Interventionist Church

The Episcopal Church, through 30 representative leaders, ranged itself foursquare against the isolationists last week and came out for "every step necessary" for "the complete defeat" of an un-Christian Naziism which is "seeking to dominate the entire world."

This stand was unanimously taken by six members of a commission appointed by the last General Convention to study the church's position on world affairs and by 24 other prominent Episcopalians appointed as advisers to the commission by Presiding Bishop Henry St. George Tucker, who was himself a member of the group. Among the signers were nine bishops, a dozen ministers, such top-flight laymen as longtime (1897-1939) A. F. of L. Secretary Frank Morrison, President, J. Peter Williams Jr. of Koppers Coal, Vice President Harvey S. Firestone Jr. of Firestone Tire & Rubber, Secretary E. C. Davison of the International Association of Machinists, Labor Consultant Spencer Miller Jr., Lawyer Charles P. Taft.

These 30 leaders condemned isolationism as "contrary to the Christian Gospel," chided America for its "selfish withdrawal from world community in the past." They endorsed peace objectives similar to those already endorsed by a number of other church groups, but went much further than any other church group has yet ventured in proposing teeth for the postwar organization of nations. Said they:

"After the war, responsibility for peace may involve ethical use of forces in behalf of law and right quite as much as in the case of a struggle for victory in war. No nation can escape this responsibility for the restraint of evil within its borders nor for coercion in the use of force in a wider sphere when it accepts a role within a family of nations."

The Pope last week ended the sanguine hopes of those who had made themselves believe that he might take sides openly against the dictators, declared that "the church does not want to mix in disputes about the opportunity, utility, and earthly efficacy of diverse temporal forms which are purely political institutions or activities."

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