Brothers in Berlin

Since the days of the Reformation, Berlin has been a Protestant stronghold, and often a place of bitter memory for Germany's Roman Catholics. Last week Catholics were again battling for their faith in Berlin, but not against the Protestants. The Katholikentag, the 75th official congress of German Catholics, found Catholics and Protestants solidly lined up against a common enemy: Communism.

Months before the Catholic congress, Catholic leaders had negotiated with the Communist rulers of East Germany to allow representatives of the 2,100,000 Roman Catholics living in East Germany free passage to Berlin. At the last minute, the Reds, as usual, broke their promises. Sixty special trains scheduled to bring pilgrims to the congress were canceled. So were the arrangements to furnish temporary living quarters for visitors in 92 schools in the city's Eastern sector. Nevertheless, 100,000 Catholics from the Eastern zone straggled into the city on foot, on bicycles or crowded regular trains.

In the emergency, Berliners (88% Protestant) rallied to help their fellow Christians. Berlin's famed Evangelical Bishop Otto Dibelius threw open the Marienkirche, the principal Protestant church in the city, to the Catholic meetings. He took Munich's Roman Catholic Archbishop Joseph Wendel as a guest in his own home. At open-air Masses in the Walbuehne. Catholics worshiped before the same cross used by Protestants at last year's Evangelical Kirchentag. At Berlin's Funkturm fairgrounds, Protestant Pastor Lothar Kreyssing addressed the packed Catholic gathering and got the most thunderous applause of the day. His theme: "Aren't we all brothers?"

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.