Sympathy & Division

Can a Christian find good in Communism? It depends where he looks, says Dr. Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury. Speaking last week in London's red brick Church House, in the shadow of Westminster Abbey, the archbishop denounced "the black tyranny of ... atheistic and imperialistic Communism" in Eastern Europe. But he thought that Communism in the Orient might wear a different guise. Said he:

"In the Far East, it can easily be seen not as a tyranny but, at present, as a liberation . . . from social evils too long and unheedingly accepted. Realization of this fact must make us feel acute sympathy for Christians in China, for instance, who, while quite uncertain how things may work out in the future, acknowledge that the present regime is morally and socially preferable to the corruptions and inefficiency and exploitations of the regime it replaced."

As for Roman Catholicism, the archbishop showed something far from "acute sympathy." He was much less patient with Rome than with Peiping. Said he: "The times are inimical to freedom. All who value it on Christian grounds should stand together. The Vatican has several times recently called for a common front among Christians: it is tragic that the Roman Church at the same time says and does so much to make a common front impossible."

On behalf of the Church of England, the archbishop renewed his attack on the imminent proclamation of the Catholic dogma of the Assumption "as increasing division among Christians, and that over a point of doctrine which is in no way directly related to the Gospel and is quite irrelevant to the saving of men to Christ." He added an attack on the recent papal encyclical Humani Generis (TIME, Sept. 4) for "statements and arguments so far removed from the conception of Christian truth held outside the Roman Church that their publication and enforcement cannot but increase the isolation of that communion and must make any approach to understanding more difficult . . . The Roman Church takes its own line and does not stand as an ally toward other Christian bodies in the cause of freedom. For there are parts of the world in which the Roman authorities permit without protest and even encourage the use of political compulsions in their own favor against Christian bodies not of their obedience, and sometimes with the design of ending their existence."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.