Revivified Christendom?

The London Times, which likes to set off brisk little intellectual bonfires in its famed letters column, found it had a red-hot religious discussion on its hands. A 2,000-word article by a "Special Correspondent," titled Catholicism Today: Relations between Rome and the Christian World, started it. While he praised the Roman Catholic Church for resistance to Communism, the Times writer questioned whether the Catholic "machinery of ecclesiastical government ... is at the present time perfectly adjusted to Christianity's universal mission. Having no 20th Century Aquinas, the Roman Church sometimes appears intellectually ill at ease in the modern world . . .

"Will the Roman Church continue tacitly accepting the role assigned to it as the largest of the Christian sects and thus, while encouraging all to enter 'the one ark of salvation,' remain, defending its traditional privileges and furthering its corporate interests, engrossed in its own affairs? Or will it ... condescending to discuss ways and means with the heretics and schismatics, strive (assuming their cooperation) to bring into being a revivified Christendom?"

By last week, the Times had published letters from an M.P., five bishops (four Anglican and one Catholic), several noted Roman Catholic writers (including Arnold Lunn and Robert Sencourt) and some 30 others. The Anglican Bishop of Winchester challenged Roman Catholicism to say whether it wanted cooperation and "to let it be known publicly" in what areas and how. "Any approach will meet with an immediate and welcoming response," wrote the bishop.

For the Catholics, Bishop George A. Beck, the Coadjutor of Brentwood, wrote that the Church of Rome could make no "concessions" because "there can be no such things as 'essential' or 'nonessential' articles of faith." In Rome, // Quotidiano, which often reflects Vatican views, agreed: "The strength of the Church is in fidelity to her doctrine . . . For her there cannot be practice without doctrine. Until non-Catholics grasp this ... no union is possible."

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