War in Brooklyn

Brooklyn, which is used to fighting words, had a new one: Melish. The battleground was the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Holy Trinity, in fashionable Brooklyn Heights.

Holy Trinity's vestrymen have long looked askance at the sayings & doings of their ministers, Rector John Howard Melish, 74, and his son and associate rector, the Rev. William Howard Melish, 38 (TIME, May 3). Son William, a confirmed Communist-liner, is chairman of the Red-fronting National Council of American-Soviet Friendship, and has been associated with at least six other organizations listed as subversive by the Attorney General's office. His father not only tolerates his assistant's political activities, but once referred to them as "the work which the rector himself would have done had he been 20 years younger." When such work included inviting England's celebrated "Red Dean" of Canterbury to preach at Holy Trinity, anti-Melish parishioners were not reassured.

As Consciences Demand. At last, the vestrymen decided to do something about the Melishes. They voted 9 to 1 to petition Long Island's Bishop James Pernette De Wolfe "for separation and dissolution of the pastoral relationship . . ." But spry old Rector Melish was not one to go quietly. He wrote to his congregation telling what the vestry had done.

In reply, the vestry got out another letter presenting its version of the situation. They had been "informed," said the vestrymen, that "it was the unanimous recommendation of the Bishop and the Standing Committee that . . . it would be for the best interests of the Parish and the Diocese if both the Rector and the Assistant Minister resigned."

Last week the battle was in full swing. A "Committee to Retain Our Rector" was busy ringing the doorbells of Holy Trinity's 400-odd voting members, claimed to have 270 signatures already. Though not necessarily agreeing with the Melish political views, the committee's statement said: "We all do agree . . . that they have a right, as we do, to their personal political beliefs, and the further right to engage in such activities, as citizens or as ministers, as their consciences demand."

The Basic Question? The conservative Episcopal weekly, the Living Church, editorialized: "Are there any limits upon the right of a clergyman to engage in political action? Yes, we think there are; because his main duty is to teach the Christian religion . . . The basic question . . . is not freedom of speech . . . but the spiritual health and welfare of the congregation." The leftist Churchman fulminated against "the fear-ridden vestry." With a perfectly straight face, the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship expressed its "amazement" and "shock."

This week, while the Melishes consulted their lawyers, Bishop De Wolfe prepared, as provided by canon law, to render "his Godly judgment."

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