NEWS & VIEWS
NEWS & VIEWS Religion's Voice Those who vony about the Supreme Court narrowing its views on the prerogatives of religious groups to speak out on issues have reason for pause' over some recent...
...As one Vietnam-watcher commented: 'One is increasingly inclined to believe that the senior people will not come back . . . the impression is that they are being used as forced labor.' They have certainly been used for mine clearance, and some have been killed as a result...
...The ordinary vicar of a parish now earns £46 a week-25 percent less than the average male manual worker...
...That you are concerned is certainly understandable...
...But the remedy isn't Rebnquist's...
...It would be "unthinkable," he explained, mat major church, denominations would publicly endorse a candidate for President of the United States...
...And yet 1 wmdet...
...we simply are not able to give a knowledgeable answer...
...Consequently, we really do not know what is the validity of the charges that we read in the paper...
...A Communist official in the Delta recently put it in a less kindly way than General Tra: those with a 'Mood debt' to society, he said, could only discharge it by hard labor and, he implied, this for the rest of then-lives...
...We of the Midwest Province, with our headquarters in Milwaukee, are an entirely separate and individual province...
...But if the Manchester Guardian's Martin Woollacott is to be credited, from 15,000 to 20,000 South Vietnamese-"it could be much more, but it is prob-ably not less"-have been "removed" from society...
...Recently several hundred officers up to that rank were released from re-education at a ceremony near Saigon watched by foreign journalists, and a number of soldiers and officers captured in the final battles of the war have also been released...
...JOHN DEEDYY...
...Perhaps they are embarrassed that their prediction of a bloodbath turned out to be completely false...
...JOHN DEEDYale manual worker...
...But if their validity is ever subscribed to by the majority of the Court, they could neutralize church-mea on any number of matters where a plurality of positions is possible in any given denominational group...
...It is for this reason that we felt we owed some statement, some clarification for your benefit and ours...
...Addressing a Lutheran Laymen's Fellowship gathering in Washington, Rehnquist expressed reservations about the "extent" to which U.S...
...Could the American bishops, for instance, any longer speak for American Catholics generally on public housing or, better still, abortion questions...
...Obviously,' Indeed Brothers in Christ, maybe...
...He cites the case of the officer corps: "Army officers were called for 're-education' as early as June last year and asked to bring clothing, toilet articles, and money sufficient for a month's stay in the countryside...
...One can think of any number of issues on which church leaders might have witnessed differently from what they did...
...The 12,600 clergy of the Church of England received a £6-a-week pay raise last month, that sum allowed by the government's pay policy...
...In other words, Rehnquist w,ould have been one of those who would have walked out on Episcopal Bishop, Paul Moore Jr.'s Easter sermon charging corporations that leave New York City with lietrayal...
...Mainly they are from the old officer corps, the higher bureaucracy and political ranks...
...churches have taken ptiblic positions on major issues-and though" he seems not to have said specifically that it was time for a reassessment, die suggestion is implicit in his remarks...
...But not brothers in distress, obviously...
...NEWS & VIEWS Religion's Voice Those who vony about the Supreme Court narrowing its views on the prerogatives of religious groups to speak out on issues have reason for pause' over some recent remarks of Associate Justice William H. Refan-quist...
...We ourselves are very much concerned, too...
...The stories that you have been reading concern the Pallottines of the Eastern Province, Baltimore, Maryland...
...It amounts almost to a muzzling of religion...
...It seems not "Surely there must come a point," Rehnquist commented, "at which the church simply ought not to take positions, even though those positions were determined in the most democratic manner conceivable...
...For us to try to explain the problem to you in any other way is impossible...
...These are rhetorical questions, perhaps...
...he continued, "if, it is such a gr,eat jump from being em-broiled in controversial social and political issues to such sin endorsement, as it is from what I regard as the core areas of the faith to the latter...
...This from the Pallottines of Milwaukee, Wis.: "Dear Friend: "You are undoubtedly wondering about the un-favorable publicity surrounding the name of the Pallottines...
...Obviously, the publicity has affected us...
...Are we reading more into Rehnquist's words than he intended...
...The New Vietnam "Since the end of the war, American news media have carried very little news of Vietnam," begins an article in the publication of the International Committee, in Minneapolis...
...In the ftrat place," he said, "to what extent can a church claim to speak lor-its members [when making public declarations...
...Well, there apparently has been no bloodbath...
...As one State of the Union is separate from another, in administration, finance and territory, yet belonging to the same, nation, so our provinces in the Pallottine Society differ one from the other...
...But there is no' evidence yet of a wholesale return even of junior officers to ordinary life, and, from colonel up, the exceptions are few and far between and these mainly officers from the technical arms...
...In retrospect, this was a cruel deception, since few over the rank of major have since returned...
...For all the talk of reconciliation, of "enabling the former enemy to rediscover his Vietnameseness," thousands of Vietnamese are being counted out, perhaps for die rest of their lives, according to Woollacott...
...And if it does not claim to speak for its members, is it being entirely candid when it takes a public position on a controversial issue...
...But, says The Economist, expect no flood of new recruits to the clergy...
Vol. 103 • May 1976 • No. 11
