Words & Works

P: At their second synod (the first was in 1949), leaders of the Evangelical Church in Germany, representing 42,100,000 Protestants in the East and West zones, rejected the fiery Rev. Dr. Gustav Heinemann, 55, for a second term as president. Heinemann, who violently opposed Adenauer's alignment with the West and campaigned against German rearmament, was discarded in favor of the Rev. Dr. Constantin von Dietze, 63, Cambridge-educated former rector of Freiburg University. Elected without opposition for another six-year term as chairman of the church council: Bishop Otto Dibelius.

P: Speaking to his first mass audience since his illness, and for the first time in three years well enough to deliver his traditional Lenten address in person, Pope Pius XII, 79, read a 20-minute allocution to 1,000 of Rome's parish priests, Lenten preachers and lay members of Catholic Action. Warning against disunity, impatience and excessive zeal in bringing lost and wavering souls back into the church, he urged them to "push souls gently but firmly towards Jesus." Later in the week the Pope showed his continued strength by participating in a 90-minute ceremony celebrating the 16th anniversary of his accession to the papal throne.

P: Officers of the U.S. Army's 803rd Engineer Aviation Battalion, stationed near London, have decided to award a plaque bearing a painted devil to the company with the poorest record of church attendance during Lent, with orders that it be displayed prominently for two weeks. "We want to instill the fear of the Lord in all our troops," said the chaplain.

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