THE ECUMENICAL SMILE'

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31089, 18 June 1966, Page 22

THE ECUMENICAL SMILE'

He had come to recognise the “ecumenical smile” between Christians of different faiths who, when coming together, were not quite sure what to do next, Dr. F. J. Sheed, a well-known Roman Catholic publisher, told a large audience In the Horticultural Hall on Thursday night. The “ecumenical smile” was genuine, but people were not equipped to carry it any further into open discussion of their various viewpoints, he said. After greeting each each other as Christian brothers they had to subside into talk on the weather and other unimportant subjects, whereas they should be able to speak out about the faith that meant so much to them. This “ridiculous situation” had arisen over 300 years of Roman Catholics and Protestants emphasising the 25 per cent of disagreement between them, while overlooking the 75 per cent of the Christian beliefs they held in common. Today, when people were working for unity in a situation with “unity of heart” but where the different religions had “conditioned” people differently, there was a deplorable ignorance of what the other side did and believed, said Dr. Sheed.

Roman Catholics were known to commonly think of Protestants as Bible men, while Proestants were inclined to think of Roman Catholics as Pope’s men in a exaggerated way. Dr. Sheed said. Neither of these was the case, but few people really knew it.

“That Catholics can’t think” was an accepted fact to many people, said Dr. Sheed. Roman Catholics had never been good at explaining “how our freedom is increased by obedience to the teaching authority’’; and on many other matters the laity just didn’t understand its own position. Today, ip the spirit of ecuminism, the two Christian groups were meeting in a new relationship in which it was necessary that they openly discuss matters on which they disagreed and agreed. It was necessary to love one another, but that did not mean a “putting up” with each other or “tolerating one another”; it was more respect for differences and enjoying having ffe disagreeing person in one’s company, and enjoy-

ing spending time listening to him, said Dr. Sheed. In trying to catch attention in the noisy world of today it was necessary to realise that hardly anything could be heard above the din of modern civilisation, and that the only voice heard was that of one person speaking to another. If people could speak about their religious beliefs openly, they could change the religious climate of the nation, said Dr. Sheed. In a busy question time after his address, Dr. Sheed discussed heaven and hell, the need for faith, the difficulties of mixed marriages between Protestants and Roman Catholics, the danger of “thrusting religion down people’s throats,” and other subjects.