A socialist witness

...He is currently chairman of the Workers' Defense League...

...Black American Catholics have countess gifts and strengths they are willing to share...

...might add that, with notable exceptions, political rrp~ong is very poor in America...

...The terrible wars of religion had a certain horrible logic behind them, he said, and tolerance was eventually born of exhaustion and a. turning from religious fanaticism rather than a triumph of Christian brotherhood...

...Why not, then, church...

...that if evil befalls me so does good, often far beyond my conscious desert...

...For, mused Thomas, " I cannot explain the beauty of the earth or the effect upon me of the starry heavens in terms of physics, geology, and astronomy...

...It is no wonder that such a small, energetic, bright man as Bishop Tutu can send tremors through a government...

...Francis held at Manhattan's St...

...These gifts are detailed by the pastoral, and their strengths and variety are evident in the composition of the letter itself_9 As the bishops state, "we learned to celebrate in the midst of sorrow, to hope in the depths of despair, and to fight for freedom in .the face of all obstacles . . . . This is the responsibility that freedom brings: to teach to others its value, and work to see that its benefits are denied to none...

...His questions provoked protest but no answer, and Thomas was not invited to furthep meetings...

...And that question stands even if one admits--as I do--that there is a goodness in the universe not easily explained without some ultimate...

...It must be even more frustrating for the incumbent candidate whose capsule characterization may be the only thing that has appeared in the paper about him in his last two years in office...

...World War I made it impossible for Thomas to reconcile war and Christianity...

...The devil of the orthodox," he noted, "must have his moments of profound despair over the virtue and kindness that all man's weakness and cruelty cannot crush...

...times in succession for the Presidency on the Socialist ticket . . . . The difficulty faced by a Socialist candidate...

...One has to feel, then, for the candidate who must make what use he can of a one-line recommendation such as "He knows Washington and speaks passionately for the environment" (New York Times...

...We have seen a similar phenomenon in Brazil's Dom Helder Camara...

...Nor does he save his insights for those at home...

...When Thomas was called upon to speak, he said it was logically and historically untrue that the religious bodies which they represented had been made more tolerant and brotherly by the intensity of their creeds...

...And each Protestant sect had been inclined in its day to maintain that it provided the exclusive road to heaven...

...The question is how far He works for righteousness...

...Is this instinctive response denied because I cannot longer confidently affirm the catechism definition of Him as a 'spirit infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His b e i n g . . . ' ? I can still say with Tolstoy, 'God is the name of my desire.' " HARRY FLEISCHMAN (Harry Fleischman, former national secretary of the Socialist Party, is the author of Norman Thomas: A Biography-- 1884-1968, published by Norton...

...Still less can I explain by biology or tell how chemical and physical processes are transmuted into Beethoven's music, or Shakespeare's verse, or a mother's love for her child...

...But Thomas satisfied the majority of the presbytery that his doubts did not affect his fundamental faith in basic Christianity...

...Walter Rauschenbusch, a Christian Socialist minister, particularly his Prayers of the Social Awakening...

...Botha's implied affront in not issuing a comment on Bishop Tutu's selection is not without precedent...

...He and a small group of fellow Franciscan Tertiaries were renewing their annual promises as members of the Third Order with its special vocation of peacemaking...

...Thomas was much moved, by the writings of Dr...

...The letter, published in September, is the first of its kind from America's black Catholic bishops, and we hope only the In'st...

...Then followed the discussion of the pros and cons of the Senate candidates in the area, then the congressional candidates and so on...

...Even our prayers will speak of our exultation in power and the pride of our vengeance...

...At the same time his views on religion slowly changed...

...In the major metropolitan newspapers this went on day after day...

...He conceded that "There is undoubtedly a Power, not ourselves, behind the universe whom or which we may call God...

...In 1917, Thomas, as an independent, backed Morris Hillquit, the Socialist candidate for mayor of New York, who ran on an anti-war platform...

...Sorrowed by the death of his beloved wife, Violet, in 1947, Thomas wrote again of his deep longing for a belief in life after death: " I covet for myself a faith I cannot h a v e . . . More than I can tell, I wish that I thought such love as mine and Violet's could live not alone in memory and perhaps in influence...

...Meanwhile, South Africa has recently experienced the greatest degree of civil unrest since the 1970s, this following the implementation of the new South African constitution in September...

...But as Bishop Tutu would point out, neither does the "Quiet Diplomacy" of the United States...

...War itself is only the most horrible and dramatic of the many evil fruits of our present organized system of exploitation and the philosophy of life which exalts competition instead of cooperation...

...As they stood in a body before their Franciscan superior, there was a simple, tangible, significant bond among them...

...Thomas became active in the Socialist party, edited the FOR's magazine, The World Tomorrow, and, after his nomination for governor of New York in 1924, became a perennial Socialist candidate...

...Born in Marion, Ohio in 1884, Norman Thomas was the son and grandson of Presbyterian ministers...

...Before he was ordained, he was too unorthodox for some Presbyterian theologians...

...To a Roman Catholic witness, the startling nature of the ceremony lay not in the fact that both the deacon and sub-deacon at the ceremony were women who fulfilled their duties in the solemn rites with such prayerful completeness, nor the eloquence of the bishop's own homily, but the disarming simplicity with which Bishop Tutu renewed his own promises at the side of this fellow Tertiaries...

...The Reverend John Fox questioned Thomas on the historicity of the Virgin Birth and a literal resurrection of the body of Christ...

...In populous states and circulation areas the latter can be numerous indeed...

...In his later years, Thomas still used the term God "as a kind of personification of spiritual values in which I do believe and for which the noblest humanism seems to me to lack an equivalent...

...Thomas began to lose faith in a God who was at once power and love...

...WE'D BETTER PAY ATrENTION TO CONGRESS I N THE LAST two weeks before the election this year the ritual began once again: the newspapers of the country -- and some of the magazines -began endorsing candidates and explaining their choices...

...More eggs and vegetables '~,r Iluown at Wendell Willkie in 1940 than [ ever .saw in five Presidential campaigns Sometimes I have thought that more open hostility to what I sa,d would be a better omen for demot~cy than indifference or z kind of fatalisttc attitude summed up in the sentiment: "Yc~u're right, but what can we do about i t ? " , . . NO, the difficulty of Socialist campaugning., has bern lack of orgamz~uon and funds to w~,ge a campaign on so immense a scale as the size of the country together with the ~ganizational and financial strength 04 r the rnajor parties requires...

...Archbishop Hurley's trial is to begin in Febmary, and stems from a 1983 news conference at which he released a report on South African troop atrocities against civilians in Namibia...

...There was a time when the House Commonweal: 648...

...especially ~here minr parties m'e r I should be given a degree from a school of journalism for educltting reporters in the barest clerncnL~ of economic and political theory+ Almost always t~sr repo~ers arc a good sort, They mean to be fair...

...Thomas still knew little of socialism...

...The Jews, he reminded his audience, were a chosen people in a peculiar sense by the act of God...

...The hope for the future," Thomas wrote Hillquit, "lies in a new social and economic order which demands the abolition of the capitalistic system...

...Thomas rejected his earlier, almost automatic faith in a sure and desirable "far off divine event to which the whole creation moves...

...I shall not be among there, although all sorts of memories and desires urge me to go . . . Where shall we look but to God, if He be good, now that science has wrested from Him so much of the secret of the force that holds together the atom and the universe...

...The Sunday after the Japanese surrendered, ending World War II, Thomas wrote in his diary: "Nature rejoices with men...

...Because, if God be omnipotent Power, I cannot praise His ordering of this war-cursed world...

...And, when Norman Thomas died in 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson, whom Thomas criticized on the Vietnam War, said: "With the passing of Norman Thomas, America loses one of its most eloquent speakers, finest writers, and creative t h i n k e r s . . . He was a humane and courageous man who lived to see many of the causes he championed become the law of the land...

...He liberated us from the bondage of sin -- and oppression is an expression of sin...

...To the American business community he said recently: "What we have to say to those who invest in South Africa is that your investment is a moral as well as an economic issue...

...As parish minister, as political leader with many intimate contacts with the labor struggle, as a neighbor among neighbors, I have seen quite too much goodness and quiet heroism and capacity for mutual aid to accept any dogma of total depravity...

...Finally, in light of the attention lavished on recent American pastorals on peace and the economy, we would fail utterly if we did not voice fitting appreciation for the recent pastoral letter of the American black bishops on evangelization: "What We Have Seen and Heard" (St...

...He voted for Woodrow Wilson in 1916 to keep America out of war...

...By the end of 1916 he joined the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), a Christian pacifist group, and the American Union Against Militarism, which in 1920 became the American Civil Liberties Union...

...Or how can He accept our adoration unless we bring to Him the sacrifice of a humble and contrite heart...

...When it became clear to Thomas that his anti-war activities were leading many supporters of his East Harlem parish to withdraw their financial contributions, Thomas resigned so that social work for the poor people in the parish would not suffer...

...Of several minds: Abigail McCarthy I THIRD BRANCH, BEST HOPE...

...Shortly after World War I, Thomas attended several conferences which led to the creation of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, where those present explained why their religion gave them a greater sense of brotherhood...

...Hurley pied not guilty to the charge, conviction for which could lead to an eight-year sentence, and/or fines of up to $12,000...

...they evidently feel a responsibility to all the citizens within reaching distance of their papers...

...Nevertheless, he demitted from the ministry in 1931...

...If He be love, how can I give Him thanks for the triumph of amoral force...

...For the editors of the big metropolitan dallies this can take in a lot of territory...

...The first black person elected general secretary of the South African Council of Churches and now the fLrSt black Anglican Bishop of Johannesburg, he has said, "Jesus Christ is involved in the liberation struggle...

...They discuss, therefore, the qualifications, in their view, of the candidates for the Senate from several states and most of the candidates for the House of Representatives...

...First, there was the announcement of the presidential choice...

...Anthony Messenger Press...

...I suppose--no, I know--the thing to do is to keep on, to enjoy what can be enjoyed, to do the things one certainly believes should be done, and among the uncertain to make the choices which will best give human decency a chance to live and grow...

...If there is a moment in history when this gift, in the United States as well as in Africa, must not be squandered, it is the present_9 Norman Thomas centennial A SOCIALIST WITNESS GOD, GOODNESS, & QUIET HEROISM N OVEMBER 20, 1984 marked the one hundredth birthday of Norman Thomas, the six-time presidential candidate of the Socialist party from 1928 to 1948...

...Although these endorsements are not 'as important to the candidates as they were in the pre-television era, they are often of great importance still to Senate candidates, especially those seeking to unseat an incumbent, and they can make the crucial difference between winning and losing for a House candidate...

...An American State Department official stated last week that violence does not hold the solution for the complex situation in South Africa...

...And that we shall not offer...

...Soon the church bells will ring and the little churches will be crowded with thankful worshippers...

...9 . . This is our last peaceful chance...

...In literally thousands of me.clings in all pans of the United States (many of them streetcorner or other outdoor meetings) whleh I have Iddr~sc, d a~ candidate for the Presidency or lesser offices, 1 re+ member amazingly hnle ~t,tml of l ~ t i a l disorder...

...While he still felt them dubiously Christian according to the teachings of Christ, he thought they filled a 30 November 1984:647 place of great importance in community life, and brought real help and comfort to their members...

...He lost every race but, in the words of United Auto Workers' president Walter Reuther, was the "unofficial president of the better society that had--and still has--to be created...

...The Reader's Digest declared: "He Never Got Elected_9 But He Altered Our Government...

...At the same time, he began to accept the socialist challenge that the war was imperialist on both sides...

...Appalled by the deplorable slum conditions in New Commonweal: 646 York City, he became attracted to the social gospel...

...Why," asked Thomas, "should believers on this earth be so much kinder to infidels and heretics than their God, who has prepared death and Hell for those not chosen of His grace...

...Although he argued that man's wickedness and stupidity, not God's, was responsible for the unhappy world of 1920, he could not help but ask, "Has a God of love no responsibility for the weakness of the men He had made...

...Thomas studied for the ministry at Union Theological Seminary...

...Is it wrong for me ever to say, 'Thank God' (when perhaps I should thank Fate or Fortune) or to steady my heart and mind by something akin toprayer...

...God, he felt, was not the "God and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ" if his servants could only serve him and the cause of righteousness by the "diabolical" means of war...

...Following the Civil War his maternal grandfather, Stephen Mattoon, was president of a Presbyterian college for Negroes in Charlotte, North Carolina, now known as Johnson C. Smith University...

...Three days after the Nobel selection, the South African government charged Bishop Tutu's Catholic counterpart, Archbishop Denis Hurley of Durban, president of the South African Catholic Bishops' Conference, with revealing police information...

...This I know: I walk in a world sometimes of pain and sorrow but a world of beauty and wonder...

...Peter's Episcopal Church...

...In every aspect it is one of good news, full of the strength and deep joy that spring from the unique experience of black Americans_9 The letter echoes Paul VI's admonition to the people of Uganda: "You must now give your gifts of blackness to the whole church...

...My fears are the fears of so many that we could very well have a blood bath...

...I should like a surer hope...

...According to news agencies, thousands of blacks have been forced from their homes, many have been imprisoned, and 155 have been killed since the first of the year...

...To a government based on apartheid, he makes human barriers seem to dissolve_9 He displays as well a secret, compressed, inner joy and self-confidence which utterly baffle his powerful opponents...

...Scarcely two weeks before the Nobel announcement, Bishop Tutu had taken part in a ceremony on the feast of St...

...His grandparents were strongly anti-slavery...

...As the years went by, and Thomas started to regard churches more and more as fallible man-made institutions, his respect for them rose...

...But, the pastoral notes, without guidance and support from the church, "the wealth of black giftedness risks being lost...

...is not ovea hostility . In my hletime i have occlsionally ~ r roots ~ hostile Ixdice Not...

...But, , , there is a general assamption that [he peol~le aren't interested in a logical in~tscntation of a political argument . . . . I remember tree campaign when even the New York Times published the ~me wisecrack I made four of five times over, although it had very litllc space to summarize my arguments --Nornum Thomu, "Refle~tiorm ot' an Old Caml~ilner" Common,,eal, DecembeT 22, 1944 |1 tional circumstances, be saved...

...It is for everyone to speak out -- business, bishops, everybody...

...however, in political campaigns, hut in free speech tests, strike meetings, or the effoa to orglnize w,Jrkers ~,r ,shatectopf~rs...

...As for the Catholics, outside the church there was no salvation, even though some who were not Catholic might, under excepI HAVE a t ~ FIVE...

...The virtual wipeout of the members of the House of Representatives in the news columns is one of the interesting phenomena of the past twenty or more years...