Religion: Cure for the Virus

Priests preached no sermons last Sunday in the Roman Catholic diocese of Raleigh, N.C. Instead, they read a letter from Bishop Vincent S. Waters ending in one stroke all racial segregation in the Catholic churches of his diocese.

"Let me state here as emphatically as I can," wrote Virginia-born Bishop Waters, "that there is no segregation of races to be tolerated in any Catholic church in the diocese of Raleigh. The pastors are charged with the carrying out of this teaching and shall tolerate nothing to the contrary . . . Equal rights are accorded, therefore, to every race . . . and within the church building itself everyone is given the privilege to sit or kneel wherever he desires . . . I am not unmindful, as a Southerner, of the force of this virus of prejudice among some persons in the South, as well as in the North. I know, however, that there is a cure for this virus, and that is our faith."

Bishop Waters' first blow against segregation was his order that the two Catholic churches of Newton Grove, N.C., one white, one Negro, merge their congregations last month (TIME, June 8). On none of the four Sundays since the bishop's order have more than 84 of the combined congregation of 440 turned up for Sunday Mass. But the bishop is confident that it is just a question of time.