Church Reaction In Salisbury

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31449, 16 August 1967, Page 17

Church Reaction In Salisbury

(N.Z.P. A .-Reuter— Copyright) SALISBURY, Aug. 15. Roman Catholic authorities in Salisbury have reacted swiftly to a newspaper advertisement which challenged their stand against the Government’s plan to introduce apartheid-type residential laws. The advertisement, in the "Sunday Mail,” was headed "Message to all Catholics,” and offered Roman Catholics who disagreed with a declaration by the country’s five Roman Catholic bishops an opportunity to make their views known.

It invited them to sign a statement that the bishops were expressing their private view and did not speak for all Roman Catholics. But a spokesman for the Roman Catholic Church confirmed that far from being “purely private,” the bishops’ letter which was read from the pulpit of every Roman Catholic church in the coun-

try was an official statement by the Church. The “Rhodesia Herald” reported today that many Roman Catholics were angered by the advertisement It quoted one parish priest as saying his congregation had spoken with horror of the “gross public disobedience” to the bishops in the advertisement, which had been placed by a Mr Benny Stapleton of Umtali.

The call by the bishops two months ago, describing the proposed legislation as dishonourable, discriminatory, and impossible to defend on any Christian principle was also endorsed by Rhodesia’s two Anglican bishops. Plans for the new laws, which would enable whites to force the eviction of coloured and Asian families in predominantly white areas, seem to have been delayed since they were first announced by Mr lan Smith’s breakaway Government at the begining of June.

One theory is that the Government, surprised at the opposition to its plan from both lay and religious sources, has decided to do some redrafting.