Magyar Egyház, 1962 (41. évfolyam, 2-12. szám)
1962-03-01 / 3. szám
MAGYAR EGYHÁZ 13 CCIA Officials Warn Additional Soviet Tests May Follow New U.S. Nuclear Tests (New York) — The Commission of the Churches on International Affairs has warned that the U.S. government’s decision to resume atmospheric nuclear tests “will almost surely lead to further and similar action by the Soviet Union. “We regret very much that, on the basis of scientific and military analyses, the resumption of tests in the atmosphere is deemed essential to security”, the statement said. It was signed by the CCIA chairman, Sir Kenneth Grubb, London, and its director, Dr. O. Frederick Nolde, New York, and realeased simultaneously in New York and London, shortly after President Kennedy’s announcement Friday night of the resumption of the test series. The CCIA officials said: “We fully accept that the reason given for this is the conviction that the USSR made substantial gains in the nuclear weapons field when it unilaterilly resumed atmospheric testing last fall, and that the balance of deterrent capability on which peace today tenuously rests is thus endangered. Nevertheless, we as officers of the CCIA would be failing in our duty if we remained silent at this time.” The statement quotes earlier statements which have had the approval of World Council policy making bodies, including one issued in 1957, which questions “whether any nation is justified in deciding on its own responsibility to conduct such tests when the people of other nations in all parts of the world who have not agreed may have to bear the consequences.” The statement says it was hoped that international relations would improve sufficiently so that it will make unnecessary for the U.S. to carry out its decision to resume tests, but -that even if this is not possible, the decision should be kept under steady review and reversed if the continuance of tests is seen to carry greater risks than their cessation. The Commission is an agency of the World Council of Churches. EPS, Geneva urally, extremely important but it is ouly one part of its operation. Other activities are its scholarship program for students, its self-health schemes for communities, its provision of medicines in places where these cannat be otherwise obtained, its circulation of theological literature to isolated pastors and scholars, and its granting of loans to impoverished churches. Now that portfolios have been opened for Asia, Latin America, and, it is hoped, for Africa, the needs of these continents will be more clearly understood at headquarters. The primary purpose of Inter-Church Aid is to give help when it is needed, where it is needed, and how it is needed in the opinion of local Christians. But there have been two by-products. Inescapably, the work has witnessed to Jesus Christ’s love; and it has fostered that churchly unity which the World Council, DICASR’s parent body, exists to promote. In the words of Dr. Leslie Cooke, Director of the Division of Inter-Church bid and Service to Refugees. “Hands clasped across national and confessional boundaries are not likely to let go when the clouds roll away. Hands first clasped in the act of giving and receiving are now hands clasped in the partnership of a ministry to others in need.” CHURCHMEN ASK REVISION OF U.S. IMMIGRATION SYSTEM (Kansas City) — The General Board of the National Council of Churches (USA) has adopted a statement urging elimination of “racial and cultural discrimination” in the country’s immigration quota system. Declaring that the U.S. government’s immigration law “neither reflects Christian concern adequately, nor furthers our national interest sufficiently”, the Board suggested replacing the system, in which each country is assigned a given quota (based on the number of people from the country in the U.S. in 1920), with a list of four criteria which would have nothing to do with national origin. The four points would grant admission to persons “with occupational skills generally employed in the U.S.”; persons “whose coming will tend to stimulate rather than jeopardize economic health and growth in the U.S.; persons in special need, “including those afflicted with ills and disabilities which make them a charge on the world’s peoples”; and those persons whose admission would reunite families. The statement also proposed the enactment of permanent legislation which would provide for the admission of approximately 10,000 needy refugees each year over the quota allocations, and authorize the President to admit more in case of emergencies, such as the 1956 Hungarian revolution. EPS, Geneva Evangelicals on Increase in Spain Despite Church Closings (Madrid) — In spite of increasing pressures against them the number of Evangelicals in Spain continues to increase, and at present they have 242 places of worship. The figures are given in a report in the British Weekly, a non-denominational newspaper. The newspaper said that “although converts are invariably from amongst the irreligious, the established church (Roman Catholic) regards their work as an encroachment on its right.” It quotes a pastoral letter by the Bishop of Madrid- Alcala issued at the beginning of this year and published in Ecclesia, official organ of the Spanish Catholic Church. In the letter, the Bishop writes: “In spite of the ecumenical movement and the Week of Prayer for the reunion of Christendom, we must move without any humane considerations against Protestants when they try to spread their errors and heresies, because true ecumenism, after all, means only return to Rome. That letter, the British Weekly said, “heralded a new drive to suppress the evangelical churches.” It reported that at present “27 of the largest Protestant churches in Spain have been closed by the police without explanation or lawful authority (and) there is no appeal against such edicts.” EPS, Geneva * A SPANISH COURT has sentenced a Spanish soldier to three years imprisonment for “insubordination” because he refused to kneel during a Roman Catholic mass which his unit was attending. The youth, who is a Baptist, told the court that he regarded this external mark of reverence as incompatible with his religious beliefs, EPS, Geneva
