Bishop v. Archbishop?

In last month's American Magazine New York's Archbishop Francis Joseph Spellman wrote: "There have been many great changes at home since the war began. One . . . has been an increase in the prevalence of bigotry, evidenced by . . . race riots, assaults on groups and individuals because of racial and religious differences, desecration of synagogues and churches. . . ."

Last week Archbishop Spellman's chancellor, Auxiliary Bishop J. Francis A. McIntyre, contradicted his superior. Speaking at a Communion breakfast, Bishop Mclntyre denied there was any anti-Semitism worth mentioning. It was just "a stuffed wolf," set up "by paid publicity agents [who] by exaggerating the doodling's in chalk of children playing on the streets . . . conjured up out of their imaginations the phantom of anti-Semitic hate." The whole thing, he said, was "a manufactured movement," created "for the deliberate purpose of besmirching the minority Catholic population."

The Bishop was especially irked by reports of a forthcoming MARCH OF TIME film (now in production) about intolerance, in which children are shown desecrating a Manhattan synagogue. The Bishop called the scene, in which children chalked the word Jew on the synagogue's walls, "a farce."

Spreading Cancer. Quick to defend the picture was the National Conference of Christians & Jews which includes Roman Catholics and which had previously approved M.O.T.'s projected film. Said the Conference's Dr. Willard Johnson: "We believe that Americans of all creeds are in sympathy with this objective . . . the forthcoming picture . . . which deals with the pernicious effects of all forms of bigotry, will be an invaluable help in directing public attention to what His Excellency, Archbishop Spellman, accurately describes as a spreading cancer."

Rabbi Harold H. Mashioff, at whose Temple of the Covenant the desecration scene was filmed, gave consent because the synagogue has been desecrated several times. He found it "difficult to see how any group could take offense at this film." Said he: "In no part of the script was suspicion cast upon any minority or group. All religions are facing this difficulty and we cannot correct an evil without showing what it is."

Few days later MARCH OF TIME, which had obtained Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia's verbal permission to film the gates of one of New York City's Jewish cemeteries for the same film, got a telephone call from the police captain of the cemetery precinct. He said no pictures could be taken. M.O.T. took the pictures anyway, and police took the names of the camera crew.

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