Magyar Egyház, 1969 (48. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1969-05-01 / 5. szám
14 MAGYAR EGYHÁZ WCC WELCOMES POPE PAUL’S INTENTION TO VISIT HEADQUARTERS GENEVA — The World Council of Churches welcomed Pope Paul’s intention to visit the Council’s headquarters during his visit to Geneva in June. Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, the Council’s general secretary, in a cable to Pope Paul said: “Warmly welcome your intention to visit World Council of Churches headquarters during your Geneva mission in June. Such a visit cannot hut emphasize growing fellowship among Christians, and on behalf of the officers of the World Council of Churches I am happy to extend fraternal invitation.” Pope Paul VI has expressed his wish to visit the headquarters of the World Council of Churches during his visit to Geneva for the 50th anniversary of the International Labor Organization in the first part of June. The visit — the first of a pope to the 21-year-old World Council — illustrates and emphasizes the developing cooperation between the Roman Catholic and the Council. The World Council has 235 churches of the Old Catholic, the Anglican, Protestant and Orthodox traditions in its membership. The late Cardinal Bea, as president of the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity, visited the headquarters of the Council in February, 1965 when the Joint Working Group of the Roman Catholic Church and the World Council was announced. In January this year, Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, discussed with Pope Paul at the Vatican opportunities and problems raised by the growing cooperation between the Catholic Church and the Council. Official cooperation between the Roman Catholic Church and the World Council has developed since 1965. Roman Catholic theologians serve on the Council’s Commission on Faith and Order. The Pontifical Commission for Justice and Peace and the World Council formed a Committee on Society, Development and Peace in 1968 to promote world justice, development and peace. NEW PAMPHLET ON EXPERIMENTS WITH HUMANS The ethical issues involved in organ transplants and other current medical experiments are graphically described in a new pamphlet in the World Council Studies Series entitled “Experiments with Man”. This report of last year’s ecumenical consultation on the subject held at the Ecumenical Institute, Bossey, has been edited by Hans-Ruedi Weber and is published by the WCC and Friendship Press in the U.S. It is available for $1.50 from the New York offices of the WCC, 475 Riverside Drive, New York, N. Y. 10027. (EPS) NO COMMON MIND ON WAR AND PEACE Sneek, the Netherlands — When the Synod of the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands began its meetings here on May 13 it did not have before it a clear recommendation on nuclear armament from the committee especially charged with the study of the war problem. The committee which had been appointed to prepare a report for this year’s Synod has failed to reach a common mind. From within the committee four separate opinions have been put forward: One group is against all use of force and favors exclusively passive resistance. A second group favors the use of conventional weapons as a deterrent, or as a means of defense in conflict; it rejects the use of nuclear weapons in political strategies. A third group within the committee accepts the use of nuclear arms only where these would be used politically/strategically to prevent larger conflicts. In the opinion of the fourth group the use of nuclear force should not be excluded “when satanic forces threaten to manifest themselves in the world without control”. In a footnote the latter group states emphatically that it does not think the present world-situation, despite the presence of anti-Christian forces in East and West, justifies the use of nuclear force at the moment. The only point on which the committee reached unanimity was that of the need to “change the present international structures which are determined by the pursuit of self-preservation and self-development, at the expense of others”. The committee therefore urges the Reformed Churches to resist all that endangers peace, such as power politics, nationalism and racism. (RPPS) ORTHODOX THEOLOGIAN LOOKS FORWARD TO ROMAN CATHOLICS JOINING WCC Geneva, (EPS) — A leading Greek Orthodox ecumenist has said he would welcome “with real enthusiasm” Roman Catholic membership in the World Council of Churches. “I would regard this as a positive step towards the rediscovery of the Una Sancta”, wrote Prof. Hamilcar S. Alivisatos, president of the Academy of Athens and a member of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches in an article of the Ecumenical Review. Noting that co-operation between the Orthodox Church and the WCC had led Protestant theologians to a better understanding of the ecclesiology, holy tradition and worship of the Orthodox Church, because they had been explained by Orthodox theologians themselves, Dr. Alivisatos said, “It is evident that organic co-operation between the Roman Church and the WCC would have similar, and even more effective, results”. The WCC would lose its pan-Protestant character, he said, but gain in its real ecumenical aim, namely the reunion of the divided Christian churches. COURTS NOT COMPETENT TO RULE ON DOCTRINE, HIGH COURT HOLDS Washington, D. C., (EPS) — U.S. courts may not decide whether a religious body has departed from its beliefs, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled here. The Court’s unanimous decision held that civil courts are not competent to determine whether a denomination has embraced innovations violating church dogmas. It overruled decisions of lower courts in Georgia which awarded church property to breakaway congregations following their charge that the Presbyterian Church
