Words & Works

P: The liberal Protestant Christian Century headed its editorial page last week with a blast from the Rev. Charles Duell Kean of Washington's Episcopal Church of the Epiphany against the U.S. Navy for attaching a St. Christopher medal to its successful Vanguard satellite-bearing rocket. "Would it have served just as well." demanded Dr. Kean, "if along with the countdown routine, a man had been assigned at each stage in the process to cross his fingers and say 'Muggles'? Had anyone thought of attaching a four-leaf clover to the missile somewhere? The fact that a symbol or a word is associated with traditional Christianity does not prevent its being used in the most blatantly superstitious manner possible. The fact that there are religious and moral ideals in our Western heritage does not prevent these symbols from being caricatured, so that not only is the symbol itself made ridiculous but the faith behind it is turned into children's triviality."

P: Pope Pius XII told delegates of the 13th Congress of the International Association of Applied Psychology that some of the techniques they use to probe the mind are "open to reservations," however praiseworthy the ends. Some secrets, he said, "can absolutely not be unveiled, even to one prudent person." The Pope also condemned the use of lie detectors. Explained a Vatican official: "The lie detector is always illicit, even with the consent of the subject. Just as a man may not consent to euthanasia because religious law forbids him from doing away with himself, so he may not destroy his own freedom to answer or not according to his own judgment. Those who ask for a lie-detector test in order to prove they are speaking the truth must find other means of convincing inquirers. Otherwise, the point will come when anyone who refuses a lie-detector test will automatically feel accused of falsehood. A true reply must be freely spoken--not spoken under the pressure of certainty that untruths will out."

P: A committee of 19 British theologians and sociologists appointed at the request of the Archbishop of Canterbury to study "the family in contemporary society" recommended in their 220-page report that the Church of England avoid opposing birth control. "The more we understand of our procreative powers," said the report, "the more responsible we are for the way in which we use them. If our conscience will not tolerate, when we know how to prevent it, a torrent of infant deaths, no more should we, with the knowledge we have, encourage an ungoverned spate of unwanted births."

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