Protesting Protestants

Across the U.S., an organized Protestant drive to block the appointment of an ambassador to the Vatican was getting into high gear. Items last week: P: In Atlanta, the general board of the National Council of Churches (29 Protestant and Eastern Orthodox religious groups) named a six-man committee to help channel grass-roots opposition, make sure it reaches the ears of Congress.* P: On the West Coast, Author Paul (American Freedom and Catholic Power) Blanshard was in the midst of a nationwide tour with a party of speakers representing a militant organization with the nonstop name, Protestants and Other Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. Aim: to reach 100 major audiences in ten weeks, wind up in a P.O.A.U. rally in Washington, Jan. 24. P: In Chicago, an audience of more than 3,000 heard Methodist Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam attack the appointment of an ambassador as "unwise, unnecessary and un-American," then voted by acclamation to "oppose the confirmation of this nomination ... in every legitimate way open to us in our democratic system." There was one loud "Nay!" The "Nay" man said he was a good Roman Catholic.

* Members: the Rev. Franklin Clark Fry, president of the United Lutheran Church in America; Methodist Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam; the Rev. Eugene C. Blake, stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (North); the Rev. Reuben E. Nelson, general secretary of the American Baptist Convention; the Rev. Douglas Horton, minister at large of the Congregational Christian Churches; the Rev. Ben. R. Lacey, president of Union Theological Seminary in Virginia (Southern Presbyterian).

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