Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1943-02-23
Church Can Play Leading Role in Peace,
Dorothy Thompson Says in Talk Here
DR.. Walsh Denounces
Idea Thut Hatred
Is Needed to Win

Directing a challenge to the re-
ligious men of the world Miss Dor
othy Thompson, newspaper COL
umnist, yesterday declared the men
of the church can play leading
role in making the peace" but they
must go out into the world more"
and project the imagination for a
society based upon the principles for
which we believe"
The church has to be the con-
science, the brain trust and the
heart trust of the world if the new
world is to be based on religious
principles, she declared, speaking
before members of the Committee
on Religious Life at the Washington
Hotel.
Strongly condemning the Machi-
avellian six-day existence of man
today who on the seventh day sud-
denly remembers his childhood
teachings that all men are the chill
dren of God, Miss Thompson de-
clared, 1--WE cannot believe in the
two diametrically opposite things at
Double Challenge for Japs.
do people know what they are
fighting for?" she asked. Japan is
challenging us on two fronts" in
the spiritual field as we'll as the
contest for power, she continued.
They question that there is any
thing in the ideal of democracy and
they are using the force of herd
against herd"-the victor the better
with mo other test of good and
evil she added.
when we ask what is peace" she
declared, I'VE are told it is a hege-
mony of American aviation COM
panies,' and that Christ is a vague
near-sighted humanitarian.
Raising the question of what to do
with Germany following the war, she
said that today with mans rights
property" and his life "commod-
ity'' that can be bought and sold
as to profits, can we recommend this
to defeated world?"
DIR. Walsh Speaks.
Speaking during the morning ses-
sion of the committee meeting. the
Rev. DR.. Edmund j. Walsh, vice pres
ldent of Georgetown University and
regent of the School of Foreign Serv-
ice, declared that reconstruction
must begin before the noise of battle
ceases"
The church today is influenced
with an overfascination of social
problems and is running the chance
OF losing the prime reason for it's
belng-supernaturalism," DR.. Walsh
declared. And unless some change
is made, he maintained, the church
VIII ENTER losing competition with
HOLLYWOOD and Broadway"
He denounced vigorously the "her-
esy" that the people must hate in
order to win. That is a libel on the
American people," he declared.
Hatred is a confession of weakness,
not proof of strength"
Declaring that our obligation in
the present crisis is more universal
than an international trade policy
or matter of finance, he asserted
That just to use such methods in
postwar reconstruction would be like
pouring water into sieve"
He compared today's crisis to that
OF the fall of Rome as greater even
in its repercussions."
Naziism Last Chapter.
The present tragedy" DR.. Walsh
declared, is a logical elimination
OF secularization due to the rennais-
sance and the industrial revolution.
Naziism is the last chapter of a vol
ume written long ago."
Other speakers included DR.. Rein
old Niebuhr, professor of Christian
ethics at the Union Theological
Seminary in New York, and DR..
William Fineshriber of the Ken Mes
Seth Israel Congregation in Phila-
delphia.
The interfaith seminar and lunch