News & Views
WL S & VIEWS A D|sseag Criticism in L'Osservatore Romano of the non-accessibility of diocesan archives in the U.S. [News & Views, 8/19/77] brought a quick rejoinder from church...
...New Times's Robert Shrum maintains that Paisley's "best friend" in the U.S...
...Two-Wail S t r e e t It isn't just the flow of America dollars to the IRA that is a source of concern...
...Far more seriot~s than the closed-archival policy of American bishops," Ellis wrote, "has been the failure of the Holy See itself to open the Vatican Archives beyond the death of Pope Pius IX in 1878...
...These Catholic campuses are not now producing FBI agents...
...Odds a ~ l Ends ---George P. Winship Jr...
...is Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina...
...This is a distinction not made by the American Catholic Church, which according to the 1977 O~icial Catholic Directory, continues to classify all new Catholics, exclusive of born-Catholics, under the heading "Converts...
...This Vatican policy is the more regrettable in Ellis's opinion when one learns, "on reliable authority," that the voluminous papers for Leo XIII's administration have been readied for scholars's use for some time, with additional accommodations provided in which the scholars could work...
...He continues: "And since the archives of o t h e r branches of the Church's central government normally follow the policy of the Vatican Archives, the current policy prevents anything of a substantial character being done in the Church's history beyond the year 1878...
...Ian Paisley, political agitator, British Parliament member and self-proclaimed head of his own Protestant sect in Northern Ireland, who says he doesn't hate Catholics, "just Catholicism...
...The notice is contained in a new English-language manual for the "reception" of baptized Christians into the Catholic Church there...
...With any luck, rising socially, they will produce as many Communist spies as Harvard once did...
...It would help," New Times quotes an American intelligence source, "if rightwing fundamentalist groups in the U,S...
...JOHN DEEDY 16 September 1977:578...
...The decision to ban or to open usage of the Vatican Archives rests in the final analysis, Ellis reminds, with the Pope himself...
...The Church Council of the American L u t h e r a n Church has deemed insufficient a less offensive version of the "Reproaches" proposed for the new Lutheran Book of Worship, and has asked that the "Reproaches" be deleted completely...
...To be sure," he said, "it is altogether true that some American b i s h o p s have shown a benighted attitude toward their archives, but the majority have been open toward scholars who sought access for research purposes...
...That includes Philadelphia, where no longer than six years ago I was given free access to documents dating from the 1950s...
...The request goes to the Inter-Lutheran Commission on Worship for action...
...Shrum's source: "State Department reports...
...In a foreword, Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Gray of Liverpool states that it has become evident in recent years that the term "convert" is not appropriate to baptized Christians, but should be restricted to people who change from unbelief to Christian belief...
...Writes Hart: "Today, however, these Catholic campuses crawl with New Leftists, swinging theologians, and half-demented nuns...
...Bishop Gray is chairman of Britain's National Liturgical Commission...
...From the comfy, arelligious, ivied precincts of Dartmouth College, syndicated columnist Jeffrey Hart sits in judgment on Catholic colleges such as Holy Cross, Boston College, Fordham, Notre Dame that once produced "most of Hoover's FBI agents," a dubious distinction, by the way...
...Thus the long reign of Pope Leo XIII (18781903) is banned, a ban that has caused ecclesiastical historians more frustration than all the American dioceses combined...
...would stop helping Paisley"--the Rev...
...offered this pleasant couplet "On the Ordination of Women" in the Christian Century: "God chose the humblest role that Godhead can:/For our redemption She became a man...
...News & Views, 8/19/77] brought a quick rejoinder from church historian John Tracy Ellis...
...Catholic Bishops Conference recommended last spring that parishes substitute a hymn in their stead...
...8appg Trend Add another American church to those moving to get rid of the "Reproaches," the ancient litany of chastisement in the Good Friday liturgy directed at Jews for the crucifixion of Jesus and now widely regarded as antiSemitic and unecumenical...
...Nice I d e a The Catholic Church in England, Wales and Scotland has officially dropped the term "convert" for members of other churches who are received into full communion...
...In a letter to the Washington Post, Father Ellis claimed that in his 35 years of research in the field of American Catholic history he has been denied access to a diocesan archive only twice: once in Savannah in 1948 and once in Tucson in 1955...
...Ellis added his voice to criticism alluded to in the Religious News Service item cited here: that for Osservatore Romano to speak disparagingly of American diocesan archival policy was a little like the stove calling kettle black...
...This from a man who in the same column dares call Dan Berrigan "zany...
...The Episcopal Church voted at its 1976 convention in Minneapolis to delete the "Reproaches" from its new Book of Common Prayer, and a committee of the U.S...
...According to Shrum, Thurmond "has privately raised money for Paisley, who in turn has passed it on to Protestant terrorists...
Vol. 104 • September 1977 • No. 19
