Pamphlet, Letter from Charles Lowry to Dr. Joseph M. Dawson

Chevy Chase, Maryland January 5, 1952 AN OPEN LETTER TO: Dr. Joseph M. Dawson Executive Director Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs 1628 Sixteenth Street, Northwest RECORDS REWICE Washington, D. C. may Dear Doctor Dawson: On January 3, 1952, you issued FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE a document beginning and continuing as follows: "In a joint discussion over an Ambassador from the United States to the Vatican, held in the Army and Navy Club in Washington, the Rev. Charles W. Low- ry, Episcopal rector, confessing himself a lone excep- tion to the uniform opposition of non-Catholic groups, charged that the Protestant clergy was aspiring to a greater clerical control over government than that al- leged by them against the Roman Catholics. Dr. Jo- seph M. Dawson of the Baptist Public Affairs Com- mittee replied that Protestants, numbering 256 denom- inations with variant creeds and practices, standing as a unit against the Vatican appointment, demonstrated how strong is the conviction of a majority that the American system of church-state separation must be maintained against the clamors of a religious minority. "The Rev. Mr. Lowry, further identifying himself with the Roman Catholic view of church-state rela- tions, asserted that what the United States did with the President's proposal as to a Vatican ambassador would be a test of whether or not this Nation has arrived at political maturity. Dr. Dawson replied that if an Am- bassador should be sent, it would be a relapse of America from an advanced position to an outmoded medieval system which has bedevilled Europe for a thousand years and grievously harasses that region now.'