Religion: Intersecting Circles

In the book-lined, Gothic common room of Washington Cathedral's College of Preachers, 40 serious men & women met last week. Their common concern: unhappy people.

Half the conferees were clergymen and half were psychiatrists. For two days they discussed such subjects as marriage counseling and the treatment of the bereaved. What they said to each other was a closely guarded secret; the congregation-minded clergy, nervous about being caught in a Freudian context, were none too anxious to publicize the discussion. But the meaning of the conference-lay not so much in what was said as in the fact that the two groups were officially speaking at all.

"The important thing about this conference," said Washington's handsome, rosy-cheeked Bishop Angus Dun, "is . . . that the thing has taken place, and with a first-rate group of people! Salvation and health are certainly not the same thing, yet 'health' is sometimes a good translation for 'salvation.' ... I'd like this to be a national center where intelligence from all over on problems of mental health is combined and diffused far and wide. . . .

"The interests of the clergy and the psychiatrists don't entirely coincide, but their circles intersect. Both are trying to release people from the burden of frustrations."