whitefriars Chronicle

Bashing it out on a crystal ball
"SAIGON is a reporter's nightmare." said a CATHOLIC HERALD colleague when I discussed with him the apparently widely different reports that were being published in some British papers this week about events in the Vietnamese capital.
Recalling more than two years he had spent in Indo-China as a foreign correspondent, he said that the reporter of the Saigon scene is more in need of a crystal ball than a typewriter if he is to report happenings in the country. "In the period of a day one can hear ten quite different. but all quite authoritative and 'official' accounts. of any particular happening." he says. "A Government spokesman (if you can ever find one) is quite capable of giving one reporter one version, and five minutes later telling a factually different story to another correspondent, all according to where the story is to appear." But these are only the beginnings of the newsman's troubles. He must build up a network of "contacts", yet at the same time bearing very much in mind that not only is his own telephone likely to be tapped but so, too, is the telephone of his informant.
Newsman welcome .
Foreign diplomatic missions are, of course, a source of information, and this is one capital where the newsman is welcome in an embassy mostly because diplomats are as keen to get from the newsman as he is to get from the ambassador.
But even this has its pitfalls. The Vietnamese secret police, always alert to the ebb and flow of visitors into embassy buildings or residences, are likely to report back that such-and-such a reporter visited such-and-such an embassy three times this week. After a few months of this sort of thing (mostly, he adds, for the purpose of taking a purely social drink) the Vietnamese decided that my colleague wits in fact a spy (a fairly honourable profession in Vietnam and not one likely to involve expulsion). Although this opinion of him resulted in an even more intensive shadowing. it did however give him a somewhat exalted position in Vietnamese eyes, in that be was told by an official that he was "no ordinary agent but the head of all British spies in the country".
As he warmed to his subject, my colleague recalled the days during the Indo-China war and before the Ngo family came into such prominence when the key figure in the country was the Chief-of-State Rao Dai.
A correspondent could then con-, sider himself to have "arrived" in the political sense when he was summoned to be the ex-Emperor's hunting lodge in Dalat. • Here, he was accorded a personal interview, but one which rarely followed conventional lines.
This could well take the form of a hunting trip—it was good tiger country—and the interview was conducted "from elephant to elephant" as it were.
"Excuse me, Sa Majestd, but what are your plans for the development of a Vietnamese army?"
"Well, as I see it (bang bang), this is the only ("there he goes over there") solution to the fight against Communism. This is a war which must (bang bang) he fought ("can you hear me, you are trailing behind") by the Vietnamese."
As my colleague says, no matter what charges may be levelled at the last administration. at least the Chief-of-State was at the seat of the government.
Gath'ring winter fuel ( AV warm is your local 1 le hurch? If you are apprehensive. with the approach of winter. that draughts and numbing cold arc liable, once again to turn Advent into a real season of penance, you might like to hint to your parish priest that the National Coal Board have produced a brochure, "Heating Britain's Churches".
The most interesting section describes "Solid Fuel in Action", in eight churches. including 1.1andaff Cathedral and Hexham Abbey. both of which are Anglican. Only one Catholic Church appears. and that is the Church of the Most Blessed Sacrament, in Braunstone, Leicestershire.
Does this one to seven ratio indicate, I wonder. that we are more austere than our separated brethren, or is it just that the Coal Board thinks we are?
The Church of the Most Blessed Sacrament is a particularly good example for the Coal Board, for it is in use twenty-four hours a day. The parish is run by the Congregation of the Most Blessed Sacrament whose vocation is an unbroken vigil of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament in the Church, day and night.
Berlin basilica LA 1 . HEDWIG'S CATHEDRAL 0 in East Berlin was opened again last Friday, 190 years to the day after the original St. Iledwig's Church was consecrated by Count Krasicki, Bishop of Ermeland, in 1773.
The church was made a minor basilica in 1923, and a cathedral in 1930. when the city of Berlin became a diocese. The church had not been completed until 1883, and certain additions were made. following its elevation to the status of a cathedral.
II was destroyed by allied bombing in 1943. Only the outside walls and the portico, which was extensively damaged. remained standing. The fine copper-sheathed dome crashed into the ruined interior.
The cathedral lay in ruins from 1943 to 1952, during which time. of course, a Communist Government came to power in Eastern Germany, and the diocese of Berlin was split between two opposed regimes.
I gather that the Communists had no objection to the restoration of the cathedral, or, for that matter. of any other church in the country. but they refused to supply any of the money needed.
With money forthcoming from Western Germany, rebuilding was allowed to go ahead, and it began, in fact, in 1952, under Bishop Weskann. A dome of reinforced concrete was made in 84 sections,
and placed over the shell of the walls. The dome was finished in 1954, and during the years between 1954 and now, the interior, was restored.
Work was finished in time for the Feast of All Saints this year, and Archbishop Bengsch, of Berlin. returned from the Vatican Council in order to consecrate his cathedral. Archbishop Bengsch lives in East Berlin, and is allowed to visit that part of his diocese which lies in West Berlin on three non-consecutive days a month.
X for charity TIME is getting on and most of us must be busy compiling our Christmas card lists. Apart from the pleasure we have in remembering old friends at this time of year I do think we are anxious to choose cards with a religious motif—none of this robin-reindeer-Santa Claus nonsense — and, when choosing them, we like to feel we are helping some charity.
It is impossible to list all the charities producing Christmas cards, but this year there are 68 of them. The London Council of Social Service has organised the usual excellent exhibition at the Y.W.C.A. Central Club in Great Russell Street, which is open until December 3, and where all the cards are on view and order forms can be obtained.
Better still, however, there are premises at 49 Victoria Street, where the Grenfell Association is showing cards of 24 different charities for immediate sale. This is an attractive display. and when I went along there last Saturday morning people were buying and ordering cards by the dozen.
Many sample cards and appeals have been sent to us here. all of them attractive and all for such very worthy causes. To mention just a few: Sue Ryder's Forgotten Allies Trust. Oxfam. Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity (doing such wonderful work in India). Father Borelli's House of the Urchins Fund, the Catholic Handicapped Children's Fellowship. Amnesty. and many splendid organisations caring for the sick. the aged. the handicapped.
How difficult it is to choose and how much one would like to help them all.