Religion: Words & Works

¶ "It no longer can be said today that the United States is a Protestant country," said Samuel Cardinal Stritch of Chicago, as he visited Venezuela on his way home from the International Eucharistic Congress in Rio de Janeiro. "The Catholic Church is forging ahead, growing day by day and becoming stronger."

¶ Six members of the twelve-man Soviet agricultural delegation visiting Iowa (TIME, Aug. 1) attended Sunday services at a Presbyterian church in Jefferson, fanned themselves with church programs, let their attention wander only occasionally as the Rev. Henry Needing preached on "Life Can Be Beautiful." The Russians bought new shirts for the church service, put money in the collection box, later said that religion, or the lack of it, should not be the criterion for friendship.

¶ Judging American Sunday schools and finding them wanting, Dr. F. Eppling Reinartz, secretary of the United Lutheran Church in America, told the International Sunday School Convention in Cleveland that Sunday schools 1) do not "typically appraise the worth of a person" by Christian values, 2) foster a "shallow and confused" theology, 3) "do not reckon with . . . social resistance to righteousness."

¶ Religious preferences of armed forces personnel will be spelled out on their dog tags in future instead of being designated by a single letter, the Department of Defense announced. Purpose of the new policy: to identify "more appropriately" those hitherto placed in category "P" (for all Protestant denominations) and "X" (for all faiths not Protestant, Jewish or Roman Catholic).