World Council of Churches to meet in Auckland

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32787, 11 December 1971, Page 12

World Council of Churches to meet in Auckland

(By the REV. R. M. O'GRADY, associate general-secretary of the National Council of Churches in New Zealand.)

In February, 1972, New Zealand will be host at the most important international church event held in the Dominion. The executive committee of the World Council of Churches will hold its biannual meeting in Auckland.

This committee has never before gone so far away from the main centres of the world’s population and we have a great privilege in being host to such a gathering.

There were many factors behind the World Council decision. In part it will be a good-will visit to Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. These countries are isolated geographically yet they have always been among the strongest supporters of the World Council. Both before and after the W.C.C. meetings the delegates will visit many towns and cities and speak to gatherings of church members. The Pacific world The meeting also acknowledges that the Pacific basin is a part of the world. Over many years the W.C.C. has exphasised that a world body needs to draw into its thinking the best of all nations. For a long time the council was dominated by the major Atlantic nations—the United States, Britain and Germany. Gradually the Orthodox voice was heard from Russia, Greece and Eastern Europe. In the past decade the voice of Asians, Africans and South Americans has also been more strongly heard. Finally, even the “water continent" of the South Pacific is being included. The World Council of Churches will therefore come to the capital of Polynesia when they meet in Auckland. The committee will open its deliberations onFebruary 8 and conclude on February 12. After the meeting most delegates will scatter throughout New Zealand to speaking engagements. '

They will make a colourful gathering representing all the continents of the world. Eighteen from Europe make the largest representation; six are from Asia; four each from the United States and Africa; two each from the Middle East, Russia, South America and Australasia; and one from the West Indies. They will represent every major church and most races. Many churches Several of the delegates will represent churches which are not even found in New Zealand. Among the Orthodox family of churches the colourful robes of the Bulgarian Orthodox, and the Syrian Orthodox Church of India, will be worn for the first time in this country. Names like the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Mar Thoma Syrian Church of Malabar will send local churchmen running to their dictionaries. The whole effect will be to show the breadth and riches of the church. In our country we have been relatively unaffected by the religious attitudes of the Orthodox. The Greek Orthodox have been members . of the National Council of Churches for some years but their relative smallness has kept them from playing their full part. It will be a lesson in church life for New Zealand churchmen to confront so many Orthodox bishops and metropolitans in one group. The World Council of Churches has often been compared to the United Nations. It has many points

of similarity but naturally there are considerable differences in functioning. While the United Nations has annual assemblies the World Council Assembly takes place every six or seven years. The last was at Uppsala, Sweden, in 1968, and 24 New Zealanders were among the 2000 participants.

Each of the 200-plus member churches are entitled to send delegates and the Assembly selects from its membership the 100-body Central Committee which is the interim policy making body. The sole New Zealander on this committee is the Bishop of Waikato, the Rt Rev. A. H. Johnston. The smaller executive committee is the one which will meet in New Zealand, and when the staff participants are included this should number 43 persons.

Change in emphasis

Since the W.C.C. came into existence in 1948 it has been at the forefront of international church thought. It has been open and flexible and this has enabled it to meet new challenges in each decade. The council had its roots in the Faith and Order arguments of 50 years ago. Then, at its inception, came the great struggle between liberal and conservative attitudes towards the church. By the 1950 s the issue had become the relationship between denominations and this was the time when national councils of churches be-

came respectable. Ten years ago, as the 1960 s began, the Roman Catholic church opened its doors to ecumenical encounter and a new era began. From that point events have moved with even greater rapidity. By 1965 the World Council was talking constantly of race relations and in the last two years has been trying to work out the implications of this for the church in the world. In a rapidly changing world, Christianity is facing new challenges from other living faiths and the W.C.C. has the need to keep alert to these changes. There are so many influences affecting the life of the church: changes in modes of worship, church structures, buildings, and the rejection of buildings, foundations of faith and attitudes to other faiths. Yet God and the Gospel do not change and the churches have the task of relating the unchanging aspects of the faith to the changing events of the time.

How to find a church which is relevant yet faithful continues to occupy the W.C.C.

Controversy

There have been many controversies surrounding the W.C.C. in recent years. None has caused as much misunderstanding as the decision to give grants to liberation organisations to combat racism. This was made public by the Prime Minister of South Africa and has been causing repercussions ever since. This will be just one of the many items for consideration in Auckland in February. Many matters will be controversial but most will be the housekeeping tasks of the organisation which claims to represent the millions of protestant, catholic and orthodox churchmen who make up the membership of the W.C.C. While the W.C.C. will be called to make statements on political or social issues,

these emerge from the theological and» spiritual life of the churches. Ail the decisions of the W.C.C. are based on Christian imperatives. The last meeting of the Central Committee in Ethiopia affirmed this position.

One of the central concerns for the next two years is “Salvation Today.” Someone at the W.C.C. commented that Salvation is the name of a musical in New York, a word for political liberation in South America, a forgotten word in western Europe and an equivalent for personal and private piety in Asia. This is a generalisation but it shows the bewildering number of ways in which this central concept is considered. Each meeting of the W.C.C. has interest and importance for the whole church around the world. The Auckland gathering will be the same. It is a moment to pause and take stock and the effects of this gathering could be felt in every part of the church world.

Cato was the epitome of all the brave men who pretended to enter the service of the Third Reich with the intention of destroying it from within. His story is full of the unexpected.

Jorge Antonio—Cato’s two Christian names—was a slim young Spaniard of medium height whose main features were a high forehead, a face of ascetic, almost El Grecoish, angularity, and eyes which impressed you with the burning sincerity of the man behind them. He had just turned 29 in the late summer of 1940.

Hitler was at the height of his triumph, and Jorge Antonio was a very unhappy young man. He feared Hitler was going to win the war. A German victory would mean the perpetuation of Franco’s police State. The only hope for Spain, he believed, lay in the defeat of Hitler by the British. He was a Basque and his widowed mother never lost an opportunity of impressing on her son the ancient liberal traditions of that once independent people. After the Civil War his Basque patriotism was reinforced by a sense of outraged Spanish pride, and resentment of what he considered Franco’s craven appeasement of Hitler. In September, 1940, Jorge Antonio offered his services as a spy to the British Embassy in Madrid. No-one was interested and he decided to try the Germans instead.

If he could prove to the British that the Germans had taken him on and believed in him, then perhaps they would change their minds.

Accepted by Germans

The Germans were much more forthcoming. An official listened to his proposition, that he should use the business connections of his family’s textile firm to get himself sent to Britain as a buyer of spare parts for machinery. With his representation of the family firm he proposed to combine the representation of a firm of Valencia fruit exporters. “I am not after money,” he declared. “I want to help you because you and your glorious Condor Legion helped us during the Civil War. Britain, the eternal obstacle to the unification of Europe, must be eliminated.” The Germans must have checked up on Jorge Antonio’s record and found it satisfactory. But there was another and most imperative reason why the Abwehr should accept his tempting offer. In the spring of 1940, when Hitler had begun his offensive against the Wert with the attack on Norway, German code-breakers had been deciphering British signals with the greatest of ease. But in August the British ciphers ' had been fundamentally changed. The intelligence reports which kept the U-boat service and the German battle fleet informed of every movement by British ships dried up. Admiral Canaris, head of the Abwehr, was clamouring for agents to be sent to England. Almost at the same time, the last German agents in Britain were rounded up. It was essential to send in new under-cover men unknown to the British to carry out visual reconnaissance, particularly in the ports. Special suit > As a result of this urgency, Jorge Antonio had two further meetings with the Germans Within a fortnight of his first visit Acting on orders from Berlin, the Abwehr’s man in Madrid, General Erich Kuhlenthal, approved the Spaniard’s appointment. He was to proceed to England via Portugal. A new suit was made for him, with a special lining of saffron-coloured wadding that produced invisible ink when a little was soaked in water. He was also given a camera for reducing documents to microdots, and instructions on how to build a radio transmitter with spare parts obtainable in shops. “Don’t hesitate to take on subagents to help with your work,” Urged Kuhlenthal before he left. On November 26, 1940, Jorge Antonio—now codenamed ’’Cato” by the Germans—travelled to Portugal with passport and visas ■suplied by the Abwehr, and promply went into hiding. Three months later, on February 27,. 1941, he sent his first message to Kuhlenthal. He himself placed it in the safe-deposit box at the Espiritu ■ Santo Bank in

Lisbon; which Kuhlenthal had proposed should serve as his post-box. The letter was dated February 15, 1941, and stated, quite untruthfully, that he had established himself without difficulty in Britain. He gave a harrowing picture of the demoralisation and defeatism he had found both in London and Manchester, the seat of the textilemachinery firm with which he was negotiating.

“Population cowed”

“Both are cities,” he said, “where you can go for days without seeing a smile.” The population was in abject fear of the Luftwaffe raids and furious with Churchill for turning down Hitler’s "generous offer of peace.” He said he was sending the letter by an allegedly venal steward on the 8.0.A.C. flying boat which plied between England and Lisbon.

Thus Cato was feeding the Germans false information, in his capacity as a freelance, before the British Secret Service had got round to recruiting him. Amazingly, the Germans did not keep a watch over the safe-deposit box, to check on the alleged courier. Nor did their agent’s blatant ignorance of the geography and customs of the country which he claimed to be visiting seem to arouse their suspicion. Railway errors In submitting his expenses, he said he had arrived at Southampton, and charged 15s 6d for his trip from there to Liverpool Street Station, London. In fact, the port of arrival should have been Poole, in, Dorset, and the London station would have been Waterloo or Victoria. He charged only 35s for his fare from Paddington Station, London, to Liverpool. From Liverpool he reported that the dock workers were a drunken lot. If you stood them a litre of wine in one of the innumerable bodegas, he said they would tell you practically anything. Kuhlenthal, however, was presumably so relieved to be able to report he had established an agent in England that he simply would not allow himself to suspect that he was being hoaxed—even though Lisbon at this time was a hive of forgers and fakers inventing news to sell to Allied and German Intelligence men. Jorge Antonio got away with bis fake, then and later, because Kuhlenthal and the Abwehr wanted to believe him. British interested The British finally became interested when they learned of a series of German naval orders, directing U-boats to intercept a convoy that didn’t exist, and further investigation showed that the false information had come via the Abwehr in Madrid. It was traced to Jorge Antonio, who, interviewed by a British agent, obligingly produced carbons of his dispatches. He was smuggled out of Portugal, and on June 17, 1941, arrived in Liverpool to be recruited as an agent of M. 1.5.

For the rest of 1941 and most of 1942 Cato’s operations were routine and concentrated on building up his reputation for reliability. By the end of the following year more ambitious deceptions were being planned. Cato now had no fewer than 25 imaginary agents under his command. Working with Carlos Reid, an AngloSpaniard in the Spanish section of M. 1.5, he had been inventing characters and writing them into and out of the network with all the virtuosity of a television dramatist producing a soapopera. Written out One of . the early agents, for instance, had to be deleted from the script because he had been described as living in the Bootie district of Liverpool, where he was well placed to observe shipping in the Mersey. He should therefore have been able to pick up valuable information about the troopships leaving for the torch landings in French North Africa in the late autumn of 1942. If he did not, Kuhlenthal in Madrid would be disappointed and perhaps suspicious. So the poor fellow in Bootle had to be removed from the cast, dying of an illness that Cato described in harrowing detail. To make sure they got the symptoms right, Reid consulted one of M.l.s’s medical advisers.

Among Cato’s fictitious contacts was a young woman, a secretary in what he described to Kuhlenthal as “probably the War Cabinet.” Cato dropped broad hints that not only had he declared his love to her but that he had been rewarded with a passion of which he had not suspected an English girl was capable.

He showed himself to his German masters as a model commander-in-chief, visiting areas on which new recruits had reported in order to check their reliability. To spice the reports with genuine detail, field security officers were sent out by M. 1.5 and told to imagine they were enemy agents, noting anything of interest The information was carefully doctored, then sent to Madrid.

Elaborate deception

Kuhlenthal was delighted, signalling to Cato that “the messages you have sent have demonstrated that you were absolutely right in nominating the old and tried collaborators to head new networks.” He was particularly pleased with “18," the fictitious Swansea seaman.

Large-scale strategic deception was the eventual object of the exercise. These techniques of elaborate chicanery using dummy tanks and guns, fake signals traffic, and many other devices of bluff and counterfeit—were developed in the North African desert war, from 1940 onwards. “Deception units” were later set up for all Allied commands, controlled from London by a British colonel, John Bevan, who worked in the bombproof catacomb under St James' Park, where Churchill had his headquarters.

Planted intelligence

Deception campaigns, intended to suggest a variety of false operations .in Europe and the Mediterranean, were mounted with great success by Bevan and his team during 1943. It was they who diverted Hitler’s attention to Sardinia and Greece when the Anglo-Americans were about to land in Sicily. One of the operations was the celebrated “Man who never was” hoax. At the beginning of 1944, it was decided that to gain maximum effect in the months before the Allies invaded France that summer, visual and signals deception should be combined with specially doctored intelligence, planted on the enemy by double agents. Two other double agents were to work with Cato—- “ Paul,” a Dutch staff officer and “Talleyrand,” a Polish military attache. Early in 1944, one of M.l.s’s prime objectives was to make the German High Command believe that the assault across the English Channel, due in the summer, was being postponed. Cato signalled that the Anglo-

American leaders were hoping the Germans would collapse and withdraw from north-west Europe, without the need of an invasion: he sent genuine contingency plans for administering liberated territories, explaining that they came from the passionate young secretary at the Cabinet Invasion doubts Paul discovered another reason for delay: the perfectionist Field Marshal Montgomery, it was thought, would insist on training his troops all over again. Talleyrand said the Allies hoped that bombing would suffice by itself to knock out Germany without the need for an assault.

However, the "postponement" campaign proved impossible to sustain. First the Germans suspected that troops were being withdrawn from Italy and sent to Britain; Cato received an inquiry about them, from Madrid, on January 11, 1944. "It is believed that these men have returned from the Mediterranean to' assist in

training the less experienced units,” he replied hopefully. Then it was decided to hold an invasion rehearsal in the Channel in May: this could not possibly be hidden from the enemy, so the “postponement” idea was quietly abandoned.

Suspicions aroused A fake invasion of Norway was prepared at the same time, to deter the Germans from moving to France any of the 16 divisions stationed in Scandinavia. This was worked out in great detail, to take place from Scotland, where elaborate wireless and visual deception was laid on. The double agents were busy. Cato, ears to the ground as usual, mobilised an imaginary Venezuelan sub-agent, who in turn employed a subagent of his own, to report in shipping movements. This Scottish mirage aroused German suspicions. But, although no reinforcements were moved in, the deception successfully frightened Hitler out of withdrawing troops from Norway and Denmark. None of them were sent to France until June 16, 10 days after D Day when it was too late for them to do any good. It was D Day itself, and the immediate aftermath, that provided the deceivers with their greatest challenge. At seven minutes past midnight on Friday, June 9 three days after the Allies landed in Normandy—a Royal Signals sergeant who worked with Cato began to transmit a long message to Madrid. By the end of the day, Hitler had seen it. The action he took as a result was to have a profound effect on the course of the invasion.—Copyright Sefton Dehner, 1971.

NEXT WEEK: The Greatest Hoax of the War.