Religion: Segregation Is Immoral

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During the Little Rock segregation crisis, Roman Catholic parochial schools of Arkansas seemed so safely segregated that many Protestant parents began sending their children to them. The Roman Catholic Bishop of Little Rock, Albert Louis Fletcher, 63, kept silent during the public school hassle, despite his own strong statement in favor of the Supreme Court desegregation decision in 1954 and the consistent anti-segregation policy of the Catholic hierarchy in the South. But last week Fletcher published an "Elementary Catholic Catechism on the Morality of Segregation and Racial Discrimination." Main points:

¶ "Segregation as we know it in Arkansas is immoral."

¶ The habit of racial segregation is a vice and can be a grave sin "when the act of racial prejudice committed is a serious infraction of the law of justice or charity."

¶ Catholics may not be members of organizations "whose purpose is to continue segregation as we know it ... because by so doing, they are promoting a system which is unjust and uncharitable."