Christian Unity

To His Holiness Pope Pius XI went last Week a perky little invitation from Presiding Bishop Edwin DuBose Mouzon of the Virginia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Opening the annual midyear meeting of the conference board of missions in Richmond, Bishop Mouzon said:

"I am not here throwing any stones at the Catholics, although we have no intention of joining them. I invite the Pope to join the Methodist Church. Every one who believes in God should go hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder. ... I have little patience with the persons who are saying there is no place for denominationalism. I believe God has a great place for Methodism."

Less cocky was Presiding Bishop James De Wolf Perry of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Said he last week: "[The encyclical Lux Veritatis] is a sincere and gracious appeal . . . and should have respect and reply from those whom it most concerns. . . . The desire for reunion is no less ardently felt by Protestants than it is by Catholics." But ". . . Christian unity considered as an ecclesiastical arrangement for effective administration loses divine sanction. It is as witness to the eternal truth . . . and to the divine love revealed in Christ that we declare in the Nicene Creed our belief in one Catholic and Apostolic Church. Catholic Christianity is essential to a united Church because in its real meaning the word Catholic describes the whole of Christian faith, which is everywhere and through all time believed."

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