Religion: Unbrotherly Division

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There is "serious tension developing between Roman Catholics and Protestants in the United States." That is the opinion of Methodist Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam, president of the Federal Council of Churches. To a mass meeting of Protestants in St. Louis this week, Bishop Oxnam said: "Roman Catholic and Protestant alike must discover and remove the causes that make for unbrotherly division."

The Bishop urged an end to "religious discussion and practice that divide Christians." But "understanding awaits plain speech."

Bishop Oxnam does not shrink from plain speech. Catholics, said he, have called Protestants "intolerant" for demanding certain rights. But Protestants must continue to insist on these rights:

¶ To protest against any Roman Catholic attempt to control, by threat of boycott, newspapers or radio.

¶To insist upon separation of church and state.

¶To engage freely in foreign missions.

¶To protest against Roman Catholic support of Franco Spain.

¶To oppose "clericalism" ("the pursuit of power, especially political power, by a religious hierarchy").

¶To repudiate theories that "lead logically to a subservient state dominated by an absolute church."

Bishop Oxnam believes in his church's responsibility as well as its rights: "The world desperately needs a new unifying concept." Unless that concept is soon presented to a waiting world by the three great branches of the Holy Catholic Church (Protestant, Roman and Eastern Orthodox), the world, says the Bishop, will have the right to say to the church: "Physician, heal thyself."