The Clerical Candidates

A graying, former college basketball star, the Rev. Louis Gigante is no stranger to conflict. The Roman Catholic priest once broke up a city council meeting to protest official indifference toward his impoverished, crime-ridden parish in the South Bronx. He has picketed FBI offices to object to, among other things, identification of his brother Vincent as a Mafia soldier. Now Gigante is engaged in another battle. With the grudging acquiescence of his archbishop, New York's "fighting priest" is running for Congress. "People tell you all the time that a priest should not be a candidate, and they are right." says Gigante, who is seeking the Democratic nomination. "But I am so fed up with what I have seen here that I am convinced we need drastic change."

Break with Tradition. Father Gigante is not alone. Frustrated by the continued fighting in Southeast Asia and the slow progress in dealing with social problems at home, at least twelve churchmen have turned from pulpit to political podiums this year and are seeking to join the two Protestant ministers who already serve in Congress.* Five of the challengers are Catholic, breaking with the American Catholic Church tradition against having priests run for public office.

Several of the new churchmen-politicians are one-issue candidates. George McClain, 31. a maverick Methodist minister, whose liberalism on political and religious issues led to a break with his congregation, now heads Shalom House, an ecumenical group on New York's Staten Island. "The peace issue is the central core of my campaign," he says. "It is a symbol against the direction we fear the country is taking." Father Stephen Vesbit, 33. of Grand Rapids, Mich., who is scheduled to announce his candidacy next week, has the same motive in running against House Minority Leader Gerald Ford. But the Rev. Andrew Young, 38, a black minister of the United Church of Christ and a former aide to the late Martin Luther King Jr., is seeking a congressional seat from Georgia for a different reason. Though opposed to the war, he wants political office in order to enact more extensive civil rights legislation.

Palatable Liberalism. Others offer broader platforms. In Massachusetts, the Rev. Robert Drinan. S.J., 49, is mounting an intensive drive to wrest the Democratic nomination from Representative Philip Philbin, 72, who is seeking his fifteenth term. Drinan's strong antiwar stand and reformist views on other issues have picked up predictable support from Bay State students and youngish voters. But a good many of the district's older residents who might otherwise favor Philbin are finding Drinan's liberal stance palatable because of his Roman collar. Says Drinan, former provost of Boston College and dean of the law school: "I'm not Father Groppi or Dan Berrigan. T don't burn draft records or take to the streets. I believe in working within the law for change. People listen to what I have to say."

People also seem to be listening to Joseph Duffey, 37, a minister of the United Church of Christ, as he attempts to take the Democratic senatorial nomination away from Connecticut's aging, ailing Thomas Dodd, 63. National chairman of the Americans for Democratic Action, Duffey proposes reorienting Connecticut's defense industries for non-military production, plays down his clerical credentials. "I am not running as a clergyman," he says. "I am running as a citizen, a Democrat and a father."

Barring divine intervention, none of the clerical candidates are going to coast to victory. Most, in fact, seem to be certain losers who will be satisfied if their candidacies force some political conversions. One clergyman has already succeeded in doing just that. Congressman Thaddeus Dulski. a six-term Buffalo, N.Y.. Democrat, used to take a hard line on the Viet Nam War. But after the Rev. Hugh Carmichael, an antiwar Episcopal priest, entered the race, Dulski changed his position; he now advocates withdrawal of all U.S. troops by a specific deadline.

* Adam Clayton Powell of New York, Abyssinian Baptist; John Hall Buchanan of Alabama, Baptist.

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