Words & Works

P: Vice President Richard M. Nixon, goodwill-building in Latin America, paid tribute to the Roman Catholic Church as "one of the major bulwarks against Communism and totalitarian ideas." In Ottawa the Rev. Dr. John A. Mackay, president of Princeton Theological Seminary and of the World Presbyterian Alliance, contradicted the Vice President. "I am compelled sorrowfully to say that the exact opposite is true," he told delegates to the North American Area Council of the Alliance. "Two decades ago the Roman Catholic Church made concordats with the totalitarian rulers of Italy and Germany . . . Today the Roman Catholic Church has a concordat with . . . Francisco Franco, the totalitarian ruler of Spain . . . Those Latin countries where the Roman Catholic Church has been the predominant religious influence have been breeding grounds for Communism."

P: The Devil is getting his due in French books, plays and movies these days, and Author Gabriel Venaissin notes the trend in the current issue of Combat: "An odor of sulphur hovers over Paris . . . The Devil in 1955 uses Chanel perfume, however. He is a distinguished man of the world . . . Lucifer burns no one today. But it's strange to see him come back so abundant, so eloquent, so cut up, as it were, into hundreds of little devils all trying to outrival each other . . ."

P: In the last ten years, Reform Judaism, the liberal wing of U.S. Jewry, has more than doubled its membership. Whereas only one in 50 U.S. Jews was identified with Reform a decade ago, one in every five is affiliated with Reform today, and the total membership is approximately 1,000,000 (Orthodox Judaism claims 2,000,000 members, Conservative, 2,000,000). This progress report was issued at the 43rd biennial Assembly of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations in Los Angeles. Another major topic: Israel. What that country needs, said Rabbi Herbert Weiner (Temple Israel, South Orange, N.J.), is a relaxed form of Judaism like Reform. Rabbi Weiner urged a three-year experimental religious program there, including a "pilot" Reform synagogue in Haifa. Israelis, he said, should have some other alternative. "The tragedy of religion in Israel is that [if] expends so much passion on the dietary laws that it seems to have little time left over for concern with the laws which deal with the problems of man living with man."

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