Religion: Report from the East

If the G.I. in Europe often misrepresented his country through bad behavior, he was a brilliantly successful ambassador of good will in the East. He also did more "softening up" for Christianity than any number of missionaries.

This is the report brought back from a seven-month, 36,000-mile swing around the Near and Far East by two top U.S. Jesuits: Missionary-Photographer Father Bernard Hubbard ("The Glacier Priest") and Father Calvert Alexander, onetime reporter for the St. Louis Star-Times and now editor of the monthly Jesuit Missions.

The two priests found Christianity making great headway in...