Appeal to Pope for strong statement on racialism

FROM ALAN McELWAIN 1N
ROM1
MR. WHITNEY YOUNG,
the American civil rights leader. has urged Pope Paul to make -a strong statement condemning all forms of racialism and appealing for peace not only in warstricken areas but among all peoples.
Mr. Young, who was received in audience by the Pope. praised him for the peace efforts he had made from the beginning of his pontificate. He presented the Pope with several books on racialism.
Vatican circles, confirming the meeting, were reserved on reports that the Pope may issue an encyclical on racialism. On
the other hand, it was stated, his views on this growing problem were well-known and it
was quite likely that he would speak out on it. After his visit to Rome, Mr. Young went to Geneva to talk on the same subject with Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, and to urge it, too. to put its great strength and influence in a drive to stamp out the racialism evil. Dr. Carson Blake praised Pope Paul's recent visit to Patriarch Athenagoras in Istanbul as "a stimulus to the ecumenical movement as a whole." The World Council of Churches, he added, rejoiced at "the new spirit of reconciliation" which the visit symbolised.