Magyar Egyház, 1960 (39. évfolyam, 1-9. szám)
1960-03-01 / 3. szám
MAGYAR EGYHÁZ 9 NATIONAL COUNCIL PRESIDENT DENOUNCES ATHEISTIC COMMUNISM (RNW.)—Expressing gratification that the Air Force has withdrawn the training manual in which the National Council of Churches was linked with communism, NCCC President Edwin T. Dahlberg stated that these charges “are a beating of old straw.” Similar accusations have been refuted again and again, he said. “The National Council of Churches has repeatedly made its position perfectly clear,” he declared. “It repudiates communism and all its works in full awareness of the treachery, duplicity and materialistic atheism of the whole Communist regime.” The withdrawal of the manual “is a smashing victory for the National Council of Churches and the forces of freedom,” Dr. Dahlberg said. He emphasized that it is a matter of importance not only to the churches but to the press to set straight any remaining misunderstandings as to the National Council’s firm position. General Board Resolution Repudiates “Absurd Charges” “Attempts to discredit and create suspicion against the religious institutions of this country are a patent violation of the free exercise of religion as guaranteed by the Constitution,” a National Council resolution passed Feb. 24 asserted. Meeting in Oklahoma City, the 250-member General Board of the National Council of Churches stated its stand concerning publication in an Air Force manual of defamatory allegations of communism in the churches. “How long,” the resolution asked, “are the American people going to allow various agencies of the government to continue the practice of treating false and absurd charges, lifted from confidential files, as material to be seriously used as a basis for security decisions and for official indoctrination of government employes?” The resolution authorizes National Council staff to make themselves available to the government “to interpret the concerns of the Council relative to what appeared to us to be un-Constitutional and really un- American activities of governmental agencies.” During discussions preceding the resolution’s adoption, General Board members reviewed the records of several “McCarthy-like religious dissidents” working to discredit the ecumenical movement, the National and World Councils of Churches and their leaders. Among them, the Rev. Dr. Carl Mclntire, Collingswood, N. J., was named as “probably responsible for the most recent charges against the NCC.” Unfrocked as a minister of the Presbyterian Church in the USA in 1936, he organized the fundamentalist American Council of Christian Churches in 1941. Quoted: The Soviet Ambassador to Canada: “We are not planning to emigrate to some celestial body and leave the earth to the capitalists.” World Refugee Year News WHAT OTHERS ARE DOING “The angry young men” of England, who gave the impetus to the World Refugee Year, deserve a vote of thanks from refugees all over the globe, for what they touched off was no dry study of statistics and facts, but an appeal to all of us to do what can be done to help in a practical way. All told, 55 countries actively pitched in and are engaged in programs of all kinds. About 70 volunteer charitable organizations throughout the world have formed an international committee for the World Refugee Year, headed by Dr. Elfan Rees, of the World Council of Churches. Australia’s government has contributed a sum of more than $100,000 and will grant an additional 3,000 refugee entry visas to that country. Belgium’s government is paying family assistance to those Hungarian refugees whose children are still in Hungary. New Zealand has done much to support the efforts of the United Nations with respect to camp clearance in Europe by granting physically handicapped persons visas. Sweden plans to raise its contributions to the programs of the High Commissioner for Refugees to 630.000 Deutsche Marks. Sweden is opening its borders to an additional limited number of tubercular refugees from Austria with their families. The Swedish Red Cross is bearing the expense of 20.000 marks for a community project of the Scandinavian Red Cross Society on behalf of Hungarian refugees in Austria. The Swedish Save the Children Foundation is giving 2,100 000 marks to aid children and youths in Austria and Greece and young Algerians in Morocco. Total giving in Britain during the first half of World Refugee Year has been reported at more than 1,000,000 pounds sterling ($2,800,000). In France, the Protestant and Roman Catholic Relief Agencies are using the same poster in an appeal for funds and material goods for needy Algerian refugees. “Secours Catholique” and CIMADE, the ecumenical service agency of French Protestant and Orthodox Churches, and a third agency, the Centre Francais de Protection de l’Enfance, have issued the poster as a part of a special joint campaign, the first of its kind made in France. As part of World Refugee Year, a young British artist is devoting the entire proceeds from the sale of his paintings and sketches at an exhibition to the work of relief organization. He is Paul Winner, 25, of London, who has worked on various international committees and has lectured on behalf of World Refugee Year. Lady Churchill, wife of the former British Prime Minister, in an appeal for aid for World Refugee Year reported by the New York Times, told this story: “I heard of a young refugee boy living in a camp in Austria who, with his father, was watching a house being built in a nearby village. ‘Daddy,’ he asked, ‘what kind of people can live in houses?’ ” (CROP News Bulletin)
