Letters to Hull

Protestant Church bodies do not make a habit of complaining to the State Department about the behavior of another Church, but last week two of them did just that. The Reformed Church in America (200.000 members), and the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.* (500,000 members) were the complainers.

An old grievance stirred them to this unusual action. Last autumn, U.S. Roman Catholic bishops charged that Protestant missionaries in predominantly Catholic South and Central America were "a disturbing factor," and suggested that they should stay away. Since then the U.S. Catholic press has kept the issue alive.

The Reformed Church's General Synod, at Buck Hill Falls, Pa., told the State Department that "the duty has been laid upon us by Christ to preach the Gospel to all nations. . . . [To] restrain all but one faith from doing what under conscience is the duty of all faiths is a violation of religious liberty. . . ."

The letter from the Southern Presbyterians was sharper. "Our Church will not be deterred by this campaign," declared the protest from the Church's General Assembly at Montreal, N.C., as delegates formulated plans for missionary work in Latin American lands. "If the hierarchy is right in insisting that Protestant missions should cease in Latin America because Protestants are in the minority in those countries then, on the same principle, Roman Catholic propaganda should be excluded from the United States.

"In the highly delicate situation that faces us in the world ... the Catholic hierarchy has indeed taken upon itself a grave responsibility in thus introducing the divisive elements of sectarianism, bigotry and religious intolerance. Lovers of democracy everywhere will be shocked at this open-handed effort to gain ecclesiastical advantage at the expense of the very principles for which free men are fighting."

*Not to be confused with the much larger (over two million members) Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., of which Dr. Henry Sloane Coffin is Moderator.

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