Demonstrations proclaim

how Vietnam divides us
BY A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
CHRISTIANS are bee o rn i n g increasingly troubled by the war in Vietnam. They recognise that the issues are far more complex than the public hooliganism of the political extremists would have us believe: Some go along with the five Catholic Bishops in America who have joined in demands for an immediate end to the American bombing and the start of peace negotiations among all parties, including the Viet Cong.
Others perceive that there is a little more to it than that; indeed that the very suggestion of peace talks is an absurdity when Hanoi has made it plain it has no intention of sitting round the table, and that it is as determined as ever to continue its vicious attempts to subjugate the people in the South in the name of ideology.
Meanwhile the war goes on —and so do the "battles" in the streets of town and cities cf the Western democracies where the young and the idealists rub shoulders with dedicated Communists and trouble-makers.
In cities throughout the world last weekend, unprecedented demonstrations and demands were made for a ceasefire and an ultimate end to the conflict.
LONDON: Mobs threw stones. clods of earth and red paint at the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square and then marched to Oxford Street where they sat down. causing chaos to traffic. Many of the demonstrators were arrested.
WASHINGTON: There was a massive demonstration and police were out in large numbers to control the rioters. Tear-gas was used to restore order and hundreds were arrested.
PARIS: French Communists led a march of 35,000 to the Bastille Square and there were similar protests in WEST BERLIN, ZURICH. AMSTERDAM and many other cities.
MORALITY?
In New York, 26 Catholic writers, editors and teachers have declared their support for those who refuse to serve in the Vietnam war on moral grounds. They include Masie Ward, wife of Frank Sheed, the Catholic author.
Dr. Eugene Blake, general secretary of the World Council of Churches. in an address to priests and students at the Gregorian University in Rome, deplored America's "tragic" involvement in Vietnam and said the question now was: "How do we get out?"
He said it was wrong for a "great and powerful nation" to impose its ideas on small countries by force.
In a message marking United Nations Day, U Thant, the U.N. Secretary-General referred to the "sorrowful and potentially dangerous state of affairs" in the world today.
"Perhaps the chief factor responsible is what might be described as a state of mind, or rather a state of morality."
On Tuesday the Student Christian Movement of Britain and Ireland organised a "National Fast for Peace in Vietnam" in universities and c o 1 le g e s throughout the country.
This weekend Bradford University Catholic Society is holding a conference on "The Morality of Modern Warfare".