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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Tuesday, November 12, 1968
Bishops consider contraceptives
WASHINGTON (UPI)—The nation's Roman Catholic bishops yesterday began considering a pastoral letter that would permit Catholic couples to use contraceptives if the practice does not conflict with their conscience.
The bishops, more than 220 members of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, discussed the letter in closed session in the wake of controversy over Pope Paul VI's encyclical condemning artificial birth control as immoral.
"We are demanding of you total and generous faithfulness to the church-not, certainly, to
At the Vatican, the Pope issued a strong new warning to Roman Catholic liberals against trying to change "indispensable structures" of the church to suit their own ideals.
an imaginary church which each could conceive and organize according to his own ideas, but to the Catholic Church as it is," the Pope said during an audience for 400 monks and friars.
Within an hour after the bishops ended their first meeting at a downtown hotel, about 150 priests marched into the hotel lobby for a four-hour prayer vigil to demonstrate in support of 41 Washington area priests who have been disciplined for publicly dissenting from the Pope's ruling.
The letter, if approved, could put the U.S. Roman Catholic hierarchy in the same position as the bishops of Canada and several Western European nations.
Pope's ruling. No details of the proposed letter were made public, but a spokesman said it dealt directly with the right of a Roman Catholic couple, after examining their own consciences, to use contraceptives despite the Pope's encyclical.
Last week, the Roman Catholic Church of France eased the birth control ban and said the use of artificial contraceptives was "not always guilty."
But being generally more conservative, the American bishops were expected to temper any acknowledgement of the rights of conscience with strong admonitions to seriously consider the Pope's encyclical.
Newsmen were told at a press briefing that the bishops were given until Tuesday afternoon to submit in writing any proposals for revising the letter, drafted by Bishop John J. Wright of Pittsburgh. The final draft is expected to be voted on Wednesday or Thursday and could be made public by Friday,when the council's fall meeting is scheduled to end.
Adedeiji speaks today
Joel Adedeji, guest director of theater, will speak on "The Notion of Tragedy in Nigerian Drama" at 3:30 p.m. today in 342 Murphy Hall.
Adedeji is on leave from his lecturer's post in the School of Drama at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria.
US lawyer asked to aid Pueblo crew
NORTON, Va. (UPI)-Attorney McAlfee said Monday he has been asked by an "international civic organization" to try to negotiate for the release of the crew of the USS Pueblo, now being held by North Korea.
McAfee defended U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers at a 1960 trial in Moscow after Powers was shot down over the Soviet Union after a spy mission.
The attorney said his negotiating efforts will depend in large part upon "what latitude we will be permitted" by the U.S. State Department. He said he plans to formally ask the department Tuesday for permission to proceed with negotiation efforts.
"Whether the efforts would entail going to North Korea," is not yet known, McAfee said.
McAfee announced that a "nonpartisan group interested in humanitarian actions throughout the world" suggested that he involve himself in the Pueblo issue. He declined to identify the organization.
North Korea seized the Pueblo and its 82 crewmen last May, charging the American vessel with violating Korean territorial waters. American efforts to obtain the release of the men have thus far been unsuccessful.