Magyar Egyház, 1960 (39. évfolyam, 1-9. szám)
1960-01-01 / 1. szám
10 MAGYAR EGYHÁZ WORLD REFUGEE YEAR Achievements and Efforts of the World Council of Churches Problems of people and how to solve them were uppermost in the program of the World Council of Churches again in 1959. Recognizing that Christian responsibility must be exercised in all matters affecting man’s destiny, the Council dealt with a wide variety of problems. In the first half of World Refugee Year, the World Council’s Division of Inter-church Aid and Service to Refugees, one of the principal voluntary agencies in the refugee field, has expanded its world-wide program of assistance. In the first ten months of 1959 the Council resettled 9,815 refugees in more than thirty countries. The total figure for the year will probably be around 11,000. Since World War II, the Council has helped more than 200,000 refugees to find new homes. A word of caution about World Refugee Year was sounded recently in New York by Dr. Elf an Rees, adviser on refugees to the World Council of Churches. Dr. Rees warned that the churches and public must not get the impression that the refugee problem is solved when the year is concluded in July 1960. “It will not be. There are more than 45 million refugees and we have hardly touched the problem.” Another factor is the inevitable disappointment for the refugee who does not get a new home in 1960 “For, of course, every xefugee thinks this will be his year. And for most of them it will not.” Despite the extent of the refugee problem, much is being done during the year of special emphasis. Many camps in Europe are being cleared. The World Council of Churches, in addition to resettlement, has concentrated on rehabilitation and selfhelp programs and housing for refugees in their countries of asylum. Churches throughout the world annually give millions to this phase of the World Council’s program. Church World Service of the National Council of Churches in the USA is the United States agency through which many American churches participate in the world program. At year’s end the World Council was planning a new project — an ecumenical team — to work with Algerian refugees in Tunis. The idea of the international and interdenominational team of young people who devote themselves to projects of service as a demonstration of Christian unity is growing. The World Council pioneered the idea with the Greek Team near Ionnina in Northern Greece where young agriculturalists of many nations are working to help an improverished rural area. Now a successful team has been launched in a needy area of Southern Italy at Falerna. Here where the annual cash income is less than $250 per person, the WCC in cooperation with Italy’s Federal Council of Churches has undertaken one of the most imaginative and perhaps most difficult enterprises in its history of aid to underdeveloped areas,---------•--------(RNW)—President Eisenhower has ben called upon by the General Board of the National Council of Churches to allocate the full $10,000,000 provided under the Mutual Security Act for aid to refugees. The board also urged its 33-member church bodies “to encourage members of Congress to act responsibly” by passing permanent refugee legislation to admit 10,000 nonquota refugees and escapees to this country each year. R.C COUNCIL ASKED TO SPEAK ON RELIGIOUS LIBERTY (GENEVA) Hope that the coming Vatican-convened Ecumenical Council will “speak clearly on the question of religious liberty” was voiced by officials of world confessional bodies representing some 250 million Christians. Such a pronouncement is “highly important for the sake of improving inter-church relations,” said the international spokesmen for ten branches of Christendom ranging from Anglicans and Eastern Orthodox to Pentecostals and Friends (Quakers). At a two-day meeting of world confessional groups Which met recently in Geneva, the common view was expressed that “all who have occasion to express the opinions of the non-Roman churches on the subject of the next Ecumenical Council of the Roman Catholic Church should underline that it is highly important, f or the sake of improrving inter-church relations, that this council should speak clearly on the question of religious liberty.” Other Protestant world bodies represented at the gathering were those of the Lutherans, Presbyterian- Reformed, Methodists, Baptists, Congregationalists and Churches of Christ (Disciples). SPANISH PASTOR SENTENCED FOR ENTERING CHAPEL 'EPS)—A Spanish Baptist pastor, charged with removing seals from the door of his chapel and re-entering it after its closure by the police in 1954, was brought into court by the state authorities. The Rev. Jose Nunez told a civil court that in 1956 he removed weather-worn paper seals affixed by police in 1954. He claimed that attempts to find out what authority had closed the chapel had been unsuccessful because his letters of protest, addressed to the government, were not answered. The public prosecutor said removal of the seals from the chapel, which had previously been authorised by the Spanish Government as a place of worship in 1949, was illegal. The court did not immediately announce its judgment in the trial, which was attended by about 400 Spanish Protestants. Other observers included a representative of the Southern Baptist Convention in the USA, which owns the chapel, and a US embassy official. Attempts by the defendant’s lawyer to invoke guarantees of religious liberty in the national constitution were disallowed by the court as irrelevant to the case. Finally, Pastor Nunez was sentenced to two months in prison and a fine of 1,000 pesetas (about $17) for breaking the police seals and re-entering the chapel. According to a Reuters news agency report the sentence will not be carried out because of a Spanish amnesty proclaimed last year when Pope John XXIII became pope.-----------o----------Pope John XXIII is reported to be establishing in Rome an institute for the study of Protestantism to train Roman Catholic priests who will work in Protestant countries. Italian press agencies report that courses will last three years and be run for doctors of theology. The opening date of the school, which will be run by the Jesuit order, has not been announced.
