Word: churchmen
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Ford misjudged both Americans in general and American churchmen in particular. Evangelist Billy Graham applauded the Sabbath pardon, but he was a decided exception. Conservative or liberal, Christian or Jew, most other religious thinkers deplored Ford's action on grounds of theology as well as simple justice...
...major body of Christian teaching favors forgiveness without some concern for justice. For churchmen, as for other Americans, one of the most galling aspects of Ford's decision is that it suggests unequal justice. Ethicist Roger L. Shinn, acting president of Manhattan's Union Theological Seminary, feels that the pardon reinforces American cynicism about equality before the law. "What bothers so many is that the demand for justice and punishment applies to the poor and the weak, and mercy applies to the powerful." Jesus, however,stressed that the more powerful a person is, the more accountable he is for wrongdoing...
...Most churchmen agree that a pardon would have been far more acceptable after a full airing of Watergate in any trials that Nixon would have faced. But that option has been lost. What now? A number of theologians doubt that a categorical pardon for all other Watergate offenders would solve anything. An additional blanket pardon, contends Evangelical Theologian Carl F.H. Henry, would only compound a wrong by moving from "a preferred Individual to a preferred class of individuals...
...Pereira abruptly resigned his Mozambique diocese, apparently to take up some vague duties in Rome in preparation for the 1975 Holy Year. In a rather belated effort to shore up church credibility in the soon to be independent Portuguese colonies, the Vatican is moving to rid the territories of churchmen who were too closely tied to the old colonial posture. Whatever credibility remains, of course, will probably be due to the compassion of the very missionaries whom Archbishop Pereira once denounced...
Just like other Americans, U.S. churchmen have been shaken by the twin terrors of inflation and stock market losses. But the losses are rarely as calamitous as those sustained by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Reno and the Massachusetts-based province of the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette...