Methodists and Mary

I READ with pleasure in your issue of November 16 the account of the development in good relations between Catholics and Methodists. The report spoke of 'signs of change in the Methodist attitude to the Virgin Mary'.
Readers may be interested to learn of the growing Methodist participation in the Ecumenical Society of the Blessed Virgin Mary. One or the Society's three cochairmen is the Reverend Gordon Wakefield, Principal of the Queen's College, Birmingham, formally chairman of the Manchester and Stockport Methodist District. Two other Methodists, the Reverend Dr John Newton and the Reverend Norman Wallwork, are members of the Society's Council. Several of the leaflets published by the Society have been written by Methodists.
It has been a happy experience that Methodists, while not accustomed to Marian dogma. may well cherish a warm love for Our Lady, and that this can help to rekindle the devotion of Catholics.
E. J. Varnold, SJ The Ecumenical Societsof the Blessed Virgin Mary. Oxford