Priests in Tweeds

"The tiny populations of Scandinavia can never hope to oppose aggression with physical force," wrote Novelist Evelyn Waugh after a visit to Scandinavia last year. "If they are to survive it must be through spiritual strength, and there alas . . . they are woefully enfeebled . . . They are secularized from infancy by the omnicompetent state, and as a result are unique in history in having no religion at all."

In Stockholm, the newspaper Stockholms-Tidningen recently conducted a debate between teen-agers on "Youth and the Church." Their comments seem to bear out Waugh's indictment. "I have not been to church since confirmation," declared Bobby-Soxer Karin Eriksson; "I don't want to be a slave to any God." "And I don't go to church because I cannot stand the overbearing condescending manners of preachers," stated Gunnel Sandstrom. "What we need," said 18-year-old Gustaf Renneus of Kungsholm, "is a priest who is also a sportsman, one who talks our language without any humbug."

Last week the Swedish Church Council took Gustaf's advice. "If they don't come to church, the church will have to go to them," said Bishop Aulen of Strangnas. The Church Council thereupon voted to establish three "sports priests"--young men whose active interest in sport matches their devotion to church.

"They will wear tweeds, and bring prayers into sport clubs and discuss religion with those who usually by-pass the church," said Bishop Aulen, who commented on the fact that Vicar Norby of Nacka, who has held the Swedish shot-put record, boasts some of the largest congregations in Sweden.

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