Eugene Carson Blake and Roswell P. Barnes in conversation, side 5.

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    [Blake] My closest Roman Catholic
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    hierarch is Cardinal Willebrands [Johannes, Cardinal Willebrands] of the Netherlands.
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    He and I were joint chairmen of the
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    or co-chairmen of the joint planning committee between the World Council of Churches
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    and the Roman Catholic Church for the six years that I was General
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    Secretary of the World Council of Churches. I inherited
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    something it had begun. The names there are Bea [Augustin, Cardinal Bea] and Visser 't Hooft [Visser 't Hooft, Willem Adolph].
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    They were the ones who have known each other for a long time and
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    John the twenty-third and Bea and Visser 't Hooft had got the thing
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    going. I had the
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    inheritance, picking this up.
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    I can remember meetings in Milan, in Rome,
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    in my apartment in Geneva. All kinds of different kinds of
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    meetings. And, I had a
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    seventy-fifth birthday greeting from Willebrands not long ago, a year ago now,
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    in which he sent me his best wishes,
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    Pardon me, dear. He phoned you just the other day. He phoned me the other day from Baltimore.
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    Yes. I had sent
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    greetings to him because I knew he was in Baltimore, and I couldn't go.
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    So we have a personal kind of warmth.
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    I had worked on my French before coming to Geneva.
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    So that was a very smart thing I found out afterwards.
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    Philippe Maury thought I was just great because I thought it was important enough to try to
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    work on French, even if I couldn't speak it very well. But, I did speak it at the
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    last moment before I came came up to Geneva to be the
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    General Secretary. I had put off a reception they had in Grenoble, where I
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    was studying, for in my honor. All the Catholic priests and
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    the Reformed pastors of Grenoble gathered together. And, we
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    discussed ecumenism and theology, ecumenical theology, together in
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    French. I was a guest of honor and I was discussing all kinds of matters with them.
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    I couldn't do it now. And, I couldn't have done it before. But, I
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    did then. But, that is aside from the point.
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    We did have this joint working group.
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    And, in that we did develop. Joe
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    Gremillion [Gremillion, Joseph] was at the time the head of the. What was he the head of, Roswell?
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    Social Problems Secretariat. Something like that.
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    Was that? Wasn't quite like that.
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    He was my, he and Willebrands and then one other,
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    Father Arrupe [Arrupe, Pedro] of the Jesuits, whom I met when he was
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    in New York for the first time after his election. He came to Fordham. And, I
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    was President of the National Council of Churches at the time and sat next to him for three
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    lunches running. And, most of the Jesuits could have killed me, I think
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    because they all would have liked to have sat and talked to him. But, I was
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    non-Jesuit and got a chance to talk to him. In any case, those were
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    days in which the Roman Catholic Church agreed
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    that the World Council was, and they used the word, "a unique instrument." Now,
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    that "unique" is a little interesting word. It isn't just
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    another organization. But, it is "a unique instrument," for unity, and that's when
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    Pope Paul Sixth and the Uppsala Assembly.
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    Paul Sixth just changed. If you compare the Uppsala Assembly with
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    the fifty-four Assembly in Evanston.
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    They didn't allow Roman Catholics even to cover it in the press room,
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    theoretically. They did, but they weren't allowing them to go.
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    Am I correct on that? At least, [Robert] Bilheimer and I went out and tried to
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    straighten it out, I know, whatever we were doing.
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    They had boxes of their own that could be reached over the counter from the regular
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    distribution center to the press. And, they
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    didn't want it. That was up slightly as. They achieved
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    their purpose,
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    but it wasn't in the press room. not allowed in the press room. But, that
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    kind of thing was going on. And, here Pope Paul gathered
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    all the people who are going to be at the Uppsala Assembly in Rome before they came.
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    He had read the papers better than most of the people who are going to
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    Uppsala himself. And, he, under Willebrands, who was not one of the
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    representatives but was there also. He insisted
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    upon their participating in the Assembly of the World Council of
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    Churches. That's when. There's another man I should mention
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    the speech that was made at that Assembly was by a Roman Catholic. No, if I can get
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    the name right. You'll have to put it in the transcript of this thing, but
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    was it Montini? who was
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    a writer. I think.
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    Osservatore
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    Romano.
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    Something like. He is an important
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    Roman Catholic Roman journalist and he made a speech.
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    Pope Paul scolded him afterwards, and he had never shown him the speech ahead of time. What day is it?
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    Even think of showing it to you. You'd have been responsible then.
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    but it was it was I say it was one of the best speeches if you want to look up the archives in the World Council
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    to look them up and see that speech. It was a great speech.
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    I'll just throw in something on the side
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    the kinds of decisions you make. A lot of my colleagues want us to have. Who is the man who is
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    always in trouble during the Catholics? Kung?
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    Hans Kung? I knew I'd get that if I described him right.
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    Hans Kung
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    They wanted me to invite Hans Kung to Uppsala. I said that is
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    nonsense. Don't invite Hans Kung. He's. That's not
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    what the Roman Catholics would do. Let me ask Willebrands. So I asked Willebrands
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    and he sent us Montini. He's the one he picked out. He's the one you should invite.
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    and so on. That kind of relationship we began to have. And, it
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    was a combination of new
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    position, but new appreciation of each other, in the
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    sense. And, I began, for the first time in my life, really to understand
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    what happened at the Counter-Reformation, and why the Counter-Reformation
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    was as important as the Reformation in terms of what was
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    going to happen, ultimately.
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    Because the Roman Catholic Church got its belated
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    reformation at the Counter-Reformation and became the great church that it
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    is.
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    And, that is something! What about the pope coming to visit you?
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    Coming to visit. That was another
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    thing that happened. He was
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    invited by the Roman Catholic representing to the United Nations, whose name I've
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    forgotten, who was not particularly close to
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    the World Council, to come up to visit the
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    ILO on their anniversary, fiftieth anniversary like, International
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    Labor Organization. And, Willebrands heard the word. And, he went in to see
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    Pope Paul. And he, said, "You can't go to Geneva without visiting to the World Council of Churches."
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    And, Pope Paul said, "I
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    think you're right." So then we made plans for
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    him to come. That was an interesting visit.
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    Jump ahead a little bit. Shortly after
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    that I was dated to be in Lisbon. And, I was treated as if I were
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    a pontifical representative. They called on me in my hotel. I had to call on their hotel, that
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    sort of thing you know, because the pope had just visited me in Geneva.
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    But that kind of situation was a new situation
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    and it still is new. I hate when people get discouraged about the progress of
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    the ecumenical movement. I say we, in the last twenty years, have been through the most important time
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    in a thousand or fifteen hundred years for the unity of the church to be visible.
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    And, why should we be discouraged just because of stupid folk
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    now cut out, please or
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    others aren't getting along as fast as they should.
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    [Gillette] Do you do you see any relationship between that new openness with
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    Roman Catholicism and the earlier openness? The
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    doors you opened with Moscow trip? Was there any relationship at all between
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    Orthodoxy in the west and Roman Catholicism in the west
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    looking?
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    [Blake] Let me take the Vatican position in general, which anybody else should be careful of.
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    The Vatican position is that they would like to talk one for one to
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    every other church in the world including the Jews and the Muslims and everybody else.
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    One for one now, because that gives them the chance to make you come to
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    Rome to talk and so on. And, we are stupid
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    when we allow them to break it up and do a series of dialogues.
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    OK I just.
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    Know your question was specifically? Whether or not you feel
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    that the earlier trip to Moscow and that door that was opened between
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    Protestantism in the West and Eastern Orthodoxy, whether
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    that any way influenced Rome? It could have been.
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    But you see the Roman situation is that they don't have much of
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    anything where the Orthodox, the Russian
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    Orthodox church is strong. Is this tape still on?
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    You don't want to say anything? We'll turn it off, if you? No.
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    I want to. It made that assumption. I'd like you to have you tell about
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    the pope coming up to
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    your office. Oh, that was a nice one. He came up. I have a picture
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    in my study, which, if any of you come to visit us, I will show you, of the pope
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    sitting at my desk in Geneva. I am grinning
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    because John Taylor [Taylor, John Vernon. John Vernon Taylor, Bishop of Winchester] is taking a picture of the pope sitting in my desk. And behind me
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    in the shadow is M. M. Thomas [Thomas, M. M. [Madathilparampil Mammen]] and Willebrands. They are
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    the ones. He came up very uncharacteristically talkative as he could
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    be after he had been in the
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    opening meeting where we received him, and there were speeches. He and I did not
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    make speeches but everybody else did.
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    I guess.
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    Yes. You know, we both made speeches, didn't we? We greeted each other. Yes, he said, "I am"
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    He started out,
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    "I am
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    Peter." That made Visser t'Hooft so mad he didn't hear anybody or anything else
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    he said for quite a while. Because immediately the second paragraph, he said, But the
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    name I have chosen is Paul. Then he made a good Protestant
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    speech from that point on.
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    But that was another thing. When he came up into the room
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    afterwards.
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    He was bubbling over with talk. And, he said, "Oh, I'm like a man who's been in the desert
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    without food or water.
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    Suddenly, I see an
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    oasis.
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    There's water and fruit, and I find that kind of thing.
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    I think that's one of the most poignant
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    You can't be. You can't be angry at men like that. That's amazing! Isn't it?
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    When was that? That would be sixty-
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    eight. We said, wait a minute,
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    when was the World Council meeting? That was during sixty-nine.
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    It was. It was the year. It was the after the Assembly
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    in Uppsala, which was sixty-eight, sixty-nine, it was
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    guess in June. Was that right? Am I right?
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    Dates? I don't remember
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    That is very interesting.
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    Back to Jerry's question
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    about the relationship between our relations
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    with the Eastern Church, Russian Orthodox Church and
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    Rome and the Vatican, Roman to World Council. I'd be interested in your answer to that.
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    I'm trying to
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    orient myself in time.
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    I think it was just after New Delhi.
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    When Sharon, John Sharon, who was
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    one of our bridges back in the early
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    days asked me
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    what were my worries.
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    One of the worry is that either you or we
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    try to play one off the other
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    as between Istanbul Rome and Geneva.
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    And I said,
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    One of the problems is that we put it that
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    way as if there are three different,
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    units, three different churches
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    and if we do it that way, we're sunk.
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    We got off on the wrong road. We leave out Jerusalem in that entirely.
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    We must not
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    tell the eastern churches and Rome that
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    they can become competitive for their
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    relationship with the Third World, which
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    is in Geneva. And, I said, we'll be tempted
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    like the dickens. You will be tempted like the dickens.
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    And, we will spoil it all. Get in God's way
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    if we do it. And,
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    he thought that was
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    important that I should have mentioned it. And, he came
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    back to that several times subsequently about
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    people he talked to about it. He said. "We
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    almost slipped." And,
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    at the time, when the pope and the ecumenical patriarch embraced
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    in Jerusalem,
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    we almost slipped. And, we didn't make any reference to you. It looked as if
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    we were going to hive off together.
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    And we're putting pressure on each other to do it and
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    we almost slipped.
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    We just recovered in time. Now that
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    that was all vaguely in the background of our minds then
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    I think. And, I believe that
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    Willebrands has
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    been a straight shooter on that. What does that mean? I think he'd been a straight
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    shooter.
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    I have the feeling that
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    one of the problems. I had or interesting experiences. It
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    was a little bit aside of our subject. But when Hesburgh [Hesburgh, Theodore M.]
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    got in touch with me one time before they had went to establish the
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    school in Jerusalem. And, he said that they wanted to do that and what did
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    I think of it. I said for goodness sakes, don't establish it yourselves, you and the pope.
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    Get some other people to help you establish it. It won;t be you inviting us to
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    go there, as if you had the Holy City yourself.
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    because what's what I was saying so we've got money here and other
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    people to help start that thing but that
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    kind of thing is you can do it either not really liking what you're doing
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    or you can do it just on purpose. And I think, there is probably more of the not realizing
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    what you're doing than there is really meanness on purpose.
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    Vatican Council.
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    What was it you said about relations with the Jews?
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    [Barnes] What of it? [Blake] That they wanted the one to one.
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    [Barnes] Ah yes it was under the one to one menu.
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    Is this on?
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    [Miller] We'll turn it off, if
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    I'm getting fuzzy, Jerry. Let me see if I can straighten it
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    out. Turn that off for a minute, please.
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    Then I made to the chief rabbi and his associates in
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    Moscow.
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    We were perplexed as to how much to
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    do. We knew we must get into communication with them.
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    We had questions raised
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    before we went to Russia by our Jewish friends in New York.
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    And, we were disturbed because there did not seem to
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    be a concern on the part of the
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    Soviet delegation in our conferences for the Jews.
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    We didn't want to compromise them, but we didn't want to yield to them and their
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    hesitations.
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    So Walter [Van Kirk, Walter] and I paid them a visit. And,
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    I don't remember who we used as interpreter, but I
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    know we had a problem with it, and
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    we had a report. Not a good report
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    but we showed a concern.
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    It's one of the unsatisfactory loose ends of the
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    deputation.
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    I had another experience. And, I don't know what which one it was. I was in Moscow one time
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    and with the same concern on my mind. And so, I
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    just made it clear to my host whoever it was in the one department
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    of the. Russian Orthodox Church that I was
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    wondering if I should see a rabbi.
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    And, they didn't say any thing more about it. Just raised the question. Next day we're going,
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    driving along a street. And, he said. "Would you like to stop at the synagogue?" So, I said. "Yes,
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    I would." So we came to the synagogue. The rabbi was there waiting for me.
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    And, I asked after him and how things were. Everything was perfect. But, I mean
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    that but it was of and a formal
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    situation that was worth doing. I mean this we cared about him.
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    And, we were able to report back that you had seen the rabbi. And, through the
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    good offices of the Russian Orthodox Church, which I think is important too.
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    I haven't answered your question. I haven't been thinking about it. I've been listening to Gene.
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    I don't know why.
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    I think it's partly because they
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    are Jewish friends of become very perplexed
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    about their own course and their
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    relationship to Israel. And, that has
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    so absorbed their attention. Ethical
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    political. Haven't had much energy left over to
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    ask where they're going.
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    Isn't part of the problem, Roswell, the lack of clarity
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    on what the ecumenical movement is from our point of view, the Christian point of view?
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    I live in a town where we have a federation of
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    or whatever you call that Council of
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    Christians and Jews.
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    It means that all that happens is that whenever the Jews want us to do something, there is a meeting.
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    Otherwise, there is no meeting. I mean, that is to say, there is nothing done.
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    I. My own feeling is that there is a tendency toward that
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    in the National Council of Churches now.
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    That you don't go to Washington except with the Catholics and the Jews.
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    But they go separately.
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    Yes. I. That is something that I didn't
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    achieve for my agenda when I was there, to get
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    people to understand the distinction between ecumenical and inter-
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    faith, and interreligious and Christian unity. This is one of the things
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    that really is hard to live with. And, you get
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    misinterpreted all the time when you don't do it. I remember vividly on the
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    civil rights thing in the sixties
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    after. It was Alabama in
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    May, where the hoses and the dogs. And, the dogs were shown on
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    television that really made people in the north realize what was going on down
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    there. I noticed that Wallace was re-elected governor.
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    So nothing changes except he has changed a little. He's
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    got the negro votes at least. Black votes, I should say.
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    but the. Then. Now, where I lost myself.
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    Good. What was I saying here? You've got
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    sympathy. The difference between interfaith. Well, this is
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    I was vice chairman of the new Committee on Religion and Race for the National Council of
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    Churches in the spring of sixty-three.
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    Lichtenberger [Lichtenberger, Arthur C.] , the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, was the chairman. He became
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    ill just that time, called me up and said, "I
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    can't. My doctor won't let me do anything. Will you take charge of this thing?" And, I found myself
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    by the middle of the month running the
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    Committee on Religion and Race in the National Council of Churches.
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    I wander into a meeting there the first one about the
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    middle of June and we already had our staffing in
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    being, management and
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    Bob Spike [Spike, Robert W. [Robert Warren]]. Bob Spike was the head. And then had his assistant and one other very
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    young man. I've forgotten who he is now. He was the one, who
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    spoke to me as I came in the room. He says, we've got an invitation to go to Washington on July fourth
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    for a CORE demonstration. And, I says, You'd better
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    find out about it, because we may have to go. That's all I said as I
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    walked into the room. It's always your best friend's mother among the reporters who ask the
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    hardest questions. And, after I had made my speech, George Dugan, who was at the Times in those days. I had
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    said, among other things in my speech, we have decided it's time for us to
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    stop talking. We've been saying the right things since nineteen twenty. But, we don't do a thing
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    about it. George says, "What are you going to do?" I
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    felt I couldn't afford to have egg on my face permanently.
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    So I said, Well, there's going to be a
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    a demonstration in Baltimore on July Fourth, maybe we'll have to go there.
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    I saw them all begin to write like this. I knew I had struck something.
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    So, when I came back, I told them, the boys, that they better look that up because I
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    thought I had to go to Baltimore on July fourth. That's the deep planning I had,
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    in one of the more important actions of my life.
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    Riding on the Ferris wheel when your mother wasn't watching. But I went down after that
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    meeting to the Statler Hilton and
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    met with [John Francis] Cronin was it on the National Catholic Welfare at that
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    time? Cronin and Tannenbaum [Tannenbaum, Marc H.]. And,
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    they said to me this is the real cooperation
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    of Roman Catholic and Jew that I have run into. Look this is a Protestant country.
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    You've got to take the lead in this thing, but we'll give you support anywhere you need it.
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    That was. That was that point.
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    The problem was great. he said. If the bishop is impossible, we have lay
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    people we'll get to for you, as warming as that kind of attitude grassroots.
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    Now you can you can do something when you've got that kind
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    of a relationship that is clear. I mean they knew I wasn't about to be a Jew. And, they weren't about
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    to be Protestant or anyway. But we did from then
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    on, do something for quite a while in terms of that
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    part. We did get arrested in Baltimore [Gwynn Oak Amusement Park, July 4, 1963]. And, I got my picture all over the world, And got elected the
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    General Secretary of the World Council of Churches on account of the picture, I think, more than anything else.
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    [Gillette] Had you had any previous indication the Holy Spirit would peculiarly use New York Times
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    reporters to motivate you? [Blake] Well, they were pretty good to me always
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    in New York earlier. Lately, they haven't been very good.
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    They think that the most important thing in the Vatican is the church in Darien.
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    where they don't make reservations because God takes care of the hotel for them.
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    When
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    What's left over?
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    We still have conversations.
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    What do you want to cover? And, what do you want to do with
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    these tapes? What have. What has
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    happened today that has a real
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    interest to you that somebody should follow up on
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    with us? Or will you? Or on his
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    own?
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    I
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    think one of the big advantages that today you're seeing two of the nine
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    leading people on the delegation, two of the delegation, and here they're
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    reflecting on their twenty-five, twenty-six years later on the
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    action that took place in nineteen fifty six. I think this is the
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    extremely significant fact that
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    it seemed from the records and in your earlier conversation that the meetings
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    were very conversations were very positive then. And, you both feel
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    that indeed they were positive and are positive. That this
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    is this is a good beginning.
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    So what.
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    I think that the question that we really have left open is How do we do it
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    now? Because,
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    with the present attitude of the
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    Vatican, we don't have the same
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    situation that we had under Bea and Willebrands.
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    With the
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    Orthodox,
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    from what I hear, I have not had directly from them. I have seen
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    or words, so on. But the Orthodox I hear, keep hearing reports, that they're
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    restive in the World Council of Churches. I don't
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    know why or what that is all about. But, they've always been somewhat restive
  • speaker
    because the culture of the World Council hasn't been their culture.
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    It isn't an Orthodox body. And, they're used to going to Orthodox bodies.
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    But I don't know just how we move.
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    I don't think there's any value in multiplying bilateral
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    except in so far as the bilateral conversations
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    in the churches represent a necessary
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    clearing away of debris between the cultural and political relationships.
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    Does that make sense to you? Who is in
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    creative consultation
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    with Willebrands from our cohorts
  • speaker
    except Visser 't Hooft? Bishop who? Visser 't Hooft. Visser 't Hooft. I don't think
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    they are very close. All right.
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    I don't think they are. I'm not sure. I think you are, Roswell. I'm not saying they are very close. I think I'm pretty close to him.
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    but I don't. I'm not close to us, though.
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    Are you, are you, are you talking with him creatively? This
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    kind of question.
  • speaker
    No no I haven't had a chance to do that.
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    Who else can do this? I guess Paul Crew is as busy as any American.
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    He has him down in Baltimore at the moment or did have him last week.
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    Do you? or maybe you don't see this from where you sit,
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    because of, because of where you sit, but
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    I get the feeling that while the whole ecumenical movement in dialogue between Roman
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    Catholic and Protestant and Protestant and Orthodox, while it may be at a
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    quiet stage at the hierarchical level, hierarchy being Protestant, Catholic or Orthodox
  • speaker
    that it is going gungho in the
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    grassroots. In spite of an apathy to
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    whatever the hierarchy is doing. Do you? I don't know whether you two
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    really because of where you sit get to see this. I don't see it anywhere
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    except in the local. There are all kinds of wild and beautiful things going on in the
  • speaker
    local scene. I think the nuclear business is doing. One other thing, that's
  • speaker
    universal. And, it is going so far so fast. No matter what the
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    hierarchy does. It couldn't stop it if it wanted to. It is.
  • speaker
    this is the thing they sent a message to, right?
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    What is the relationship between that and the theological
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    ecclesiological factors of ecumenical
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    report and institutions? That the latter may or may not be relevant.
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    Right. Who is
  • speaker
    discussing that question? I don't think anybody is.
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    I think the people are just going ahead.
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    They're praying together, celebrate together, they're working together, and they're doing it together.
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    And, nobody is really stopping. In my activities recently have been where
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    people are interested and see my name in connection with it, and
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    ask me to do something. The PCS this week.
  • speaker
    Next week, I go to Iona College on
  • speaker
    Bread for the World and nuclear disarmament. I think is the combination of the subject there.
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    and that is happening at the church to which we,
  • speaker
    I belong. What's that? I mean, peace seems to be the thing. Peace is one
  • speaker
    long and didn't mean to say oh well. Peace, certainly. Well,
  • speaker
    it's nuclear relationship to peace, too. And its the reaction against the stupidities of our
  • speaker
    government. Yes, it is. That seems to be true in Europe too. Everybody's
  • speaker
    is stupid.
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    And, the dangerous stupidity in the Middle East. Yeah, that's another one.
  • speaker
    No one had time to write so many things as I wrote at one time.
  • speaker
    You've got to have it, and you have a wife who makes you lazy.
  • speaker
    Well, that's right. Forget her.
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    Who today is doing that kind of thing that we used to try to
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    do? That's the trouble.
  • speaker
    Appraising the state of the churches and incidentally the state of the nation and our
  • speaker
    contemporary culture. Who did that? Did I?
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    I tried to. I think you both did. I think this is what people are moaning about. I think we both did.
  • speaker
    We don't have the leadership.
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    People are turning to the New Yorker or to the op ed
  • speaker
    page of The Times occasionally. Occasionally. Our
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    commentary. Secular sources
  • speaker
    for the analysis of where we are.
  • speaker
    And, they're not expecting to get any insights from the churches.
  • speaker
    They're seeing. Are we on the tape now?
  • speaker
    Oh, boy! I'd forgotten that. Al right. That's good. Keep going. I
  • speaker
    I didn't mean. I somebody saw the red light.
  • speaker
    They're seeing
  • speaker
    a prophetic leadership on the nuclear business and our
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    destiny from Roman Catholic leadership, that
  • speaker
    seems to decided that something needs to be done. And, they're not asking whether it's expedient or
  • speaker
    not. And, there's something refreshing about it. And, I welcome it. I do too.
  • speaker
    and I think that
  • speaker
    a good many of our friends that are just running scared
  • speaker
    are becoming increasingly confused as they are running scared. And don't see where they are going. That's a
  • speaker
    terribly arrogant and supercilious attitude to take. Things aren't what they used to be, Roswell. They aren't!
  • speaker
    Good old days!
  • speaker
    They aren't what they used to be. They are worrying about how the mail's going to
  • speaker
    get there. Yeah. M-A-L-E? M-A-I-L. Oh,
  • speaker
    postal service. I think that is the thing I mean. something terrible.
  • speaker
    That our government is spending money on finding out how to keep
  • speaker
    on delivering mail after the first nuclear hit.
  • speaker
    And, it's doing it. We are spending money.
  • speaker
    Your taxes are being spent for that. They should all know and
  • speaker
    I won't say who but people when they do hit the papers.
  • speaker
    The papers in the first place don't know anything about the normal
  • speaker
    churches, the mainline churches, as I have tended to call them. I don't know whether they are the main line any more,
  • speaker
    but we hear
  • speaker
    about the extreme right and Jerry Falwell and
  • speaker
    the electronic church and all of these things.
  • speaker
    Boy, electronic church, you could really write a check for five dollars
  • speaker
    once a year. Why, you can really be something. Guarantee your salvation. Yes.
  • speaker
    That's exactly it. But,
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    And one who shall be nameless here, in my judgment
  • speaker
    was on the wrong side of the question
  • speaker
    of tax exemption for Bob Jones College.
  • speaker
    I don't know who he means, do you? No, well I'll never put.
  • speaker
    because he's on the right side of most of those question. And, it's
  • speaker
    not out of wrong-headedness.
  • speaker
    It's wrong, out of wrong-headness. It is not timidity. It's not timidity. No,
  • speaker
    it's not timidity; no. It's a legalism that I found that
  • speaker
    over the years when we were working
  • speaker
    close together, rather than one working and not the other, was that
  • speaker
    he could be influenced more easily than anybody that I knew of.
  • speaker
    If you just asked what he was thinking about when he
  • speaker
    said this.
  • speaker
    On COCU, one time I came back from Europe and the, up in Boston, Cambridge or some
  • speaker
    place. He was wanting us to
  • speaker
    having a terrible time trying to get a final plan of union worked out. Then
  • speaker
    let everybody with a constitution everything that everybody approve it or not approve it.
  • speaker
    I said, Look! That's the way we would do it. They won't do it that way.
  • speaker
    You can't possibly. Then they went and did it the way Paul would do it, and that was even worse.
  • speaker
    Well, now you fixed all of them. I fixed them all.
  • speaker
    I'm just agreeing with Roswell. Things aren't believed to me.
  • speaker
    Well, lest this sound like
  • speaker
    terrible arrogance or pathetic nostalgia. Let me tell you that
  • speaker
    Visser 't Hooft and I, on his frequent visits here, infrequent
  • speaker
    visits after he retired, I'd retired would come up to the country. And, we'd have
  • speaker
    several days, Did you really? not under pressure, to go over things. And,
  • speaker
    he would send chapters of his memoirs up to me for the periods when
  • speaker
    we were like you and I on this Russian trip. The only
  • speaker
    extant and surviving participants in some things.
  • speaker
    And, we used to make out a little agenda on slips of paper of things that
  • speaker
    we wanted to be sure and touch while we were together.
  • speaker
    One time he came up, I had an agenda.
  • speaker
    Three items and he had, and
  • speaker
    we swapped our papers. And,
  • speaker
    one of the items I had
  • speaker
    leaders, nostalgia
  • speaker
    and
  • speaker
    he had the same and two others, and we swapped these papers and looked at each other in
  • speaker
    shock. And, he said, here after one hundred
  • speaker
    years we've been this accumulation of items for our
  • speaker
    agenda. And he
  • speaker
    laughed and shook our heads, both of us. Well, we agree
  • speaker
    we ought to talk about it. And
  • speaker
    what do we mean. We have misgivings about our judgment;
  • speaker
    Partly it was because the leaders when we were young, were older. We were
  • speaker
    in awe of them conceded them too much authority.
  • speaker
    Partly, it's our frustration of
  • speaker
    age. And, it was better when we were younger.
  • speaker
    And, can we get an objective appraisal?
  • speaker
    And, so we began to swap notes on
  • speaker
    it. And, I made up a list of the
  • speaker
    leadership of the various features of the church's activities and
  • speaker
    institutional life through my
  • speaker
    experience.
  • speaker
    And he did the same. And
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    then we said, "Don't gut it!"
  • speaker
    They don't have the stature that they used to have.

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