Page 1, 23rd August 1963
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Thousands will join U.S. race hate walk
THOUSANDS of Catholics are being sent from all over the United States by the Catholic Conference for Interracial Justice to take part in next Wednesday's massive civil rights protest march on Washington. They will include nuns and priests as well as laymen.
They will join many other Christians, Jews and other marchers protesting against discrimination in housing, schooling, and employment, in an all-out attempt to help rally support for President Kennedy's civil rights programme which is now before Congress. It is estimated that the march may include over 100,000 people.
Mathew Ahmann. executive director of the CCIJ. has been named as one of the 10 chairmen for the march which, he said. Shows " potential of becoming a great peaceful • moral demonstration for equality and interracial justice."
Of the 18 million Negroes in the United States, only 700.000 are Catholics, but independent observers consider that the Church is " setting the pace " for religious involvement in the American racial revolution.
As well as protesting against instances of discrimination in civil fields, it is concentrating on weeding out segregation practices where they exist within its own structure, notably in some clubs and societies as well as in some thickly populated Catholic areas in large Northern cities.
At least thirty bishops have issued pastoral letters on the subject of racial discrimination: in one of them. Bishop Grutka of Indiana stated forcefully that "it is hypocrisy to teach democracy in segregated sch000ls."
Hitting out at organisations and institutions which practised a colour bar. Bishop Grutka said that " No-one who considers himself a Christian should belong to an organisation which has as its stated or implied purpose the hindrance or humiliation of another group because of race."
The only remedy for racial prejudice, he asserted, was " cornplete eradication."
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