Presiding Bishop Addresses Executive Council
Diocesan Press Service. May 1, 1973 [73118]
GREENWICH, Conn. -- The Rt. Rev. John E. Hines, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, told the Executive Council meeting here that "the national administration, now in power, seems to want to divest itself of responsibility for the great mass of people to whose pressing needs the Great Society addressed its programs of social concern and justice."
He said that "the present national administration insists that the role of national leadership is not to lead" but "to shunt the whole human problem back to localities where political pressures on local office holders are the most intense. "
The administration, he said, has demonstrated in the past few weeks that it has decided "to invest less and less in people, and more and more in machinery." And, he added, "it is just common sense to realize that the desperate 'people problems' will not go away just because you scrap some of the programs. "
It is on the local level, Bishop Hines said, "where a voice, and a commitment, in the interest of the voiceless is likely to be pressured into the loneliness of unpopularity and impotent isolation. "
He cited Cairo, Illinois as an example of a community where "the racial and political prejudices of a people have split the town, dividing it along racial lines." Because the blacks were not represented and heard in the political and educational structures, they organized a boycott of the town's businesses.
The whites, in response, organized segregated private schools and there was at least one armed confrontation, he said.
The only help from church institutions, he said, came from the black church and from the Episcopal Church's General Convention Special Program in the form of a grant, and the eventual help of the Mid-west Coalition which was funded by the GCSP.
In that situation, he said, "the local White power structure, church and political, played it solely for themselves . . . . If President Nixon's leave-it-to- the-local-areas is not reversed by Congress -- and perhaps the courts -- the people who risked so much in the Cairos of this land will have lost again. If this Church," he said, "acquiesces by playing down its own mission in helping empower the poor and the powerless, within the frame-work of genuine self-determination, we will have helped to compound the problem. "
In his address to Council, Bishop Hines also indicated that he intends to issue a pre-General Convention Pastoral Letter for the Church's consideration, in which he will likely deal with the issue of amnesty.
Bishop Hines said that he has sought the advice of several theologians on amnesty. He pointed out that amnesty is not identical with pardon and that it means "forgetting" rather than "forgiving," though the two are related.
He said that at this time he tends to favor "the view that amnesty should be plenary, covering all the 'classes' involved" rather than judging each individual case on its own merits. "Historically," he said, "the track record of a case-by-case inquiry is a sorry and unbalanced one. "
Also, he said, "I tend to view amnesty as 'unconditional ' -- though crimes like murder, if involved, should still be subject to prosecution. "
The purpose of amnesty, he aid, "is not to punish but to restore national harmony to a country. "
During its sessions, the Executive Council debated two resolutions relating to amnesty -- one dealing with a case-by-case review and the other with a plenary coverage of those in legal jeopardy -- but the Council tabled the matter, though leaving the door open for a new look at the issue at its next meeting September 27 in Louisville, Ky.
Bishop Hines also asked the Executive Council to authorize the appointment of a committee of three Council members and the Executive Vice President "to advise and counsel with me in formulating and implementing the process of orderly change " when a new Presiding Bishop is elected by General Convention this fall.