R.S.V.P.

When Pope John XXIII summoned the Second Vatican Council to meet next October, the Vatican announced that nonCatholics would be invited to send representatives as nonvoting delegates. The job of figuring out who should come and in what capacity was left largely to Augustin Cardinal Bea (TIME, July 6), the wise old Jesuit who heads the Vatican's Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity. To avoid the diplomatic fiasco that marred the first Vatican Council,*Bea and his assistant, Dutch Msgr. Willebrands, spent long hours conferring with Protestant and Orthodox churchmen, made it clear that invitations would go only to those who wanted to come.

Last week, in the name of Pope John, Bea invited three of the world's largest Protestant cooperative agencies--the World Council of Churches, the Lutheran World Federation, and the World Presbyterian Alliance--to name two or three observer-delegates each by Aug. 1. Anxious to attend the sessions, the World Methodist Council accepted its invitation last month, and the Church of England has already named as Anglican delegates three experts on "ecumenical problems. Another major church group on the list is the International Congregational Council, whose delegates ended the ninth Congregational Council in Rotterdam last week, voted unanimously in advance to accept the Vatican's invitation when it comes.

*In 1868 a group of Eastern Orthodox patriarchs was asked to attend, but turned down the offer because their bids were peremptorily worded, and had been accidentally released to the press beforehand.

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