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Sargent Shriver address, tape 1.
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- speaker[Shriver, Sargent] Thank you very much. Dr Eugene Carson Blake. Mr. Moderator.
- speakerWilliam Thompson. [Thompson, William P. ] Reverend Ray Swartzback [Swarzback, Raymond H.], the
- speakerchairman of the.
- speakerCommittee of the Board of National Missions, which just presented
- speakerthe recommendations of that special board to this Assembly. And
- speakermembers of the General Assembly
- speakerof the Presbyterian Church. I am extremely honored to be
- speakerhere. To have heard from the wings. The
- speakerreport of your Board of National Missions.
- speakerAnd to say right away that I am not only in
- speakersupport of that report, but all of us at the Office of Economic
- speakerOpportunity in Washington are deeply grateful to you for the support
- speakergiven to this program last year. And for the encouragement and advice and counsel
- speakerwhich we have received from you and from your representatives during the first seven months of our
- speakeroperation.
- speakerOf course looking out over this audience. I do realize perhaps for the first time
- speakerwhat it feels like to be an observer at the Vatican Council.
- speakerWhen I don't want the occasion to pass without congratulating you on your ecumenical spirit.
- speakerRecently I read in The New York Times that you even have a
- speakerPresbyterian pope.
- speakerAnd naturally as a Catholic we got him on our National Advisory Council.
- speakerOf course Dr Blake's [Blake, Eugene Carson] presence there is very helpful
- speakerwhen people ask me or tell me that
- speakerI'm violating the principle of separation of church and state, I have a new and simple
- speakeranswer. Which church?
- speakerWe did have a few interesting anecdotes that occurred in the early days of the Peace Corps
- speakeralong that line. Naturally, we were extremely sensitive to any such
- speakercriticism. We wanted to be certain that we were actually operating our program in conformity with the
- speakerspirit and the letter of the Constitution. We, in carrying out
- speakerthat responsibility sent a large number of people into Latin America,
- speakerwhere, as many of you know, in the rural villages there are sometimes very restricted housing
- speakeravailable for anybody. One of our boys in Chile, a Jewish boy from Brooklyn as a
- speakermatter of fact, found himself about three hundred miles south of Santiago Chile,
- speakerassigned to a village where we not had not made adequate preparation for his housing.
- speakerWhen he arrived there was no place to stay with the local except with a local Catholic priest.
- speakerSo he moved into the rectory. One of our officials, making a
- speakerregular inspection trip, found this several months later and said that this fellow had to get out of there
- speakerright away, that we were violating this principle of separation of church and
- speakerstate having him live in this house.
- speakerAbout two months later the same official came back, and the fellow was still living in the same place. He said listen
- speakeryou've got to get out of here! And there's no more excuses.
- speakerAnd the fellow says, "I won't leave." And he said, " What do you mean you won't leave? You have got to leave." He said, "I won't leave."
- speakerHe said, "Well, explain to me why won't you leave? You understand the principle." He said
- speakerwell I've come up against another situation. In the first place I've been here now for four or five months.
- speakerAnd most of the people in this village now call me Padre.
- speakerHe said I'm not really interested just in the prestige that comes along with that, but I get a forty percent discount at
- speakerall the local stores."
- speakerLots of funny things do happen down in Washington. Last year the president, President
- speakerJohnson, honored me and sent me on a trip around the world during the course of which I
- speakerdelivered messages on his behalf to a number of heads of state. And, I
- speakerwas rather swollen up with pride I'm afraid at that point. When I got back however a journalist in Washington
- speakerpricked my balloon. He said In the old days it used to be that you could tell the signs of the
- speakertimes in Washington. For example, when the cherry blossoms bloomed, you knew it was spring.
- speaker"And this year," he said. It was in nineteen sixty-four. He said, "There's a new sign."
- speakerHe said, "When a Southern Protestant president sends a northern
- speakerRoman Catholic to deliver a message to an Italian
- speakerpope
- speakerin Jerusalem," he said, "That's a sign of an election
- speakeryear."
- speakerWell among all the amusements of Washington and some of the
- speakeraccusations and charges that go back and forth,
- speakernothing has more impressed me than the statement which occurred,
- speakerwhich appeared in your report, the report of your special committee last year, the standing committee.
- speakerIn one sentence the report stated, and I'm
- speakerquoting from it. "When a nation fights for its soul, who but the church
- speakershould set the context for that struggle?"
- speakerWhen a nation fights for its soul, who but the church should set the context
- speakerfor that struggle? Well my answer of course
- speakeris the same as yours. No one. Those words are
- speakercorrect. We need the conscience of the church in the war against poverty
- speakerbecause the War Against Poverty is fundamentally
- speakera nation fighting to preserve its soul.
- speakerBut just because of that, there's a danger. A very real danger that we,
- speakereach of us, will try to subvert this new enterprise to our own ends.
- speakerAnd even the church is not immune from this danger.
- speakerT. S. Eliot has some wonderful words in "Murder
- speakerin the Cathedral." One couplet went,
- speakerThe Last Temptation is the greatest treason. To do the right
- speakerdeed for the wrong reason." And another point
- speakerin the same play, he said this.
- speaker"For those who serve the greater cause,
- speakerMay make the cause serve them.
- speakerStill doing right and striving with
- speakerpolitical men, may make that cause political,
- speakernot by what by what they do,
- speakerbut by what they are."
- speakerIn substance Eliot is telling us that there is a politics of religion and
- speakera politics of morality, as well as Republican and Democratic politics.
- speakerThere are interdenominational politics,
- speakerand there are even political aspects to the relationships between clergy and laity within
- speakereach denomination. In all these types of politics,
- speakerthose who serve the greater cause can make the
- speakercause serve them. And that's where the real danger
- speakerlies. The spiritual danger that the War on Poverty
- speakermight degenerate into a series of power struggles.
- speakerHoping the poor could become a cover,
- speakera cover for establishing stakeouts geographical
- speakerprofessional political and even denominational
- speakerstakeouts at the expense of the poor.
- speakerWithin each of these stakeouts, the social worker,
- speakerthe educator, the lawyer, the politician, and the
- speakerclergyman will render certain kinds of assistance,
- speakerbut in return they will exact a price, a reward.
- speakerAnd those rewards can take many forms. High salaries
- speakerfor example, get lots of publicity, but
- speakersometimes I think they're the least invidious. At worst
- speakerhigh salaries would exemplify only greed, not the
- speakermost lethal of the deadly sins. Image,
- speakerreputation, power, votes, and worst of
- speakerall, enforced dependency, both physical and
- speakerspiritual, are prices much more costly than dollars.
- speakerThan the dollars involved in high salaries. And these
- speakerqualities: image, reputation, enforced
- speakerdependency, they represent the greatest sin, the
- speakersin of pride, the unpardonable sin of Lucifer
- speakerhimself. You all know the
- speakerphrase in the Bible, "Pride's beginning is man's revolt from
- speakerGod." When the heart forgets its maker and of all
- speakersin, pride is the root. Pride can cost us this
- speakerwar on poverty. Pride can cost us up our very
- speakersouls individually and as a nation. For let us be
- speakercompletely frank, we are in the midst of a revolution. A social
- speakerrevolution, a revolution in demand, in expectation, in
- speakerhopes and aspirations. You in your
- speakerway and we in ours, are struggling to meet that demand.
- speakerYour annual report tells about your efforts. Hours are summarized
- speakerin our report to Congress. But no matter how well we do, no matter
- speakerhow valiant our efforts, no matter how good our reports
- speakerlook. One thing is already clear that the demand and the
- speakerexpectation have already begun to overtake the
- speakersupply. The demand has overtaken the
- speakerresources which we can muster using our traditional established
- speakermethods. Tapping our traditional reserves. And
- speakertaxing our present manpower to the maximum. We can
- speakerrespond to this new demand in two ways. We can try to meet
- speakerit or we can take various measures to
- speakerdampen it, to quiet it down, to defer our reaction,
- speakerand in reality to reject the challenge.
- speakerAnd the danger of politics. Well that's the politics of power. Or the
- speakerpolitics of professionalism. Or the politics of religion. Is
- speakerthat we will take the latter course. We will reduce the demand. Lower
- speakerexpectations, temporize, delay.
- speakerWe won't do that openly.
- speakerWe're too clever. We're too crafty.
- speakerWe're too wise in the ways of the world for that. We'll say all the right
- speakerwords. We'll take all the right stances. And we'll make all the
- speakerright gestures. We will say we're doing our best. We'll
- speakerraise more funds. We'll hire more staff. We'll train more experts and professionals.
- speakerBut we will admit we will fail. When we say
- speakerwe're doing our own. We're doing our best. We will fail to add the
- speakersignificant words
- speaker"on our own terms." We're
- speakerdoing our best
- speakeron our own terms.
- speakerYou know the standard ways and the standard rationales. They're the
- speakersanctified literature, liturgy of any bureaucracy church or political.
- speakerWe will demarcate areas of responsibility. We will establish
- speakerprocedures and promote promulgate regulations. Down in Washington
- speakerwe'll issue a three-page job description for every job. We'll set up
- speakercriteria And devise forms to fill out in triplicate to
- speakertell you who's eligible for aid and who is ineligible.
- speakerBut we will retain control over the power to make
- speakeror remake any one of those decisions. We will do all this. And
- speakerwe'll look very righteous, but we will have imposed
- speakera continued dependency and subserviency
- speakeras the price of our assistance. And the poor,
- speakerlet me tell you, the poor will read that message loud and clear.
- speakerThere is another way.
- speakerBut the other way is risky. It's dangerous. And it's
- speakerembarrassing because it frequently discloses our own
- speakerweaknesses. A Peace Corps volunteer in Chimbote,
- speakerPeru, a young fellow named Tom Carter, wrote me a letter.
- speakerAnd he described the other way. He didn't know he was describing it, but
- speakerthis is what he said. He said, "My job is to get these people, my neighbors,
- speakerThere is a significant phrase "my neighbors."
- speakerorganized to make them better able to compete in the city for
- speakertheir rights and to try and get them to raise their standard of living
- speakerback to the human race."
- speakerIn one sentence, that's the Community Action Program
- speakerin the war against poverty. He went on. He said, I teach in the local school
- speakerduring the day. And, I teach carpentry to adults at night. Both of these are
- speakerimportant jobs, but I consider them only a tool.
- speakerTeaching kids is fun for
- speakerme and it's hilarious for the roughhousing students,
- speakerbut it's only an excuse for being in the slum.
- speakerIn the bariata, it's
- speakercalled. For example, our school has no roof
- speakerIt would be a ten dollar project and about one day's
- speakerlabor for two or three Peace Corps volunteers to build that roof.
- speakerYet we won't do it. If we
- speakergave my school a roof, it would always be that--a gift.
- speakerIt would be a gift. The gringos roof. When it needed fixing no
- speakerone would fix it.
- speakerIf it takes me a year to talk my neighbours into putting on that roof, it will be
- speakerworth it because it will then be their roof on their school.
- speakerIt would be a small start,
- speakerbut in the right direction. Maybe then we could take on a little harder project,
- speakerand step by step build up a powerful organization,
- speakerinterested in progress and strong enough to do something about it. It has to be
- speakeran organization that does not need me. Otherwise it would collapse when I leave."
- speakerThat's story is typical
- speakerof Peace Corps volunteers that work in community development we call it in the Peace Corps
- speakerall over the world and especially in Latin America. Here at
- speakerhome in the war against poverty, we call it "community action."
- speakerIt's the same thing whether it's in Columbus or in Chimbote, Peru.
- speakerWhether it's in Chicago or Rio.
- speakerCommunity Action means what that young man described.
- speakerBringing in to being n organization strong enough to speak
- speakerup for the rights of the poor and to get those rights fulfilled.
- speakerDoing that however involves of surrender. Of some of our own power
- speakerWe North Americans in our end Latin America surrender our own
- speakerpower in the Peace Corps. To dictate how everything is to be done
- speakerWe don't go down there and force them to learn English we learn
- speakerSpanish.
- speakerWe don't force them to get accustomed to our kind of food or to import our who we eat
- speakerthere. We don't say that the way we solve a problem a
- speakerproblem in municipal government is the way they've got to solve it. We try
- speakerto help them solve their problems in very ways.
- speakerThis has led many of our people to to realize. That our way
- speakeris not always the best way and our language isn't necessarily the most beautiful language
- speakerAnd our attitudes about things in the world are not always the right attitudes.
- speakerThat's education, but it's also revelation.
- speakerIt is giving those people control over their own destiny.
- speakerInterestingly enough, it's rather easy for all of us in the United States
- speakerto extol the work of the Peace Corps volunteers in Community Development in
- speakerLatin America. But when it becomes community action in New York City,
- speakerthat's a different matter.
- speakerAnd the power structures, whether they are Democratic or Republican makes no difference.
- speakerWhether they are church or professional social worker
- speakeror private philanthropic groups, they all react the same way
- speakerhere just as they do in Latin America. Down there, there are the
- speakerpeople in charge of the city Chimbote. They don't like the community action
- speakerin the slums. And up here the same thing
- speakersometimes occurs.
- speakerWe've got to come to realize that even in some of our most
- speakercherished institutions that some of our approaches can actually
- speakercreate poverty and impose an
- speakerinferior status on people. For example, in the public schools,
- speakerand probably in the parochial schools too,
- speakerbut in the public schools, Edgar Friedenberg [Friedenberg, Edgar Z.] recently
- speakerwrote a book about it in which he said the most tragic thing that happens to lower
- speakerstatus youngsters in school is that they learn to accept
- speakerthe prevailing judgment of their own worth.
- speakerAnd that occurs in many other institutions, not just school.
- speakerAll those institutions which appear to be helping the poor,
- speakerwhich look as if they're doing charitable work,
- speakerbut which all too often exact a humiliation and
- speakerembarrassment from the recipient as a price
- speakerof the assistance. We had a conference in Tucson Arizona not
- speakerlong ago on poverty in the Southwest. And we took the
- speakertrouble to bring to that conference a number of poor people. And we let them get up and tell us what
- speakerpoverty was like. And one of them was a negro woman from Pueblo Colorado.
- speakerShe had never had more than an eighth grade education. Her name was Janice
- speakerBradshaw. And this is what she said.
- speakerPoverty is a personal thing. Poverty is taking your children to
- speakerthe hospital and spending the whole day waiting with no one even taking your name,
- speakerand then coming back the next day and the next until finally they get around to you.
- speakerPoverty is having a landlady who is a public health nurse.
- speakerWho turns off the heat when she leaves for work at six am in the morning. And turns it
- speakerback on at six P.M. when she comes home. It's being hopeless to do anything
- speakerabout this. Because by the time the officials get around to looking into it,
- speakershe's turned the heat back on for that day. But then the next day, it will be
- speakeroff again. Poverty is having the welfare investigators break into your
- speakerhome in the middle of the night and tell you that you have been
- speakertaken off of welfare. And when you asked for an explanation,
- speakeryou go downtown. They tell you it's because they found a pair of men's
- speakerhouse slippers in the attic where your brother left them when he
- speakervisited you last Christmas. Poverty is having a child with glaucoma
- speakerand watching that eye condition grow worse every day while the
- speakerwelfare officials send you to the private agencies and the private agencies send you back to
- speakerwelfare. And when you ask their welfare officials to refer you
- speakerto a special hospital, they say they can't do that. And then when you say it's
- speakerprejudice, and they won't refer you because you're a Negro, they shout at you.
- speakerAnd they say name one child, white child, we have referred there,
- speakerand when you name twenty five, they sit down and they shut up.
- speakerAnd then they finally refer you,
- speakerbut it's too late Because your child has permanently lost eighty percent of his
- speakervision. And the doctors tell you that if only they had caught it a
- speakermonth earlier when you first made an inquiry about that film
- speakerover his eyes, they could have preserved his vision.
- speakerThat's poverty. Does that sound like we're helping the poor?
- speakerJudging from your own annual report, the same difficulties, the same
- speakerimplied rejections of the poor are built in the organization and location
- speakerand structure of the church.
- speakerOne of these is a rejection in style. Perhaps you read about the
- speakerwork of Chaplain Burke at the Erie County Detention Home.
- speakerHe found that the. Boys in this detention home
- speakerdidn't respond to biblical stories. And so he said to
- speakerthem, you rewrite these stories in your own words you boys. And he
- speakergot back a story that Jesus was not born in Bethlehem but in
- speakerBuffalo. During a convention when every hotel room was filled.
- speakerHis stable was a hot dog stand in Delaware Park.
- speakerThey rewrote the twenty third Psalm and it ran like
- speakerthis. The Lord is my probation officer. He will help me.
- speakerHe tries to help me make it every day. He makes
- speakerme play it cool.
- speakerThat kind of language or feeling strips us of a lot of our
- speakerpretentiousness about sub professionals and indigenous leaders
- speakerreplication counterproductive. And all that in group
- speakerjargon which we use to hide lack of activity.
- speaker[applause]
- speakerAnd perhaps all those good upstanding citizens in New York City who stood around, thirty-
- speakernine of them, I think there were, when a woman was murdered in broad daylight
- speakerright in front of their eyes could have benefited from the story of the Good Samaritan
- speakeras rewritten by the same boys in the county detention home.
- speakerThey said the Good Samaritan became the cool
- speakersquare who helped a mugged victim after a hood and a
- speakersqueak had passed him by.
- speakerYou don't have to be a square to show love and to be sorry for
- speakersomeone and to help a guy. The parable ends,
- speakerbut get with it, man. That's what God wants you to do.
- speakerOr to use the words of your own report. The church must minister to
- speakerand lead people in these days with the Gospel revealed in
- speakerthe time of the ox, the camel, the whore, and the water jug. When slavery
- speakerwas the lot for most people and doing that means more than
- speakermerely a change in style because the problems run deeper than words.
- speakerYou know what those issues are. Accessibility
- speakeris one of them. Just being where people can
- speakerreach you. A sense of welcome is another. The
- speakeruse of laymen is a third. Denominational
- speakerrivalry is a fourth. Cooperation with other
- speakerprofessions is a fifth.
- speakerAnd that list, that list, I got it right out of your own report.
- speakerThose are the items in your report which you chose
- speakerto highlight. Certain specific incidents that have occurred
- speakerthat you thought were laudatory. The wedding which was
- speakerperformed in a Minneapolis tavern. So the couple's friends
- speakerwould feel at ease. The plans of the clergy in Chicago of all faiths that set up a
- speakercentral office. So that it would be prompt referral and response to laymen's
- speakercalls. The arrangements for the riverfront church center to establish a
- speakernight time ministry and round the clock telephone service manned by
- speakervolunteers to take calls from people in distress.
- speakerThe use in high rise apartments of sensitive
- speakerlaymen at the reception desk to give spiritual guidance and counsel to the
- speakerpoor. And most moving of all that story from Chicago,
- speakerand I quote it, after dark men
- speakerroam the streets aimlessly. One who roams with a purpose
- speakeris the Reverend George Morey [George M. Morey], a free wheeling minister for the United Presbyterian
- speakerChurch, operating without benefit of church or choir or pulpit.
- speakerhe talks to people where he finds. Frequently in a pizza parlor.
- speakerWilson Avenue. Uptown's
- speakermain stem and Mr Morey's beat. It is, he
- speakersays, a road littered with illiteracy,
- speakerfolk religion, strange moral customs, common law marriages,
- speakerfamily breakdown, unskilled and unemployable
- speakerlabor. Less than ten percent of these Southern whites
- speakerhave any church time. Fewer than one hundred persons are
- speakerrelated to any major church denomination. The roving
- speakerpastor lends a ministering hand where he can. Helps to find jobs.
- speakerVisits people in jail. Listens to trouble.
- speakerHis object to demonstrate that Jesus
- speakerChrist does care about these pilgrims in a
- speakerforeign land.
- speakerAs I read these stories, you know what struck me?
- speakerThey are the exception,
- speakernot the rule. They're the things that you and all of us are proud of.
- speakerThe isolated incidents which we, where we have followed the
- speakerdictates of conscience, rather than convenience.
- speakerBut the day must come and come soon when these do not stand as idle
- speakerisolated examples as anecdotes. When they're so common and so
- speakerpervasive and yet so true
- speakerto the original vision and mission of our Lord that we can talk,
- speakernot just about individual clergymen, but about the
- speakerchurch, the living church. Not a building.
- speakerNot a school. Not a style of architecture
- speakerbut a living, moving force in the affairs of men.
- speakerFor once more, in your own words,
- speakerwhen a nation fights for its soul, who but the church should
- speakerset the context for that struggle. You will set
- speakerthe context if you face up to the danger that even God's
- speakerwork can become political, denominational, bureaucratic.
- speakerAmong your report, there is one called
- speakersober thoughts from a presbytery executive.
- speakerI'd like permission to paraphrase that report and
- speakereven leave out a sentence or two. And I'd like to add a comment.
- speakerAnd if I did,
- speakerthis would be, I think, the best guarantee that you in this nation
- speakerwill win in this struggle to preserve its soul.
- speakerThis is what the reports say. How shall we structure the
- speakercongregation for mission? There's a growing impatience
- speakerwith the structured church and normal congregation. Emphasis on
- speakerdetached ministry, on community organization,
- speakerand on power structures is called for. I agree with the author.
- speakerBut then I detect a note,
- speakermay I say, a note of faint heartedness.
- speakerThe author feels he's becoming too exposed. Too much alone,
- speakerfor he says,
- speaker"But when in our enthusiasm we desert the gathered
- speakerchurch, we are in danger of moving beyond our supply lines.
- speakerWith growing decentralization of administration, there is a
- speakerbudgeting shift which threatens our General Assembly
- speakergeneral mission. It's good," he then goes on,
- speaker"to shift responsibility to local levels. But there is need
- speakerto look further down the road."
- speakerBut if we would only look just a bit further down that same road,
- speakerI think that you will see a church
- speakerwith no supply lines, no visible supply lines.
- speakerWith a structure with no visible budgets or budgeting shifts.
- speakerYou will see that you have crossed old frontiers and instead of the
- speakertranquillity you dream about, you will find yourself with our Lord
- speakeron the road way to Jerusalem.
- speakerEven to the cross. And on the cross.
- speakerThere was never a more exposed or
- speakerlonely figure in human history than that.
- speakerman, who truly conquered all
- speakerand made it possible for each of us, and for every
- speakernation to preserve its soul. Thank you. [Applause]
- speaker[Thompson, William P. speaking] I'm sure I speak for the entire assembly when I say to Mr Shriver that we are
- speakergreatly in his debt for this very moving address.
- speakerThe motion before the House is to
- speakeradopt Section three of the report. There is a commissioner at microphone
- speakerfour.
- speakerWilliam Curtin, Maumee Presbytery. And I wonder, Mr Moderator, if
- speakerwe might have this excellent address in print?
- speaker[applause]
- speakerWe shall inquire and make every effort to obtain it. At microphone one. Mr
- speakerModerator. I am William Eisenhower [Eishower, William M., pastor Bakersfield Northminster] from San Joaquin Presbytery.
- speakerAm I in order to make a an addition to
- speakersection three? You are.
- speakerI'd like to move, sir,
- speakerPage thirteen,
- speakerA,
- speakeran addition, an additional paragraph
- speakerthree, for the recommendations there
- speaker"That we
- speakercall on the church to support governmental agencies in making
- speakerfamily planning information and aids available to
- speakerthose who desire them." So moved.
- speakerIs your motion available in writing, sir? Yes, it is, sir.
- speakerThe chair is not clear at what point this is to be added.
- speakerPage thirteen under the under A "The
- speakercontext for social for mssion with
- speakerdeprived persons." Yes. I'm adding to the recommendations
- speakera third recommendation at the end of the first
- speakerparagraph.
- speakerI see. I see. Is there a second?
- speakerThe motion has been seconded.
- speakerWill the commissioner speak to the motion? Only briefly. Just to say that
- speakerthat as I meet, not too often because I'm in the suburbs,
- speakerbut I do meet them in the probation hall and P.T.A.
- speakermeetings as I move in the different parts of the city to speak on child
- speakerrearing practices to discover that this is a real
- speakerconcern to many who bring into the world children they really don't want
- speakerbecause somehow, society with all the knowledge that's available on the
- speakerfamily planning, simply still does not quite get to these
- speakerpeople who are depressed and deprived and somehow missed this
- speakerkind of thing and it seems to me as the governmental agencies are now tentatively
- speakerbeginning one by one to experiment with providing
- speakerthis information and these aids to those who desire them. That certainly the
- speakerchurch ought to begin to to support this movement.
- speakerBecause if we were to say, we have said a lot about the crying needs of this
- speakerworld, but we could tell story after story of the
- speakerdeprived, rejected child who is unwanted year
- speakerone month to five years of age and this is where the great
- speakermisery of the world exists today.
- speaker[Thompson] The Chair will recognize the chairman of the Standing Committee [Swartzback, Raymond H.] to indicate the
- speakerposition of the committee on this point. And then we'll recognize the commissioner at microphone
- speakerthree. Mr. Moderator, the Standing Committee
- speakerrecognizes the urgency of this matter and we are certainly in agreement with the
- speakersupposition. We were advised that this was to be handled
- speakerby Church and Society. And so it would be our recommendation that this,
- speakerif it's not in the Church and Society report, be introduced at that time
- speakeras part of their major report.
- speakerI'll be happy to withdraw this. I think my seconder will. And we will present it then, if it
- speakeris not
- speakerin their report. The commissioner who seconded the motion willing that it be withdrawn?
- speakerIt is withdrawn. The
- speakerChair recognizes the commissioner at microphone three. My name is Morton
- speakerKahn. I am from the Cayuga-Syracuse Presbytery. I'm here
- speakerto raise a question. I commend the committee on the third.
- speakerSection three of this report. It's excellence but I
- speakerfail to see a mention
- speakerof something that very often men-, when it failed to mentioned. And that is the
- speakerquestion of migrants. In this country. I know that probably it's
- speakerthe intent under National Missions and in speaking of the
- speakerculturally deprived people to
- speakerinclude them. On the other hand,
- speakerwithout it being specifically spelled out, I submit that as is
- speakerusually the case, most of us when we speak of our neighborhood problems and
- speakerpockets of poverty very often leave out this segment of
- speakerpeople who are not even second class citizens, who are
- speakerunique.
- speakerTheir uniqueness lies in the very fact of migrancy, belonging to no one
- speakercommunity. And this does not lessen our
- speakerresponsibility. And I feel that perhaps we should specifically, in this
- speakerreport somewhere, call attention to each of us
- speakeras we go back, that this is a very real problem in our communities.
- speakerAnd that they should not continue to be forgotten.
- speakerThank you, sir. The chair recognizes the chairman of the Standing Committee to respond.
- speakerMr Moderator, this matter was brought to the Standing Committee. We were informed
- speakerat that time that this had come before the General Assembly two years
- speakerago. At that time a decade of
- speakerprojection is was approved and these projections relative to the
- speakermigrant ministry are in effect.
- speakerMicrophone one.
- speakerModerator, Hayward [Hayward, Robert B.] from Buffalo. I'm chairman of
- speakerour local committee on urban church. And, I wish to commend
- speakerthe Board for this policy statement. It has been in our hands for the past several
- speakermonths. And we found it to be a very helpful and a very supportive instrument
- speakeras we try to deal with some of the problems in the city. Thank you, sir.
- speakerThere is a commissioner approaching microphone four.
- speakerMr. Moderator, Brown [Brown, Lewis Sarle] of Philadelphia. I should like to ask
- speakerfor a bit of information about number three on
- speakerpage fifteen. The implementing
- speakerrole the church may actually share in the implementation of some programs made
- speakerpossible by the funds of the federal poverty program.
- speakerIn Philadelphia we pick up the paper and read about the poverty program and we are not
- speakersurprised, having a Roman Catholic Democratic mayor, to suddenly read that
- speakerthe millions will be distributed in the following fashion. And
- speakerthen they list as one item the Cardinal's Committee so many million.
- speakerThere are some of us who are
- speakerjust a bit shocked at the great joke that the traditional
- speakerseparation of church and state has become. There was a time
- speakerwhen certain leaders of our church spoke out against the church receiving funds from
- speakerthe federal government.
- speakerA few citations from certain churches, a few medals
- speakerand honors, and suddenly we hear no more about churches paying their own way and even
- speakeroffering to pay taxes on their property.
- speakerWe read Time magazine recently in which a brilliant editor
- speakersimply pointed out the fact
- speakerThat the Roman Catholic Church for the first time in American history is about to
- speakerreceive millions of dollars
- speakerfrom the taxpayers through an act of Congress. This being brought
- speakerabout by the ecumenical movement.
- speakerAll other such efforts had failed year after year.
- speakerBut now we have a great ecumenical movement in which my church is a leader.
- speakerAnd suddenly any church who wants federal funds, finds in a good sweet
- speakerspirit of brotherly love that they may obtain them. And we remain silent.
- speakerWe recall that there is a problem. There
- speakeris a poverty problem. It's mostly in Roman Catholic
- speakercountries.
- speakerThose of us, who for years listened to John Mackay [Mackay, John A., President Princeton Theological Seminary] remember quite well when he
- speakertold us that one of the leading Roman Catholic politicians of South America
- speakersaid to him, "Sir, the difference between North America and South America is not
- speakernatural resources.
- speakerThe difference is not people. The difference is that in
- speakerone
- speakercontinent there was the Protestant church. In the other there was absolute domination by
- speakerthe Roman Catholic Church.
- speakerWe have a problem in Vietnam, which is referred to by one
- speakerwriter in hundreds of newspapers as Cardinal Spellman's war.
- speakerWe have a problem in the Dominican Republic because the only duly elected
- speakerrepresentative government was tossed out when it refused longer to pick up the check for
- speakertotal expenses of the Roman Catholic Church.
- speakerWe have a great many problems because there are those who would
- speakerlike to see the churches share in the federal funds
- speakerwhenever they're dished out.
- speakerI come from a very conservative presbytery that
- speakerapparently is out of step.
- speakerSome time ago for one of our Presbyterian projects, we were offered a sum of four
- speakerhundred thousand dollars by the politicians.
- speakerWe asked where does this money come from? We were told quite simply that we
- speakergo out with the threat of a federal penitentiary turn. And we say to
- speakerJews, atheists, people who have no concern whatever for
- speakerPresbyterian institutions, hand us your money. And we're happy to hand
- speakerover to you this four hundred thousand dollars. The Philadelphia
- speakerPresbytery unwilling to sell its Presbyterian heritage for a mess of
- speakerpolitical pottage decided to reject in its entirety this
- speakerfour hundred thousand dollars gift. This was not a loan. This was a gift.
- speakerSome of us are disturbed by the absolute silence of our leaders
- speakertoday
- speakerwhen the federal funds are involved. And I should like to
- speakerask, sir, for some clarification. In other words, do we heartily approve
- speakerwhen millions of dollars in a poverty stricken city are to be handed out
- speakerby the Cardinal's Committee?
- speakerMr. Ramage [Ramage, David, Jr.] will speak to this.
- speakerIf I could call your attention to page thirteen in the proposed
- speakerguidelines at the bottom of the page,
- speakernumber three. Act as a critique of public
- speakerpolicy, assuming a function of constructive criticism
- speakerin relation to any apparent shortcomings or
- speakerperversions of any programs intended to help the
- speakerpoor.
- speakerThese guidelines call on the church to do that and do it responsibly.
- speakerBut since these guidelines are concerned about the church
- speakerfinding ways to aid the poor, where there are situations in which
- speakerno other agency can do this job, these
- speakerguidelines suggest that the church make available its facilities
- speakerto do that job.
- speakerCommissioner at microphone one. And, then, if you will approach microphone three, sir.
- speakerMicrophone one. Mr Moderator and
- speakerfathers and brethern. Ken Waterman. Kansas City Presbytery in
- speakerMissouri. I'm sorry now that I've run out of white shirts and put this
- speakerblack work shirt on this morning after that
- speakerlast question from the floor.
- speakerI happen to be a member of the Human Resources Corporation board of directors that
- speakeradministers the Title Two section of the Economic Opportunity Act for
- speakerKansas City, Missouri, in Jackson County, Missouri. It's a thirteen man board.
- speakerOne of the things that
- speakersection one of this report of the Standing Committee talks about the
- speakerextension of the ministry. We won't have to wait until we pick up our
- speakernewspapers to find out what's going on and then only get part of the story.
- speakerThe Economic Opportunity Act is very strictly written. And
- speakerI, in my investigations, both in the Office of Economic Opportunity in
- speakerWashington several times, conferring with some of the top executives on Sargent Shriver's
- speakerstaff. Representatives in Kansas City and Chicago and my own experiences with the Act.
- speakerI'm afraid, gentlemen, that it's being most scrupulously
- speakeradministered. As a matter of fact,
- speakerin some parts of this country, not only in Philadelphia. And I do not know the
- speakerdetails of the Philadelphia situation, but some Catholic dioceses, as well as
- speakercouncils of churches and other church bodies and denominations,
- speakerhave indeed
