Cardinal Starts Controversy

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31255, 30 December 1966, Page 10

Cardinal Starts Controversy

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) NEW YORK, Dec. 29.

During his Christmas visit to American troops in South Vietnam, Cardinal Spellman, of New York, ignited a sharp controversy by describing the hostilities as a war for civilisation and by calling for an unqualified victory, the “New York Times” News Service said today.

The Cardinal was quoted as having said that anything less than victory would be inconceivable. The words evoked a bitterly critical response from Hanoi and Moscow.

This, of course, was no more surprising than the unfavourable comment the Cardinal’s all-out support for the American cause drew during World War II and the Korean conflict. What is different this time is that the Cardinal’s action is also regarded as an embarrassment to the Vatican.

Pope Paul VI has been carrying on a campaign for a negotiated peace in Vietnam and has made it clear he would be very happy to see a settlement based on something less than a victory for the American position. A large number of Roman Catholics have expressed serious moral reservations about the war, even though their number is proportionately smaller than the number of Protestant and Jewish objectors. Traditionally Catholics support the nation’s war efforts

and leave moral responsibility for the war’s conduct to the political authorities. Cardinal Spellman was acting in this tradition when he endorsed the American position without qualification. In the past, local Catholic hierarchies almost always supported the wars of their nations, blessing troops and offering prayers for victory, while another group of bishops on the other side publicly prayed for the opposite outcome. And while this took place, the Vatican usually maintained a careful neutral-

ity and advocated an early end to hostilities.

On the surface, then, there was no great break between what Cardinal Spellman said in Vietnam and what has been expected of bishops in the past. However, because of the Ecumenical Council and a new moral seriousness found throughout Christianity, the Cardinal’s words seemed to many to be not only anachronistic but also off key, the “New York Times” News Service said.