Atlanta -- The Church must bear the “burden of conscience” if it is to transform society in these days of moral indifference to racial and social justice, a Roman Catholic leader said here.

Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan of Atlanta emphasized this theme in keynoting the Southern Catholic Leaders Conference on “Social Change and Christian Response.”

Five bishops and several hundred priests, nuns and laymen in key positions in Southern dioceses attended the meeting which included clinics and workshops specializing in the various problems created by the Civil Rights Act and its impact in Southern communities.

During his address Archbishop Hallinan asked: “What are the proper functions for the Catholic Church, for religion in general?”

“Economics and politics, pressures and structures of power are for more evident than in the pioneer phase of racial improvement. These changes at first glance seem to lean toward secularization of those earlier ideals of ‘witnessing ones faith’ and ‘creating communities of forgiveness.’ But this is a superficial reading. There has been no evidence that the biblical injunction is now invalid ‘unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who built it.’

“To clarify the thinking of those, both white and Negro, Catholics and those of other faith, who see the entrance of clergy and sisters only as a showpiece, or as protective coloration or as an irritant to town, or community, the churches’ role must be defined more clearly.”

“A Negro leader who boasted last week that he would call up priests and nuns to demonstrate has lost the perspective of the extraordinary confrontation at Selma.”

“Priests, nuns and bishops, -- and I would include ministers and rabbis too -- are not shock troops to be exploited. They are witnesses to justice and love, giving their presence to communities where justice and love have been diminished.”

“They have served well as witnesses of the Churches’ concern. Now when they come, they come as co-workers with the Negro in the great social development that is in process.”

Archbishop Hallinan said that another mistake “is rooted in the old notion that the Church must be clerically composed and clerically committed. The laity’s function (You do not belong to the Church, you are the Church down to the definition in the new Constitution on the Church, ‘The People of God’) is inspiring an entirely new grasp of what the Church means.”

“Catholic institutions must, of course, share responsibility for moral leadership in racial justice, but laymen in their own secular professions and trades and work, their homes and neighborhoods share an equal burden. Theirs is to work as popes in the council have clearly stated, of the Consecration Mundi, the consecration of the world.” “The Church (bishops, priests, sisters, laity) must be at the ordinary level of community life, a catalyst. Guided in moral deliberation by those commissioned to teach, sharing in the tedious as well as the imaginative areas of every day life, God’s people must initiate and quicken the Christian response as a catalyst accelerates the change in a chemical process.”

“What is needed here? Dialogue constantly conversational and informal, with other Christians and Jews, with Negroes and whites, with professionals and volunteers, with government at every level. Out of this will flow a two-fold good: the ordained ministry can give moral direction at crucial points, the laity can give themselves to every practical and proper venture.” “These will include voter registration, Operation Head Start, steps towards education, job and housing progress.”

“We cannot do everything at once, nor can we think of this grave and urgent task as the only task before us. But as the Southern bishops said recently: ‘The Catholic Church in the past has done in racial relationship what she could. Now she can do more.’

“The chemical catalyst immerses itself to get the right reaction, yet it immerges unhurt and ready for more work. The Church will not do less.”