Tuesday, January 19, 2016

When Dr. Martin Luther KIng met the Pope

POPE AND DR. KING CONFER ON RIGHTS

ROME, Sept. 18—Pope Paul VI received the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. this evening.
The American civil rights leader said afterwards:
“The Pope made it palpably clear that he is a friend of the Negro people, and asked me to tell the American Negroes that he is committed to the cause of civil rights in the United States.”
Quoting the Pontiff as ad­vocating nonviolent methods in the struggle for Negro rights, Dr. King said he was deeply en­couraged by his meeting with Pope Paul.
Dr. King, a Baptist minister, said he believed that the United States civil rights movement had received “the endorsement of the most influential religious leader in the world and the head of the largest church in Christ­endom.”
He said he had reported to the Pope that the Negroes in the United States were making “significant strides” in their struggle against segregation and discrimination. Dr. King reported that he had told the Pontiff that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was being “imple­mented all over the South, and that we are surprised at the degree of compliance in South­ern communities.”
However, Dr. King said, he had also told the Pope that Ne­groes in large urban areas in the North were confronted with difficult discrimination prob­lems in housing and other fields, “and in these counties the Catholic Church is very strong and a reaffirmation of its posi­tion [on civil rights] would mean much.”
Pope to State Views
Pope Paul, according to Dr. King, showed himself well in­formed on racial problems in the United States, said he was remembering the Negro people daily in his prayers, and prom­ised to issue a public pro­nouncement on his views on interracial relations.
Dr. King expressed con­fidence that “the vast majority” of other American civil rights leaders would ap­prove his visit to the Pope.
With a smile, Dr. King ob­served:
“I think new days have come when a Pope meets a fellow who happens to have the name Martin Luther.”
Dr. King came to Rome from Berlin, where he had been a guest of Willy Brandt, Mayor of West Berlin. After the papal
The papal audience for Dr. King was arranged by the Most Rev. Paul J. Hallanan, Catholic Archbishop of Atlanta. Dr. King and Dr. Abernathy saw Pope Paul for 25 minutes in the Pontiff's private library in the Vatican's Apostolic Palace. Msgr. Paul Marcincus, an American prelate serving in the Vatican's Secretariat of State, acted as interpreter.
The Pope presented his two Negro visitors with silver med­als commemorating the pres­ent Ecumenical Council in the Vatican.
 
 

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