Church News Briefs
Diocesan Press Service. January 24, 1974 [74020]
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Dr. Paul A. Crow, 42, has resigned as general secretary of the Consultation on Church Union (COCU), to become president of the Council on Christian Unity of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Dr. Crow, general secretary since 1968 when COCU first opened offices in Princeton, N.J., will leave the COCU staff about April 30. As chief ecumenical officer of the Disciples, Dr. Crow will represent his church in the National and World Council of Churches as well as COCU. The Episcopal Church is one of the nine member denominations in COCU.
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- The most comprehensive report now in existence on the conflict between emerging nationalism in Southern Africa and the influence of American-owned multi-national corporations there was released recently by the National Council of Churches' Corporate Information Center. The 240-page document, called "Church Investments, Corporations and Southern Africa," traces the history of the region and American investments there. A number of American corporations are named, with a report on their policies, pay scales by race, profits, and their compliance with a systematic repression of 38 million African, Asian and Coloured people by five million whites. The document is published by Friendship Press and is available for $3.95 from the press or the Corporate Information Center, 475 Riverside Dr., New York, N.Y. 10027.
ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- The Rev. John R. Whitney, Ph.D., associate professor of religious studies at Penn State University, will become the James Maxwell Professor of Pastoral Theology and Christian Education at Virginia Theological Seminary here at the beginning of the 1974-75 term.
PORT CREDIT, Ont., Canada -- The Anglican Church of Canada's House of Bishops, meeting in closed session recently, agreed that "no immediate implementation will be possible " to proceed with the matter of the ordination of women to the priesthood which was approved in principle in May, 1973, by the General Synod by a large majority. The General Synod had asked the bishops to work out a plan, including an educational process. The bishops indicated that more time was needed to work out "a careful educational process " and to consult "with other Christians, especially those in other parts of the Anglican Communion." The House of Bishops also discussed Christian initiation and Church union (with the United Church of Canada and the Christian Church - Disciples of Christ). The closed session of the house was a departure from an action taken more than three years ago when the press was allowed to cover their sessions. After the meeting the Primate, Archbishop E. W. Scott, said that a number of bishops felt they could not speak freely on controversial issues with the press present.
AIKEN, S.C. -- Louis Cassels, a senior editor and religion columnist for United Press International, died apparently of a heart attack on January 23 at his home here at the age of 52. In 1971 Mr. Cassels, who spent 32 years with UPI, had to limit his duties with the wire service to writing three columns of religion commentary a week following a severe coronary. Born in Ellenton, S.C., and a graduate of Duke University, he was the author of several books on religion for the laity. In recent years he has been a regular columnist in The Episcopalian magazine.
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Stockholder resolutions have been filed by a coalition of church groups with eight major corporations asking for public disclosure of data on employment of women and racial minorities. The identical resolutions ask the corporations to give shareholders information on the number of female and minority employees at each level, a statement about the equal employment policy of the corporations, and guidelines for implementing the policy. The corporations are also being asked to make data available regarding operations in particular localities when requested by shareholders. The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Episcopal Church, holding 10,600 shares valued at approximately $667,800, is filing a resolution with General Electric. The joint effort is being correlated by the Church Project on Equal Employment Opportunity.
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. -- The Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed a U.S. District Court contempt-of-court citation against Dr. Paul Boe, an American Lutheran Church official, who had refused to answer certain questions asked him by a grand jury about what he saw during the occupation of Wounded Knee, S.D., in the spring of 1973. Dr. Boe, head of the ALC division of social services, refused on the ground that to do so would violate the pastoral relationship between him and members of the American Indian Movement. The Rt. Rev. John E. Hines, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, was one of 11 religious groups and individuals who filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the clergy privilege plea of Dr. Boe. The three-judge panel in St. Louis ruled in a 2-1 decision that Dr. Boe had not had enough time to present a defense. The court ruling apparently did not make a decision on the issue of clergy-confidentiality on which Dr. Boe had based his refusal to testify.
WILMINGTON, Del. -- The refusal of the Episopal Church's triennial General Convention to permit the ordination of women to the priesthood was ranked as the third most important religion news story of 1973, according to the Religion Newswriters Association (RNA). The top story, according to a survey of religion writers in the secular press, was the controversy between conservatives and moderates in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, followed in second place by the continuing trend in U.S. religion to move from social activism toward more personal religion. Ranked fourth through 10th in the RNA survey were: the charismatic movement, Key 73, attempts by parents to "rescue " children from fundamentalist religious groups, the Vatican's reaffirmation of papal infallibility, violence in Northern Ireland, support by U.S. Roman Catholic bishops for the grape and lettuce boycott of the United Farm Workers Union and for employees striking at a Farah plant in Texas, and the United Presbyterian Church's return to the Consultation on Church Union. Also judged important by some writers, though not in the top 10 stories, were the changes in the marriage canons by the Episcopal Church's General Convention.