FROM A ROME CORRESPONDENT
CATHOLIC seminarians and students will be allowed to attend lectures at seminaries and institutions of other Christian Churches as part of a proposed largescale ecumenical co-operation in the field of higher education, announced by the Vatican on Friday.
The plan includes the sharing of facilities and teachers with non-Catholic universities and colleges, the setting up of institutions for ecumenical study, special courses in ecumenism for seminarians, and a general ecumenical emphasis to ordinary courses in philosophy and theology. The proposals are contained in a document produced jointly by the Vatican Secretariat for Christian Unity and the Congregation for Catholic Education. The report is the second part of a set of guidelines for Christian ecumenical behaviour. The first part, issued three years ago, allowed Protestants to receive some Catholic sacraments if they were "in danger of death or in urgent need." It also allowed Catholics to attend nonCatholic church services and serve as "witnesses" at nonCatholic baptisms and weddings.
Cardinal Willebrands, head of the Christian Unity Secre
tariat, introducing the latest proposals at a Press conference, said Christian unity should not be just a theory, but should be perfected by practical knowledge of other Christian Churches.
STUDY WCC
"Hence some prayer in common and sharing in public worship are to be promoted," he said. Seminarians and Catholic students should study "the special role which the World Council of Churches has in the ecumenical movement." The Cardinal also said the Church needed an adequate number of experts in ecumenical matters "even in regions where Catholics form the greater pan of the population." These experts should be properly instructed in the traditions of those other Christians with whom they lived and worked and should have regular contacts with nonCatholics He said national conference of bishops should consider proposals for amalgamating the different institutes for the study of religion in public and nondenominational universities.
Pope warns on military intervention
From a Rome Correspondent POPE PAUL gave a. warn ing on Monday that growing military intervention by the Great Powers in South-East Asia and the Middle East was contributing to a worldwide sense of uncertainty about peace. "The growing military involvement of the Great Powers makes the menace of uncertainty in the world even larger," he said. "Not only have the fields of military operations extended, but they seem to take less and less into account the populations directly involved and in whose names the wars are being fought."
"GREAT DISTRESS"
The Pope said the situations in South-East Asia and the Middle East were "becoming even more difficult and eornplex." The wars and suffering inflicted on native populations caused him "great distress."
The Pope was speaking in reply to a congratulatory message read by Cardinal Aloisi Masella, Vice-Dean of the College of Cardinals, on behalf of the consistory on the Pontiff's 50th anniversary this month of becoming a priest.