Religion: Catholic Good Neighbors

Church history was made in Washington last week, when—for the first time ever—Roman Catholic leaders from Latin America met officially with a picked group of prominent U.S. Catholics to confer on mutual problems of Church & State.

Hitherto Roman Catholics of North & South America have had only a nodding acquaintance—possibly because in the Catholic Church all roads lead to Rome and side trips are not encouraged. But the stresses of World War II brought Catholics of eight countries to the three-week seminar conference on “The Americas and the Crisis of Civilization,” which is sponsored by the National Catholic Welfare Conference, the voice of the U.S. hierarchy.

Well aware of the importance of such cooperation are the State Department and Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs Nelson Rockefeller, who vied in dining & wining the conferees at the Mayflower. U.S. Catholics can play a decisive role, if they want to, in winning South America from the Axis.

Last week’s sessions made it clear that U.S. Catholics are willing. Their keynoter was Archbishop Edward Mooney of Detroit, board chairman of the N.C.W.C.—a prelate who is seldom seen in public but who, behind the arras, is one of the most influential hierarchs in the U.S. Said Archbishop Mooney:

“A victory in this war for the forces of Nazi-inspired aggression would drive Christians underground for generations in the conquered countries. . . . The Catholic people in both Americas are called upon to play a role of increasing importance. . . . Statesmen of the Americas have already gone far towards setting up in this hemisphere a policy which, if broadened and deepened, may yet be the working model for a much more satisfactory world order than any we have recently known. By emulating in our own field of religion their inspiring example, we as Catholics can not only more effectively develop our spiritual heritage but we can also make it fruitful of great good for human society in this hemisphere and in the world.”

Both in his speech at Mount Vernon (where he laid a wreath on Washington’s tomb) and in the seminar sessions, Bishop Miguel de Andrea of Argentina, the seminar’s leading Latin American delegate, echoed Archbishop Mooney’s words. A prelate who has backed the U.S. war stand despite his country’s isolationism, and an outspoken anti-Nazi who is director of the Catholic Workers Center of Buenos Aires, the ruddy, white-haired bishop praised the U.S. as the basis for “spiritual renewal in the Americas.” Later he urged the establishment of a permanent Catholic agency for the study of inter-American problems. Its first objective: to develop the conclusions of the seminar into a “code of social principles” on economic and international ethics.

Other Latin prelates, including Bishop Miguel Dario Mirando of Mexico, Monsignor Oscar Larson of Chile and three Brazilian Catholics, made further concrete suggestions for cooperation. When the conferees left Washington for another ten days’ sessions in Notre Dame, Chicago, Detroit, Buffalo and New York, Pan-American Catholicism was nearer reality than for many a long day.