Vatican Diplomacy Stirs Mini-Furor
Episcopal News Service. January 19, 1984 [84010]
NEW YORK, (DPS, Jan. 19) - When President Truman attempted to name Gen. Mark Clark ambassador to the Vatican in 1951, he ran into solid, sometimes bitter, opposition from a broad spectrum of American religious leaders including the National Council of Churches and the Episcopal Church. The appointment was not confirmed.
Thirty-three years later, his successor, President Reagan, appears to have fared much better. Legislation permitting such a move after 116 years sailed through Congress with little opposition and the announcement that Reagan's personal envoy would be upgraded to ambassador created only muted dissent. Even among opponents, there seems little taste for creating a modern counterpart to the League that battled Truman.
The National Council of Churches reiterated its 33-year-old stand which is based on what that body views as the constitutional demand for separation of church and state and this was the point echoed by most other opponents. The bitter anti-Catholicism that marked the earlier debate was largely absent; a point noted by the president of the U.S. Catholic Conference which had remained neutral until the announcement." The matter is not a religious issue," said Youngstown Bishop James Malone, "but a public policy question which, happily, has now been addressed and settled in that context."
While the Episcopal Church has taken no official stand on the new appointment, the executive committee of the Episcopal Diocesan Ecumenical Officers happened to be meeting in San Diego when the announcement was made and that group sought to bring some perspective to the issue.
" We believe that there are many positive as well as negative factors to be considered," they said in a prepared statement. "We expect that members of the Episcopal Church will reflect a wide range of opinion -- as will, probably, Roman Catholics and other Christians in this country. As persons firmly committed to ecumenism and to the reconciliation of the Christian Church, we wish to be clear and emphatic in urging caution and restraint in public discussion of this matter. We would regret any action which might dilute or diminish the prophetic voice of leadership of the communities of faith within our national life.
"We are grateful for the courageous and prophetic witness of the Roman Catholic Bishops and other religious leaders in the United States in regard to the critical issues of War and Peace, concerns which we share. It is these, together with issues involving Social Justice, which we believe must be paramount in our thinking."
The effort of the ecumenical officers' panel to focus attention on the common efforts and shared opinions of the two national Churches reflects a general trend in ecumenical activity. While theological dialogue continues on national and international levels, there is also a great deal of common witness on social issues within countries, witness that may place a national Church hierarchy at odds with its own worldwide leadership.