World Church-In Brief
Diocesan Press Service. June 5, 1968 [66-15]
Ecumenically Speaking
Patriarch Maximos V. Hakim, of Antioch, will deliver the sermon during the baccalaureate Mass at the University of Notre Dame in June.
A $2,700, 000 low-cost housing project will be built in Houston, Tex., under the joint sponsorship of the Episcopal Diocese of Texas and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Galveston-Houston. The 230-family facility will be financed through the Federal Housing Administration and administered by a board representing both of the sponsors.
Dr. Cynthia Wedel, an associate general secretary of the National Council of Churches and a member of the Episcopal Church, became the first woman to preach from the pulpit of The Riverside Church, New York City, on Mother's Day. Mrs. Wedel is the mother of two sons and the wife of Canon Theodore Wedel, warden emeritus of the College of Preachers, Washington, D. C.
The son of the Rt. Rev. Luis Pereira, Bishop of the Lusitanian Church in Portugal, with which the Episcopal Church is in full communion, was married at the end of April to a Roman Catholic girl in a Lusitanian church and in accordance with the Lusitanian rite. The marriage was performed by Bishop Pereira himself, and his son was not required to make any promises regarding either the baptism or the religious upbringing of any children of the marriage. Roman Catholic diocesan authorities had succeeded in obtaining from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith a "dispensatio a forma canonica celebrationis matrimonii". The priest of the local Roman Catholic Church served as a witness, and the marriage was duly recorded in his register as canonical.
The first place of worship in Malawi to be built through the co-operation of two denominations -- the Anglican Church and the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian -- was dedicated May 15. It is the Chapel of the Holy Spirit at the Chilema Lay Training Centre in Kasupe.
"We have found sufficient theological justification in principle for some eucharistic sharing", said representatives of the Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ) and the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (USA).
"Furthermore, we detect that urgent theological, ecumenical and especially pastoral reasons exist in our country to make some eucharistic sharing desirable", they continued. This suggestion was contained in a memorandum issued jointly following the third series of talks between representatives of the Bishops's Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs and the Disciples' Council on Christian Unity.
The Anglican Commission on Intercommunion, headed by the Rt. Rev. Oliver Tompkins, Bishop of Bristol, has recommended reciprocal intercommunion on special occasions, but only between members of the Church of England and those denominations with which it is mutually committed to seeking union.
These would include, at present, intercommunion between Anglicans and Methodists and between Anglicans and Presbyterians in England and Scotland.
The Diocese of Iowa will be one of the sponsors of a COCU Youth Conference to be held July 11 - 14 at the Episcopal Center near Boone. Guest speaker for the conference will be the Rt. Rev. Chandler W. Sterling, recently resigned Bishop of Montana.
OVERSEAS
Dr. Z. K. Matthews, ambassador of the African nation of Botswana to the United States and permanent representative to the United Nations, died on May 11. The 66-year-old diplomat was a former staff official of the World Council of Churches and was the first South African Christian scholar to teach in an American theological seminary. He served as Africa secretary for the World Council and was visiting professor at Union Theological Seminary.
Five Christian youth and student groups, including the Anglican Youth Fellowship, Baptist Youth Fellowship, YMCA, YWCA and the Student Christian Movement, have called upon Great Britain to stop sending military aid to the Federal Republic of Nigeria. They cited a recent statement by Biafra's Commissioner of information, Dr. Ifegwu Eke, to the effect that Britain had supplied several hundred non-commissioned officers and 150 armoured cars to Nigeria in January and February.
James Earl Fowler, from 1941 - 1953 an Associate Secretary in the Overseas Department and a missionary in China and Japan died May 1. Born in White Cloud, Kan., Mr. Fowler served at Central China University, Wuchang from 1921 - 1926 and again from 1929 - 1932 and at St. Paul's University, Tokyo from 1927 - 1929 and again from 1933 - 1940.
Dr. Vladimir Kadlec, Minister of Education, said recently that freedom of religious instruction will be restored in Czechoslovakia but that separation of church and state will be carefully maintained in the field of education.
Addressing a meeting of teachers, Dr. Kadlec pledged, "we shall, in the future, respect the constitution and will not allow such deformations as occurred in the past."
In Prague, meanwhile, Catholic Bishop Karel Skoupy of Brno, who is being restored to his episcopal functions, took an oath of allegiance to the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic at the Ministry of Culture and Information.
The Rt. Rev. William Glyn Hughes Simon of Llandaff was elected Archbishop of the Anglican Church in Wales at a synod of the six Welsh Anglican bishops here.
He succeeds Archbishop Edwin Morris, Bishop of Monmouth, who retired on Dec. 31. Archbishop Simon will remain as Bishop of Llandaff, a post he has held since 1957.
AT HOME
Presiding Bishop Hines will deliver the graduation address at the 156th Commencement of the Princeton Theological Seminary, June 2 - 4.
Contributions from member churches of the World Council of Churches now totaling almost $83, 000 have been transferred to the Delta Ministry in Mississippi of the National Council of Churches. The fund, designated for providing a water supply for the DM's Freedom City, was given as a memorial to the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The monies, transmitted by the WCC Division of Inter-Church Aid, Refugee and World Service, were given by churches in Denmark, $5,000; Sweden, $10,000; United Church of Canada, $4,625; The Netherlands, $27,700; Swiss Inter-Church Aid, $5,000; Germany's "Bread for the World" campaign, $10,000; Britain Christian Aid, $12, 000; Norway, $5,000; Australia, $1, 115; Finland, $1,000; France, $500; Austria, $500; Greece, $300; and Kenya, $200.
The WCC Division also reported that the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church was considering making a contribution to the fund.
A Coordinating Committee of Black Lutheran Clergymen has been formed in Chicago to develop a program to combat racism in the Lutheran Church. A four-day consultation resulted in a report that said that "racism manifests itself chiefly in the oppression of black people by white people, and in our own circles, the oppression of black Lutherans by white Lutherans. More than 70 Negro clergymen of three Lutheran bodies attended the consultation.
The Rev. Tollie L. Caution, an officer of Special Field Ministries for Executive Council, was a recent recipient of the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from St. Augustine's College, Raleigh, N. C. Dr. Caution has been in charge of the Episcopal Church's work with ethnic minorities.
He previously had been awarded a doctorate in Sacred Theology from Lincoln University, Penn., and the Philadelphia Divinity School.
Henry McCorkle, editor of "The Episcopalian" magazine, will be the interviewer on two programs of NBC-TV "Frontiers of Faith" series to be aired on two Sundays, September 15 and 22.
One of the programs will be an interview with Dr. Philip Phenix of Columbia University Teachers College and the second an interview with the Rev. Robert Green of Wilton, Conn., an Episcopal priest, and Michael Woodward, a high school student, also of Wilton.
Elimination of federal education programs would destroy the Roman Catholic school system because within 25 years it would be impossible for any school to operate solely on private funds, a Roman Catholic educator has warned. The Rev. James C. Brunner, superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese of San Antonio, said the schools of the Archdiocese receive substantial federal support because "we have the most students and the most poverty. "
The 96th annual convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Arkansas has voted to make women eligible for service on parish vestries and as delegates to the annual convention. Previous conventions had refused to give approval.
John Christopher Hines, son of the Presiding Bishop, will be one of 29 seminarians who will graduate in June from the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Berkeley, Calif. Bishop Hines will give the Commencement address.
Quotables
The Rt. Rev. Robert R. Brown, Episcopal Bishop of Arkansas, told the 96th Diocesan convention that a majority of American Christians were so well off they find it difficult to comprehend misery, disease and illiteracy. "Unless our vertical upthrust to heaven is accompanied by a horizontal outreach to man we are condemned by our own insensitivity," he said.
Mrs. Martin Luther King told more than 5,000 persons at a rally officially opening the Poor People's Campaign that a re-evaluation of what constitutes violence should be made by Americans. "I must remind you," she said, "that starving a child is violence. Suppressing a culture is violence. Neglecting school children is violence. Punishing a mother and her family is violence. Discrimination against a working man is violence. Ghetto housing is violence. Ignoring medical need is violence. Contempt for poverty is violence. "
The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. and Rt. Hon. Arthur Michael Ramsey, recently addressed the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian). In talking of the present state of the movement toward Christian unity, Dr. Ramsey said "There are still plenty of problems still to be solved, but what has gone is that weariness self-consciousness. We are conscious when we meet that we are brother Christians and the joy of that awareness liberates us and sets us talking to one another as Christian friends and brothers. "