Tribute to 'D.W.'

from Alan McElwain
I DO HOPE that Mr.
Douglas Woodruff's retirement from The Tablet's editorship does not mean that he will be seen in Rome less often than he has been in the past. For British exiles like myself there is always something invigorating and reassuring about his solid presence among us.
I recollect particularly how during the Vatican Council a few wittily pointed words from him would put into perspective certain ecclesiastical pronouncements that were apt otherwise to leave one either confounded, dumbfounded, or merely indifferent.
There fell to me occasionally the grave responsibility of conveying to the correct office in Rome articles typed by Mr. Woodruff which had to be telexed to a newsp per for which I work and he wrote. Mr. Woodruff would frequently ink in additions or corrections and, as Italian telex operators follow copy in a foreign language strictly by rote, it was essential that these should at least be legible.
Have you ever seen Mr.
Woodruff's h nclwriting 7 After struggling for some time with the more spiderly of the Great Man's mysterio inkings, I would convert into printed capitals what I assumed he meant. I pray that my decipherings were never too far off what he, in fact, intended. He never complained to me, but this, of coarse, co:'ld have meant that (a) he did not read his contribations to the paper, or (b), he bl med the sub editor or the linotype operator for sins and/or omissions. They get blamed for practically everything, anyhow.
I am happy to read that Mr. Woodruff intends to go on being a "regular contributor" to The Tablet. I trust this means he will continue his delightful "Talking at Random" column. If it doesn't, he is going to deprive a Catholic colle'gue here of his most popular talking point—those gems with which "D.W." has always closed the column.
On their trip to Rome, Mr. and Mrs. Woodruff spent as much time as they could in the English Centre, attached to San Silvestro Charch, which they helped to found back in Holy Year. I can see "D.W." now. sole male among several women at a table. While they talked, he would gradually nod off, THE CHURCH TIMES got things a little mixed in its report on the Vatican Doctrinal Congreg tion's recent ban on Catholics taking part in a Christian Unity Week service in Rome's All Saints Anglican Church, about which I wrote in the Camot.tc HERALD on January 22.
The Church Times said Pope Paul lifted the ban on an interdenominational service in the American Epis
copal Church of St. Paul's Within the Wall, and that this, presumably, also included the ban on All Saints'. It was the other way round.
The only ban lifted was that placed on All Saints' for a service, the idea for which originated with the ecumenically Catholic organisation, Foyer Unitas, Rome. By the time Pope Paul did lift the ban, however, it was too late to hold the All Saints' service.
The service in St. Paul's Episcopal Church came later. Priests from the nearby American Catholic church of Santa Susanna, h d intended to take part, but couldn't. Paulist Fathers John Dimond, Rector of Santa Susanna, and Thomas Stransky, of the Vatican Christian Unity Secretariat, were present, but sat in the choir, taking no active part in the service.
This was conducted by the Rector of St. Paul's, the Rev. Wilbur Charles Woodhams. The Rector of All Saints'. Archdeacon Douglas Wanstall; the Minister of St. Andrew's Church of Scotland, the Rev. A. J. Maclean; the Methodist Minister, the Rev. D. Alan Keighley; and the Baptist Minister, the Rev. William G. Ruchti, attended the service.
MGR. Joseph Leo Alston, Rector of the English College, celebrated the 25th
anniversary of his ordination with a High Mass of Thanksgiving in the College Chapel. Among his many friends present was Canon John Findlow, the Archbishop of Canterbury's Representative to the Holy See, who, with his wife, also attended a reception at the college.
The British Minister to the Holy See, Mr. Michael Williams, and Archdeacon Douglas Wanstall, Rector of All Saints' Anglican Church, were at this, too.
The college students did well by Mgr. Alston, both with their splendid singing at the Mass and their evercourteous attention to the many guests at the reception.
ASERIES of lectures by specialists from various countries on the Synod of Bishops which Pope Paul has convoked for September 24, will be wound up by Fr. Francis Xavier Murphy, the American Redemptarist, who spends a good deal of his time denying that he is the celebrated Xavier Rynne. He is to speak on March 1 on the Synod's pastoral significance. The series has been arranged by IDO-C, an independent centre for information and documentation on the Vatican Council.
ASLOGANS battle has developed between "for" and "against" factions in Italy's divorce controversy. The "fors" are displaying posters reading "For a serene life, say 'no' to divorce". The "againsts" are proclaiming, "Animals don't divorce. Civilised peoples do". Someone points out that animals don't actually marry in the first place.