Religious Leaders Travel for Peace
Diocesan Press Service. January 8, 1968 [61-7]
A tri-faith delegation of top religious leaders in the United States left Jan. 3 on a global peace mission to the crisis areas of the world for consultation with key religious leaders on strategies for reestablishing peace.
Travelling on behalf of the Inter-Religious Symposium on Peace are the Hon. Harold E. Stassen (American Baptist), Rabbi Maurice N. Eisendrath (Reform Jewish), Dr. Dana McClean Greely (Unitarian Universalist), the Rt. Rev. John Burt (Episcopal), Bishop John Wesley Lord and Bishop James K. Matthews (Methodist) and Msgr. Edward G. Murray (Roman Catholic).
Their trip, the purpose of which is to discuss the urgent and vital contributions world religions can make to world peace, will take them to Rome, where they will meet with Pope Paul VI and other Vatican figures; to Geneva, where they will confer with officials of the United Nations, the World Council of Churches and the World Jewish Congress; to Istanbul, where they will meet with the Ecumenical Patriarch; to Jerusalem, for consultation with religious and government leaders on the Middle East situation; to New Delhi for the International Symposium for Peace; to Saigon, to meet with Buddhist and Roman Catholic leaders and to Kyoto, Japan.
The Inter-Religious Symposium was founded in 1965 and sponsored an American conference on peace attended by more than 500 clergy and lay persons in March, 1966. This led to the New Delhi conference which will bring together Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Moslem, Buddhist and Shinto leaders from around the world. The purpose of the New Delhi meeting, which will be attended by approximately 100 persons is to discuss how religions can contribute to achieving world peace and to prepare for a World Interreligious Conference on Peace in 1969. Co-sponsors of the New Delhi meeting will be the International Seminar Committee for Gandhi Centenary, which is preparing to mark the 100th anniversary of Gandhi's birth next year.
Other members of the delegation are: the Rev. Dr. Ralph Abernathy (Progressive National and American Baptist); Dr. Desmond W. Bittinger (Church of the Brethren); Mrs. Dorothy Hutchinson (Quaker); Mr. Leroy Anderson (United Presbyterian); the Rev. Telfer Mook (United Church of Christ and Disciples of Christ); the Rev. Herschel Halbert (Episcopal); Dr. Homer A. Jack (Unitarian Universalist); and Herman Will (Methodist).
The Most Rev. Joseph Bernadin, Roman Catholic Auxiliary Bishop of Atlanta, will join the group in New Delhi.