Last week an angry Southerner (this time, Congressman William Dickinson of Alabama) charged in Congress that clergymen and nuns joined in immorality with others in the Selma-to-Montgomery civil rights march in March.

He said he had affidavits attesting the charges, but could not vouch for their authenticity. He did not know whether they were true. After much talk about pictures that “proved” his case, he was unable to produce them.

Having made his point, he admitted that he did not believe priests and nuns were involved in such conduct, but that others had paraded as religious “to get by with doing this.” Spending an hour in lurid details, he said his motive was “to rip away the facade of righteousness, smugness, and respectability.” Then, predictably, he said the whole thing was directed by communists.

Congressmen were shocked. Roybal of California walked out in protest. Ryan of New York called it “dastardly.” Krebs of New Jersey demanded that Dickinson repeat the charges off the House floor where he would not be immune to civil action for slander.

The motives and conduct of clergy and nuns need no defense in this column. Nor need we be concerned about the recent letter writer to the Atlanta Constitution who was amazed at nuns “mingling in the utmost intimacy” at Selma. He thinks this set the Church back twenty years in the South.

His grief is not very convincing. His letter jars any Christian with words like “rabble” and “any kind of lawlessness.” This is not the way that Christ spoke. Even if the Selma marchers included some bent upon sin and violence (and the overwhelming evidence is that the vast majority were honest, good-living persons protesting against injustice), we should still follow Christ’s example. When charged with associating with “publicans and sinners” by the scribes and Pharisees, He replied:

“They that are well have no need of a physician, but they that are sick. For I came not to call the just, but the sinners.” Despite today’s complacency with the “private club” kind of church, clergy and nuns still serve their God and His people well when they go to those who are in need.

The six priests of our archdiocese who went to Selma agree with the affidavit placed in the record by Congressman Resnick; - nine clergy, students and nuns saw “only evidence of conduct in keeping with the Judeo-Christian ethic.” This differs from the unsubstantiated affidavits of Dickinson. No wonder!

Denials of immoral conduct were also made by Fathers Sherrill Smith of Texas, Paul J. Mullaney of Alabama, and Rene Guesnier, O.S.B., of Kansas City, Mo.; Canon Kenneth Sharpe of the Washington, D.C. Cathedral, Rev. Morris B. Samuel of Los Angeles; Sister M. Leoline of Kansas City, Mo. and Sister M. Patrice of California.

Dickinson’s affidavits were signed by Alabama State Troopers, one Alabama National Guardsman, a woman member of the Montgomery Police Department, a sheriff’s officer and, allegedly, by a Selma Negro whose name, according to the Washington, D.C. newspapers, was later deleted.

Was It Proper?

Some well-intentioned persons might question the propriety of clergy and nuns in a demonstration. They are standing, however, against the flood of approval from religious leaders of all major faiths from every section of the United States. Practically all of our priests and laity in this archdiocese thought that it was the mission of the Church’s official representatives to thus speak out and act publicly for justice (the letters, as previously noted) ran 4 to 1 in favor.

The cause of the demonstration was present and clear; the denial of the vote. The occasion was extraordinary; all regions of the nation took part, and all sections of the world watched. The action itself was voluntary, approved and carried out with prayer and dignity. And the conditions were such that regular pastoral and teaching duties were not ignored.

Christian and Jewish leaders of principles and courage have been slandered and oppressed before. The Church and Synagogue will survive this latest crude smear. But there is a warning in all this for those who discriminate against the Negro - the respectable people as well as the practitioners of raw and dishonest politics. One cannot throw mud balls without getting dirty hands -- even when a Congressman makes the mud balls.

When The “Outsiders” Leave

The sneers and smears spoken about dedicated men and women of God are not as evil as the brutalities acted out upon the Negroes themselves. The “outsiders” came, demonstrated and went home. They have helped mightily to focus a nation’s conscience -- just as the prophets and apostles did. But the Southern Negro remains in Selma and a thousand other towns. He is accustomed to being called “immoral”, as well as lazy, dirty and ignorant. The white citizens put and kept his ancestors in slavery; they have forced (and many still want to) him to live in a segregated world stripped of human dignity. Not the Negro but the white bears the real guilt, and it is shared today by those who will not choose to change.

The “trouble-maker” (a favorite segregationist term) is not the Negro who cannot register on equal terms to vote, nor the white or black “outsiders” who came to help him live like an American citizen and a child of God. The true “trouble-makers” are those who break the law and spirit of justice -- and their allies are those unfortunate people who are too fearful to do anything but complain or too apathetic to anything but sigh.

Here, in the elegant phrase of Congressman Dickinson, is the “facade of righteousness, smugness and respectability” which needs to be ripped away.

Paul J. Hallinan

Archbishop of Atlanta