UNITY IN THE SQUARE

T least 3,000 people of all
denominations arc expected o gather in Trafalgar Square n Good Friday at 6.30 p.m. or a united service to be led y the Bishop of London. Carina! Heenan and the Revd. .dward Rodgers (Moderator of he Free Church Federal ouncil). The hymns will be ccompanied by the Chalk arm Salavtion Army Band, hi) will also play for half an our before the service begins.
A special feature of the serice will be the address, to be iven for the first time ever on uch an occasion by a young ousewife aged 28, Mrs. ernadine Bishop. Mrs. Bishop, ho has two small sons, is also novelist and broadcaster on oth T.V. and radio. She is a atholic.
This event is organised by he Diocese of London Council or Mission in association with he Westminster Christian
_ ouncil.
U.N. STUDENTS' PLEA Easter sees the start of he conference season and mong the major organisations taging their annual debating essions is the United Nations
!Association of Britain and
Northern Ireland whose threeay gathering opens today in
-dinburgh. LThe conference will be &sussing resolutions on Vietam, the Middle East, .hodesia, South-West Africa, ibraltar and Disarmament.
A resolution on population nd food supply, to be moved y the U.N. Student Association tomorrow, expresses conern at the unchecked rise in he world's population and speaks of the need for a concerted programme to raise food production and control population increases "to avert the widespread famine which is forecast."
It deplores the complacency shown by governments in advanced countries over the problem and calls on the British Government to devote a greater part of its aid budget towards birth control programmes, research into new methods of food production and research into the educational and social problems attendant on birth control.
BIRTH CONTROL The resolution urges the Government "to bring all possible pressure to bear on the religious and ideological institutions objecting to birth control to reconsider their attitudes" and to press for birth control to be given a top priority by the World Health Organisation.
Another major conference is that of the National Association of Schoolmasters, which opens in Llandudno on Easter Monday. Motions from Birmingham, Leeds and Coventry refer to "grave concern" at conditions in many schools with a high proportion of immigrants.
Mr. Robinson, Minister of Health, will speak tomorrow at the conference of the National Old People's Welfare Council in Brighton.
About 100 Christian students, mainly Catholics and Anglicans, are taking part in Student Cross '68, a 120-mile pilgrimage on foot to Walsingham, carrying wooden crosses, which begins tomorrow.
Four groups will set out, from Nottingham, London, Oxford and Kettering, walking 15-20 miles a day and arriving at Walsingham on Good Friday, where they will remain to celebrate Easter together.
Methodism's Greater Lon
don Youth and Community Service is launching a pilgrimage to Canterbury at Easter as its contribution to Human Rights Year. The aim is to raise £50,000 to aid the needy not only in Britain but all over the world, and each pilgrim is asked to contribute £5.
As many taking part will be students, for whom £5 is a large sum, booklets of .5s. have been prepared which pilgrims may sell. These are obtainable from Miss Angela Byrne, of 33 Roles Grove, Chadwell Heath, Romford, Essex.
PASSION PLAY Young people of three London West End churches, St. James's Catholic, All Saints Anglican and Hinde Street Methodist, are combining forces this weekend to produce the contemporary Passion play "Christ in the Concrete City" by P. W. Turner, which combines scenes from the traditional arrest, trial and crucifixion of Christ with scenes from modern life.
The Methodist Church will be acting as host on Sunday and Monday evenings to audiences drawn from all three churches.
JOINT MARCH Parishioners of the Church of the Good Shepherd, Arnold, Nottingham, arc joining Anglicans at Woodthorpe for a joint march through the village on Good Friday.
In Manchester on Good Friday all the major Churches will join in an unusual united service outside St. Ann's Church in St. Ann's Square, in which professional actors from the Library Theatre Company will take part.
They will enact incidents from the first Good FridayJesus before Pilate, the carry
ing of the Cross by St. Simon of Cyrene, the meeting with the women of Jerusalem, and the Burial of Christ.
Each incident will be preceded by Scripture readings and followed by a meditation by clergy of the different Churches. Among them will be Bishop Holland of Salford.
New catechetical centre at Piltown
ANEW catechetical centre is to be developed at Piltown, Co. Kilkenny, at the house of studies of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, on the initiative ,of Bishop Birch of Ossory. It will specialise in c.atechetics for non-urban communities.
The first stage will be inaugurated next year when students from St. Kieran's diocesan seminary, Kilkenny, and Oblate students attend courses together at Piltown. From 1970 the courses will be open to religious in general and to lay teachers.
Several Sisters who have specialised in catechetics, including Sr. Bernard Boran of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Mary at Ferrybank, Waterford, are collaborating.
Archbishop of Atlanta dies
ARCHBISHOP HALLINAN of Atlanta, Georgia, whose first act after his appointment in 1962 was to order the desegregation of Catholic schools, died last week aged 56. He had been ill since attending the Vatican Council in 1963.
The Archbishop, who was born in Ohio of Irish parents, was appointed by Pope John to the Commission on the Sacred Liturgy.
A VISIT to the Oberammergau Passion Play in 1970 is being arranged on "hire purchase at Washington, Co. Durham. The organiser, Mrs. A. Bunting, secretary of the local Christian Council, said those intending to go could pay the £50 cost in easy instalments between now and 1970.
A PLAY by Joseph Marsden, "A Grain of Salt," on the life of Edel Quinn,. the Irishwoman pioneer of the Legion of Mary, is being staged by the St. Joseph's Drama Club on April 7, 9 and 10 at 8 p.m. in St. Joseph's Hall, Highgate Hill. Tickets are 2s. Edel Quinn's cause for canonisation is being presented this year.
TWO LECTURES on "The Life and Thought of Teilhard de Chardin" will be given by Robert Speaight, author of "Teilhard de Chardin a Biography," on Thursday, April 18, and Thursday, April 25, at 8.45 p.m., at 45 Upper Grosvenor Street, W.I.
FR. N. CORBETT, S.J., for the past nine years parish priest at Clowne, Derbyshire, has been presented with a farewell gift by parishioners to mark his retirement. He has been succeeded by Fr, J. H. Callanan and the three scattered parishes of Creswell, Clowne and Whitwell throughout which he travelled 12,000 miles a year have been merged.
AN illustrated lecture on the life of Fr. John Sullivan, S.J., who devoted much of his life to the apostolate of the poor and suffering, is being given tonight in St. Colman's Hall, Newry. by Fr. Feral McGrath, Si.. a close . friend. The cause of Fr. Sullivan's beatification is at present being considered in Rome by the Congregation of Rites.
A NEW 280-place Catholic primary school is to be built at Banbury, Oxon, to cope with the increasing Catholic population moving from London and Birmingham.