideals of Communism in the whole world and the ‘building of the kingdom of Christ on earth’ are incompatible … like fire and water,” the magazine said.

The Asia News Report, published in Hong Kong, said the article followed a religious conference held on the outskirts of Moscow under Soviet leadership, and was printed to blast the gathering.

Asia News also said reports that agencies are successfully smuggling large quantities of Bibles and tracts into Red China are “incredible and naïve.” Asserting that the claim, appearing in an American church magazine, was accompanied by appeals for money to distribute the Scriptures, Asia News added that indigenous Chinese Christians “have no knowledge that any Scriptures have been received by believers in China and … discountenance these exotic claims.”

Meanwhile, Australian Radio reported that Anglican clergyman Herbert Arrowsmith of Sydney planned to distribute 20,000 copies of the New Testament inside Communist China by placing them within the personal effects of travelers going there.

Arrowsmith was quoted as saying that although Red guards burned Bibles during the so-called cultural revolution several years ago, he believed the official Communist view was now more lenient.

Religion In Transit

Membership in the United Methodist Church, second largest U. S. denomination, fell 201,096 in the past year, a drop of about 2 per cent.… The nation’s Lutheran bodies grew .02 of 1 per cent—lowest combined gain ever.… The Roman Catholic Church reported a gain of less than 1 per cent for the same period—smallest growth in twenty-five years. The Christian Church membership fell 1 per cent.

Two-thirds of 600 consultants to the National Council of Catholic Men said in a survey that Catholics should be willing to campaign for public money for parochial schools, “even if it means stirring up controversy.”

Two more Orange County (Indiana) Amish have been arrested for driving horse-drawn vehicles without required amber warning emblems.

The Alliance of Concerned Episcopalians (ACE), a group of churchmen in the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia formed to combat “overly liberal tendencies” within the denomination, placed an ad in Roanoke newspapers asking Episcopalians to withdraw financial support from the national church. In rebuttal, a pro-General Convention II group also bought a full-page ad.

“Remarkable and fundamental agreement” on the theology of Holy Communion was noted by Roman Catholic and Orthodox churchmen meeting at Brookline, Massachusetts, last month.

A top U. S. Labor Department official said religious discrimination against Jews and Catholics in executive-level positions “needs immediate attention.”

Agreeing with a similar landmark ruling in Boston last April on another case, a San Francisco federal judge has ruled that a draft resister may not be prosecuted if he opposes the Viet Nam war on religious grounds, even if he does not oppose all war. The case probably will be appealed to the U. S. Supreme Court.… Meanwhile, the Justice Department was studying for possible federal law violation a $1,000 church gift to help U. S. draft evaders and deserters in Canada.

The biggest factor in determining differing attitudes among clergymen is probably age, according to a study made for Garrett Theological Seminary. A steady increase in the percentage of conservative reactions among clerics was also noted.

The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod has lost ten pastors and five congregations because it voted fellowship with the American Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod president Jacob Preus reported.

After a student takeover shut down the school, Fisk University officials named a committee to consider demands that the United Church of Christ-related Nashville institution become all-black.

Artist Ronald White was required to paint leaves over the naked figures of Adam and Eve in his three-story mural for Toronto’s Willowdale United Church.

A ninety-minute television documentary called “A Matter of Faith,” which will attempt to incorporate the thoughts of one hundred VIPs, will be produced for Metromedia by former Newsweek correspondent John Peer Nugent.

What may be the first “ladies auxiliary” to an order of nuns was organized by the Franciscan Sisters of Wheaton, Illinois.… In a move to “democratize” the Paulist Fathers, the Reverend Thomas F. Stransky was chosen president of the 110-year-old order by direct popular ballot.

Calvinist Contact, a weekly newspaper published in Canada, has created a new department, World of Young Writers, edited by C. W. Barendrecht of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Personalia

Baptist pastor Walter B. Hoard, 44, of Milwaukee, is the first Negro to be named an associate general secretary of the American Baptist Convention.

On a Saturday night, a shotgun blast sent buckshot ripping through the living room of pastor J. Wesley Shipp of Wake Forest, North Carolina, as his daughter entertained black and white youths. Next morning, the deacons at Ridgecrest Baptist Church fired Shipp for his “views on racial matters.”

Altar The Call?

Is the altar call scriptural, or a “sacred cow”? A survey of sixty evangelical teen-agers throughout Illinois revealed that 95 per cent dislike the practice. Reasons ranged from “I went forward and nothing happened” to “I was scared.” Many said they feel public invitations repulse and scare visitors and often use too much emotion and manipulation.

Yet 95 per cent of the same young people said that if they were a pastor, they would give altar calls. And Trinity Evangelical Divinity School Christian education professor Elmer Towns notes that there are public invitations to the unconverted in the ten largest Sunday schools in the United States.

TOBY NELSON

The Right Reverend Chandler W. Sterling, former Episcopal bishop of Montana, has written a spicy sex novel about a lady-chasing lecher who also happens to be an Episcopal bishop. Sterling, 58, claims his book, The Holroyd Papers, is a new form of ministry to win attention and make money so he can turn to the spiritual books he really wants to write.

Century-old segregation of Southern cemeteries was overruled in a Birmingham federal court last month in a case that could have nationwide implications. Negro Viet Nam veteran Bill Terry, 20, was ordered buried in private, all-white Elmwood Cemetery after his 16-year-old widow brought suit and Jesuit priest Eugene Farrell drew national attention to the issue.

After a furor of faculty opposition, Mrs. Jacqueline Grennan Wexler, former president of Webster College, St. Louis, and a former Order of Loretto nun, was unanimously voted by the board of education to be ninth president of Hunter College of the City University of New York.

Maryknoll priest Dan McLellan, 53, said to be the best-known American in Peru and founder of the largest savings and loan association in South America (Mutual El Pueblo), married his longtime secretary in a Lima civil ceremony. Gregory Robertson, 52, former president of St. Mary’s College, Winona, Minnesota, withdrew from the Christian Brothers order last month to marry former nun Maura Couglan, 42. They and McLellan received dispensations from religious vows.

Jerrie Mock, first woman to solo around the world in a single-engine plane, has delivered a plane to Catholic priest Tony Gendusa, twenty years on the New Guinea mission field, for work in his 85,000-square-mile diocese. Ecumenical efforts raised money for the craft.

Betty Medsger, 27, religion editor of the Philadelphia Bulletin, became assistant religion editor of the Washington Post this month. Kenneth Dole, Post religion editor and writer for twenty-three years, retired.

Colonel Gerhardt W. Hyatt, Continental Army Command chaplain at Fort Monroe, Virginia, and a Missouri Synod Lutheran, has been named Deputy Chief of Army Chaplains. He succeeds Brigadier General Ned R. Graves (Disciples of Christ), who retired this month after thirty years.

Southern Baptist hip minister Arthur Blessitt (see December 19, 1969, issue, page 34) began a coast-to-coast hike from his Sunset Strip gospel nightclub in Hollywood to Washington, D. C., lugging a ten-foot wooden cross. With him to trigger a “spiritual awakening in the nation” is his gospel rock quartet, the Eternal Rush. A giant prayer rally will climax the trek.

World Scene

Two new, autonomous Methodist churches were formed last month: the Methodist Church of Bolivia, and the Methodist Church of Uruguay.

Forty-one countries pledged a total of $13,878,786 toward 1970 United Nations programs for Palestine refugees.

A Protestant-Catholic congress, called the Ecumenical Pentecost Meeting and the first gathering of its kind, will be held in Germany on Pentecost, 1971.

In the first phase of a thirty-year plan to evangelize all of Latin America, six regional evangelism conferences will be held in as many years.

After thirteen years of negotiations, merger plans of four regional Evangelical Lutheran churches in West Germany are slated for completion next spring. The projected 3.5 million-member body will be called the North Elbian Church.

Because Communist leaders refused to grant the Federation of Evangelical Churches’ leader Bishop Gottfried Noth of Saxony a travel visa, the East German organization canceled plans to visit the World Council of Churches in Geneva.

To meet the mounting need for Scripture literature in Latin America, the World Home Bible League of Chicago and the New York Bible Society have formed Scriptures Unlimited, with plans to place five million Bible pieces by this April.

A painting of a man in a tunic looked like a priest, so Vatican officials hung it a few yards from a portrait of Pope Paul VI in the Vatican press room. It turned out to be no priest but Mao Tse-tung (now 76) as a youth. Chagrined church officials nevertheless said the painting would stay, but barred permission to photograph it.

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