Appointment of an Ambassador to the Vatican Meets Mild Opposition

Protestant opposition to President Reagan’s appointment of an ambassador to the Vatican has fallen far short of the angry levels it reached in 1951 when President Harry S Truman tried to establish similar diplomatic ties. However, a handful of groups plans to voice concern about preferential treatment and the separation of church and state during this month’s Senate confirmation hearings for ambassador-designate William A. Wilson.

Opponents, including the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), Seventh-day Adventists, and the Southern Baptist Convention were caught by surprise when Congress repealed a 116-year-old ban on formal diplomatic ties last November (CT, Dec. 15, 1983, p. 36). Their efforts to encourage grassroots expressions of alarm generated little response, and Reagan announced on January 10 that Wilson, the President’s special envoy to the Vatican, was his choice for ambassador.

The groups opposing the move have no quarrel with Wilson, a Catholic and a close friend of Reagan. But they object to what they consider to be an unconstitutional violation of the principle of separation of church and state. Sending an ambassador to the pope, they say, favors one religion over all others and could set a dangerous precedent.

“How long before Mecca makes such a request?” asked Jerry Falwell, a fundamentalist preacher and president of Moral Majority. As a whole, however, Falwell’s prepared statement reflected the ambiguity of the situation. “The Vatican is an internationally recognized sovereign entity,” he noted, epresented at the UN, the OAS, and other international bodies. The Vatican has entered into international treaties, some of which the U.S. has also signed.”

Falwell opposes the appointment, but he will not join efforts to block Wilson’s confirmation. It is “unblockable,” he said, due to overwhelming congressional support and Pope John Paul II’s popularity. “I would urge one thing,” Falwell said, “that the appointment be conditioned on Vatican recognition of the state of Israel.”

The Pope’s dual role as a prominent international statesman and spiritual leader of the world’s 700 million Roman Catholics is the source of the controversy. Because Wilson is already the de facto ambassador, the move is seen by the administration as a pragmatic way to improve official communications with Pope John Paul II and to endorse his pro-Western foreign policy initiatives, particularly in his native Poland.

Bob Reilly, associate director of public liaison at the White House, said the move “overcomes a diplomatically embarrassing situation in which the U.S. alone among its principal allies is not represented.” More than 100 nations have full diplomatic relations with the Holy See.

Along with Falwell’s ambivalence on the issue, other Protestant leaders have either withheld comment or downplayed the importance of the appointment. Things got a little sticky for White House-evangelical relationships when someone in the government leaked to the press a letter from Billy Graham to William Clark, the President’s national security advisor at the time the letter was written last spring. The confidential letter summarized the views of evangelical leaders on the matter. Graham took the soundings at White House request. Graham himself did not express opposition to the appointment.

Groups that feel strongly about it are considering ways to press the issue. If Wilson is confirmed as expected, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State (AU) may file suit. “We’re still hoping something will happen in the Senate, and we’re encouraging people to contact the White House and Congress,” said AU’s Joseph Conn.

Possible political damage to President Reagan as a result of this move is considered unlikely. “For most evangelicals it’s a disappointment. But other issues such as traditional values, national defense, and the economy will loom much more importantly” in the reelection campaign, said Robert Dugan of NAE’s Washington office.

Among fundamentalists, Falwell believes Reagan will sustain his popularity since “his total performance has been in the A+ range.”

Catholic reaction to the appointment has been positive but quiet. “It is not a religious issue but a public policy question, which happily has now been addressed and settled in that context,” said a spokesman for the U.S. Catholic Conference (USCC). It does not confer a “special blessing” on Catholicism, he said, but recognizes the power, influence, and prestige of the current pope.

Catholics are pleased as well about the tone of the opposing groups, which the USCC spokesman described as “restrained, courteous, and friendly—a tribute to ecumenical progress.”

In 1951, unified, vigorous Protestant opposition blocked Truman’s appointment of an ambassador to the Vatican. Today, Christians are less easily stirred to action on the issue. There is general agreement that the right President chose the right time to change a situation that had remained unresolved and uncomfortable for more than a century.

When Airman First Class Wayne Stayskal became a Christian in 1951, he considered becoming a pastor. Then 19, he remembers that a pulpit ministry seemed to be the right move.

Stayskal, now 52, chose another line of work, but he got a pulpit anyway. After art school and a stint with the old Chicago American newspaper, he became an editorial cartoonist for the Chicago Tribune. His pulpit is the newsprint that carries his views to hundreds of thousands of readers each week.

My work represents a Christian viewpoint. I’m not sure that a reader who didn’t know that I am a Christian would pick up on it immediately,” he says. “I don’t represent a particular evangelical or fundamentalist view, but there is a rightness, a sense of morality in my work.”

He decides what to comment on, and he is under no obligation to support the Tribune’s editorial stance. On a few occasions the Tribune has refused to print his cartoons because it disagreed with a view he expressed.

Stayskal produces five cartoons a week for the Chicago paper, arriving at work as early as 6 A.M. to complete a cartoon by 9:30. But his work receives wide exposure beyond the Tribune readership. His cartoons have appeared in at least 68 newspapers and in several magazines, including Time, U.S. News & World Report, and some Christian magazines.

He says many political cartoonists lack compassion for the people they comment on. Stayskal tries to understand people and their viewpoints before criticizing them in a cartoon, a principle he attributes to his faith. When he does criticize a public figure, he focuses on a situation or the person’s position rather than on the individual. But Stayskal is less charitable with the American Civil Liberties Union.

“It’s just one of my things to pick on,” he says, “to try to counterbalance some of their ideas—not that they are always wrong. But when I, as a Christian, don’t agree with their position, I speak out against them.

“I sometimes comment on situations that other cartoonists don’t handle. I don’t really consider myself very opinionated, except on issues that I feel the Bible issues a clear directive on. If the Bible teaches something very plainly, then I feel I must also take a definitive stand.”

When he makes a strong statement about current events, Stayskal softens the blow with humor.

“I like to visualize people … being able to laugh at a cartoon that is saying something about the news. In an earlier time, cartoons were largely political and full of symbolism. There was humor in the drawing, not so much in the message.”

Stayskal hasn’t limited himself to editorial cartooning. The Chicago-born artist has broadened his craft to include comic strips. His latest is “Balderdash,” a comic strip about a dog. Begun last October, it is already syndicated in some 20 newspapers. There might be a new role for the comic character in the future. Says Stayskal: “I would like to use him in a children’s book, conveying a message about life and ethics that would support what I believe as a Christian.

DEATHS

Ira L. North, 62, for 12 years the television host of the “Amazing Grace Bible Class,” for 32 years pastor of the Madison Church of Christ, Madison, Tennessee, the largest Church of Christ in the world (more than 5,000 members); January 15, at Nashville Memorial Hospital, of cancer.

Raymond McLaughlin, 66, head of the homiletics department at Denver Conservative Baptist Seminary from 1950 until recently, author of the award-winning book The Ethics of Persuasive Preaching; January 19, in Denver, of cancer.

John Westbrook, 36, pastor of Antioch Baptist Church in Houston, graduate of Baylor University, first black athlete to play collegiate football in the Southwest Conference; December 17, at Citizens General Hospital in Houston, of an apparent heart attack.

David Hugh Jones, 83, professor emeritus of music at Princeton Theological Seminary where he taught from 1934 to 1970, editor of hymnals, composer of choral works; December 21, in North Conway, New Hampshire, of an apparent heart attack.

Wilbur H. Davies, 80, former president of Fleming H. Revell Company; January 14, in Houston, of complications from Parkinson’s disease.

Norman Johnson, 55, for 20 years an editor at Singspiration, a division of Zondervan Corporation, and largely responsible for producing the hymnals Praise! Our Songs and Hymns, and The Covenant Hymnal; December 19, at his home in Grand Rapids, Michigan, of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Charles Hays Craig, 71, former president of Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company; November 28, in Nutley, New Jersey, of complications from Parkinson’s disease.

U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop’s healing skills have been evident recently in the government’s effort to revive a regulation protecting handicapped infants. Last spring, a “Baby Doe” hotline was proposed so nurses or other observers could call the federal government if they knew of a handicapped infant being refused medical care (CT. May 20, 1983, p. 41).

That regulation angered the medical establishment, and it all but expired under the weight of a successful court challenge. Hopes for resuscitation appeared dim until Koop grafted in a key provision doctors and hospitals demanded: voluntary committees in each hospital to review difficult cases.

The compromise has gained largely unenthusiastic support among right-to-life groups and professional medical associations. Barring a court challenge, the measure will take effect this month.

Right-to-life groups that have pushed for federal intervention in cases like that of Baby Jane Doe, a New York baby born with a spinal deformity, remain wary of the review committees. Medical groups, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, are fretting over the level of government oversight still present in the regulation. But Koop’s careful merger appears to possess the stamina to withstand such criticism.

Besides providing for “infant care review committees,” the revised rule allows for hotlines that will be available to nurses and doctors only. Notices in hospitals about the hotlines will be displayed less prominently than before and will channel complaints first to the review committee and second to state or local health agencies. Complaints would reach the federal government only as a last resort.

The regulation allows the government to step in under federal civil rights law should another Baby Doe situation develop. This troubles the influential American Medical Association (AMA), which has not yet taken a public stand on the compromise regulation.

Most right-to-life groups recognize the wisdom of Koop’s willingness to settle for half a loaf. “We will look for [the government] to use these [provisions] and enforce them vigorously and not back down,” says Doug Badger, of the Christian Action Council (CAC).

Lobbyists representing medical interests are among Washington’s most powerful, Badger says. “It was politically necessary to give them something, and it could have been far worse. The regulation could have given hospitals the sole authority” to protect infants.

CAC wants the government to appoint a person to the civil rights office at the Department of Health and Human Services to do nothing but monitor and enforce the regulation. Second, CAC would like to see the Justice Department consider prosecuting some current cases, including the Bloomington, Indiana, case in which a baby with Down’s syndrome was starved to death in a hospital after doctors, parents, and a state court agreed that no treatment should be given.

The committees provided for under the revised regulation are suspect because, in the handful of hospitals where they exist, their members are almost all from the medical community. The Koop regulation, however, calls for the committees to include one community member, one handicapped person, and a child advocate to defend the rights of the infant.

One prolife group, American Life Lobby, vehemently opposes the revised regulation. Government relations director Gary Curran says Koop “caved in” to the demands of the medical establishment. Curran calls the review committees “part of the problem, not the solution.” The rule is only as good as its enforcement, he says. He doubts whether the government will ever be equipped to monitor committees in the 6,800 hospitals nationwide that receive federal funds and thus must abide by the new rule.

Right-to-life skepticism arises from observations of how existing committees work outside the boundaries of the new federal rule. An article in the October 1983 issue of Pediatrics describes how such a group reached decisions on babies with spina bifida—Baby Jane Doe’s condition—at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center.

During five years, 69 newborns with the spinal deformity were evaluated. Thirty-six received vigorous treatment and 33 were to receive “custodial” care. If medical treatment is not recommended but the family insists on it, their wishes are honored. This happened in five cases, and three of the babies lived.

While many critics are quick to blame the medical community for trying to play God, doctors respond that current medical technology gives them no choice. The article in Pediatrics cites textbooks from the 1950s that categorically say spina bifida babies are expected to die in infancy.

Since then, a revolution in treating birth defects has occurred, thrusting physicians into uncharted moral and ethical territory they did not choose to enter. The dilemma of “selective treatment” has been addressed haphazardly and left unstated, so groups like the Oklahoma team have felt compelled to take matters into their own hands.

Groups that advocate rights for the handicapped have urged medical representatives to sign a statement of principles that sets a standard for treatment. This formed the basis for Koop’s compromise. Two important groups, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the National Association of Children’s Hospitals, signed the statement, saying that “when medical care is clearly beneficial, it should always be provided.…”

Reconciling these standards with the trend in professional medicine toward autonomous review committees using a quality of life guideline remains a formidable task. It moved a step closer, however, when Koop’s regulation was reluctantly accepted by both opposing sides.

BETH SPRING

Billy Graham’s latest book, Approaching Hoofbeats: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Word), sold 200,000 copies during its first month. The book made the best-seller lists in the New York Times, Publishers’ Weekly, and Time magazine.

However, most Christian books don’t fare so well. Francis Schaeffer’s A Christian Manifesto (Good News) sold more than 325,000 copies, but it never appeared on a major secular best-seller list.

Some critics, like Cal Thomas, author of Book Burning (Good News), say the exclusion of Christian books from most best-seller lists constitutes a subtle form of censorship. On the other hand, Chuck Phelps, sales manager for Crossway Books, points out that Christian best-seller lists ignore secular books.

Television preacher Robert Schuller’s latest book, Tough Times Never Last, But Tough People Do! (Thomas Nelson), has appeared on major secular best-seller lists. But the book hasn’t been included among Bookstore Journal’s best sellers, a list based on sales in Christian bookstores. Most of the 255,000 copies have been sold through general bookstores, says Mark Cady, sales manager for Thomas Nelson’s book division.

Ron Land, Word Books’ national sales manager, says Graham’s latest book would rank higher on best-seller lists if sales in religious stores were included. “The Graham book has been selling 25,000 to 30,000 [copies] a week, and had some weeks of more than 50,000,” he says. “There’s not many books that sell more than that.”

The New York Times reported last year that sales of religious books increased by 20 to 25 percent during each of the last ten years. Christian books account for one-third of all books sold in America. In spite of such significant sales figures, critics say secular best-seller lists ignore most of the Christian books sold in America.

“Nobody calls me for their lists,” says Dan Penwell, director of purchasing for Zondervan Family Bookstores, a chain of 83 stores. “I don’t think some of them realize how many books are sold in Christian bookstores. I have doubts about the lists at times, because I know how strongly certain Christian books are selling.”

Book Burning author Thomas, Moral Majority’s vice-president for communications, agrees. “The list makers are only counting sales in a predetermined group of stores,” he says. “The New York Times list, for example, is a phony best-seller list. It does not deal with total sales in all stores. It is a gerrymandered system that routinely excludes the large Christian sales.”

Brad Miner, a Bantam Books senior editor and president of the New York—based Religion Publishing Group, says it’s wrong to expect any best-seller list to be completely objective. “Many of the lists rely on Waldenbooks or B. Dalton, because in those stores the cash registers are computer terminals that record sales,” he says. “In addition, these chains have more stores in more locations than any other chains. So I view their sales as a pretty fair bellwether of what is happening industrywide.”

Miner says sales in Christian bookstores alone may not produce sufficient volume to earn a place on the secular lists, where books are ranked after selling several thousand copies in two months.

“With the Christian Manifesto, I think some of the Christian complaints are much ado about nothing,” he says. “The book has tremendous sales figures. But a book not only has to have large numbers, it also has to sell at a tremendous velocity to make the lists. I’m not sure the Schaeffer book had that velocity.”

Those who compile the lists say they accurately reflect what they measure—sales of books in general-interest bookstores. They say Christian books appear on the lists when the books accumulate sufficient sales. But they don’t poll Christian bookstores to determine sales of Christian books.

“We are trying to measure general reader tastes, and general-interest stores are the best places to find that,” says Adam Clymer, the person in charge of the New York Times’s best-seller list. “There’s no question that religious bookstores sell a great number of books. Some titles probably sell far more copies in religious bookstores than in any of the general stores. And I wouldn’t be at all surprised that these figures might change the rankings on our list. But that’s not what we’re trying to measure.”

As for criticism, Clymer says he’s used to it. “If people have opinions about the best-seller list, want to argue about it or present suggestions, we’ll listen,” he says. “We’ve changed our coverage over the years. I don’t mind if people offer us suggestions about how we could do it better.”

STEVE RABEY

Protest Letters Prompt Paramount To Drop A Movie About Christ

Novelist Nikos Kazantzakis expected his unorthodox biography of Christ to raise a stir. And it did. The Catholic church officially condemned his book, The Last Temptation of Christ.

More than 30 years later, the book again is coming under fire from the religious community. This time conservative Christians objected to Martin Scorsese’s planned film version of the novel. Citing creative differences and a deluge of letters protesting the film, Paramount Studios dropped the project.

“We did get a large negative response,” says Paramount spokesman John Gould. “And it was taken into consideration with everything else.”

The Tupelo, Mississippi-based National Federation for Decency (NFD) prompted the letter-writing campaign. The organization urged its constituents to contact the film’s producers and the president of Gulf and Western, Paramount’s parent corporation.

NFD spokesman Randall Murphree says he was pleased with Paramount’s decision to drop the project. Kazantzakis’s book, he says, is “blasphemous from beginning to end.”

Gould says letters of protest always influence studio decision makers. It is rare, however, for a project to be dropped this late in the game. Two million dollars already had been spent on the project, and filming was scheduled to begin this month. The decision left filmmakers searching for financial backers to take over the $12 million project.

Warner Brothers and Universal Studios already have turned it down. But supporters hope Scorsese’s reputation will help sell the movie. His agent, Harry Ufland, said a breakthrough in negotiations is expected soon.

The theological controversy surrounding the book involves Kazantzakis’s handling of the human side of Christ. He portrays Christ as a man who didn’t want to be the Messiah, an approach the NFD considers blasphemous.

Robert Schaper, associate professor of practical theology at Fuller Theological Seminary, agrees that the novelist’s exegesis is faulty. But he says the film version of the book shouldn’t be censored as a result.

“The book is a thoughtful probing of a very mysterious area in Christ’s life, done with great depth and insight,” he says. “I don’t know what people expect from Kazantzakis. He had no real understanding of the sinlessness of Christ. But there was certainly no malice involved.…

To get upset about bad theology from poor sources is rather juvenile.”

Does Your Church Meet In A School? It Won’T If The Aclu Has Its Way

A federal court case in Rhode Island could affect the use of public school facilities by churches in that state and across the country.

In a class-action suit filed against the Warwick (Rhode Island) School Committee, the state affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is challenging the use of public school buildings by religious groups. The suit was filed after some Warwick citizens complained to the ACLU regarding the use of schools by Catholic and Jewish congregations for after-hours religious instruction. Because the suit was filed in federal district court, the decision will set a legal precedent for other states.

“This is a very important case, not just for us, but for any religious group in any public facility,” says David Gadoury, pastor of the Cranston Christian Fellowship. Gadoury’s church has intervened in the case.

The church’s daughter congregation has met in a Warwick public school for two years. The parent congregation meets in a school in neighboring Cranston, Rhode Island.

“Other pastors who are planting new churches tell us they have tried to rent school buildings in other communities, but are given a hard time by school boards who tell them, ‘We don’t want a suit,’ ” Gadoury says. He says a ruling against the churches would be detrimental to the establishment of new congregations in Rhode Island.

“If the ruling says religious groups can’t meet in public schools, public officials might assume the use of any public facility is illegal, having a chilling effect on the availability of facilities for new congregations,” he says.

The City of Warwick is defending the right of churches and other religious organizations to use public schools. City Solicitor William Murphy says the city created a public forum by opening schools to community groups. “We can’t exclude community groups from that public forum because of their religious beliefs,” he said.

“The decision in First Amendment cases like this is, which right is paramount—the right to free speech versus the use of public funds for the establishment of religion,” says Henry Lane, attorney for Cranston Christian Fellowship. “We think our right to free speech and equal access is greater.”

Lane says rulings in other jurisdictions have upheld the government’s obligation to give churches access to public facilities.

The ACLU holds that allowing religious organizations to use public school facilities creates an unconstitutional entanglement between church and state. ACLU cooperating attorney Martin W. Aisenberg says their position is consistent with previous federal court rulings.

Legal briefs were to be filed by January 30, with a possible extension to February 14. Lane says a ruling could be reached within two months of the filing date.

Should the court rule against the churches and the Warwick School Committee, Gadoury says his church might file an appeal.

SALLY CHAPMAN CAMERON

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