Quarterly National Council Meeting
Diocesan Press Service. May 10, 1963 [X-21]
NEW YORK, --- The United States needs its Latin American neighbors every bit as much as they need the U. S., an Episcopal bishop declared in early May.
"It is a dangerous illusion for us in the U.S.A. to imagine that Latin Americans need us more than we need them ... No matter how often the Gringo is asked to go home, he can't go home," the Rt. Rev. Reginald Heber Gooden said.
The Bishop of the Missionary District of the Panama Canal Zone said that the North American "may depart from one or more countries of Latin America, but he as a nation is too deeply committed, too inextricably involved financially, militarily, politically and ideologically, to go home completely and cease to influence, and be influenced by, the neighboring Colossus of the South."
Bishop Gooden, who has ministered in Latin American for almost 30 years, addressed members of the National Council at their quarterly meeting April 30-May 1 in Greenwich, Conn.
He said that Latin America is a potential giant that "has much to say to the North American and the Canadian and those who live in the rest of the world.
This "little brother," he said, "knows he outweighs us in many ways and, like many little brothers, is tired of that role and is beginning to think more about how much we need him than how much he needs us. "
Bishop Gooden claimed that militarily the U. S. "would be in a very bad way without the support of Latin America. "
"The very dangerous risk of a nuclear holocaust over Cuba would never have been approached so closely by the U.S. if Latin America, including the Caribbean, were not considered vitally involved in the defense of this country," he said.
He added, "North Americans left Cuba, but the U.S. has not really abandoned Cuba nor do the vast majority of Cubans and other Latin Americans wish the U. S. to abandon them."
He reminded his audience that "the U.S. simply cannot be indifferent to the possibility of a large part of the Western Hemisphere being dominated by Communist governments."
He termed Latin America as an ideological battle ground between the forces of the right and left, and the middle, "having a hard time and urgently in need of help." One of the great needs there today, he said, is "an awakened and greatly strengthened church" that will proclaim "a world brotherhood of free men under the Fatherhood of God."
Because of the existing spiritual vacuum, Bishop Gooden said, the Communists are "trying to squeeze the dialectical blood from their ideological turnips ... exploiting the very conditions that have been worsened in the countries that they have already swallowed..."
Bishop Gooden took note of the fact that Richard Cardinal Cushing of Boston, as chairman of the Papal Volunteers for Latin America, is sending "devout Roman Catholic lay folk, teams of ecclesiastical 'peace corpsmen'" to help remedy the situation.
He contended that the Church "needs her own alliance for progress, and spiritual progress in Latin America will require Christians to work together more than ever before."
He noted that Roman Catholics have begun to show a more cooperative attitude toward Protestants there and that the Roman Church's "new posture would be to surpass all the projects the non-Roman branches attempt to carry out."
Thus, "whatever we and other non-Roman branches of Christ's church do in Latin America will enjoy a kind of double-harvest, and this is good," he said. He stated that the Church must always be the Church and minister to all people wherever they might be.
However, he warned that the gravest danger in "the Church being the Church" overseas is the tendency to look after the English-speaking chaplaincies and forget the "primary mission" of ministering to nationals in their native tongues.
He also said that "if we plan to build but one church plant in a town or city it should be built primarily for Spanish-speaking people and be located in the neighborhood whence we are more apt to draw out membership" rather than for English- speaking people who are the minority in Latin America.
He added that there is a "crying need" for parochial schools, clinics and hospitals, community centers, churches and more and smaller dioceses that would increase episcopal supervision and leadership.
Another speaker at the meeting was Dr. A. F. Carrillo de Albornoz, secretary for religious liberty studies for the World Council of Churches in Geneva, Switzerland.
Dr. Carrillo told his audience that the doctrine for human freedom is central to the Christian message, especially so in ecumenical circles.
"Freedom is absolutely necessary for ecumenical dialogue and action," he said, adding that churchmen are not free to cooperate unless they are free.
He pointed out that, in spite of the advances in understanding made between the churches, there is yet no unanimity as to the definition of human freedom in ecumenical circles.
He illustrated how it is possible for sincere Christian theologians to affirm the principle of freedom while denying it in practice.
In what the RA Rev. John B. Bentley, director of the Overseas Department, described as one of the most significant things it has ever done, the National Council allocated the overseas portion of the Church School Missionary Offering for 1964 to the Church of India, Pakistan, Burma, and Ceylon for work at Durgapur, Diocese of Calcutta, which is a newly emerging steel and industrial community.
This action will coincide with the 1964 overseas study theme of Southern Asia and the unified study theme of the Church's ministry in urban society.
Only once before has the Episcopal Church addressed Church School Missionary Offering funds to work overseas other than to that of Episcopal missionary districts. This was in 1958 when they went to further Anglican work in Japan.
The National Council also voted unanimously to join with other Protestant churches to participate in the program of the School of International Service of American University in Washington, D. C.
The program -- it was recommended by the Committee on Churchmen Overseas -- is an attempt to encourage American graduate students to consider Christian vocations in the foreign service.
Just how the Episcopal Church will participate in the future -- whether merely through providing scholarships or the endowment of a professorship -- has yet to be determined.
Council members also gave assurance to the World Council of Churches and the World Council of Christian Education for a joint study, a three-year venture, into the responsibility of the Church in education, the financial share of the Episcopal Church amounting to $5,000.
They also agreed that $1,500 should be appropriated in 1964 for the World Council of Churches-sponsored World Consultation on Curriculum. Before adjourning the Council also passed resolutions that will make possible the following:
# Continuation of a five-year, interdenominational program of theological education overseas, for which $20, 000 will go to the Theological Education Fund of the World Council of Churches.
# Sharing in ministry to military personnel stationed in the Far East by appropriating $3,000 for this National Council of Churches-sponsored program.
# A scientific study of how children grow in religious perception to be conducted at the University of Maryland at a cost of $3,600.
# A consultation of bishops in all Spanish speaking dioceses to explore the need for Christian Education material for overseas use. A sum of $7, 000 was appropriated for this.
# An appropriation of $1,000 toward costs of a consultation on family life, to be held June 3-6 at Seabury House, Greenwich, Conn.
# Assistance to the Anglican Congress Public Relations Committee in the form of $5,000.