Public Debate Offer Refused By Fr. Feeney

The proposed debate between Father Leonard Feeney and Richard W. Wallach '49 1L on the question of whether or not there is salvation outside the Roman Catholic Church will not take place, Father Feeney said last night.

Though Wallach repeated his challenge to debate, he announced he would now also initiate an investigation into why the G.I. Bill should be authorized for St. Benedict's Center. He claimed that what goes on there "is systematized bigotry and in abuse of the 'free market of ideas' principle of Harvard University sad is not 'education' within the meaning of the Congressional Act."

Wallach made this statement after he held a heated argument with Father Feeney at St. Benedict's Center yesterday afternoon. He had gone to the Center to make final arrangements for a discussion which Wallach had suggested in a CRIMSON advertisement last Friday, and to which Father Feeney had consented on Saturday.

Father Feeney decided to call of the public debate after talking to Wallach. He gave two reasons for this action.

Won't Debate a Boy

"I would never, as a Roman Catholic priest, debate with a boy on whether the Church were the true one or not. That is a matter of teaching and not an academic question," he said.

He continued by claiming, "Mr. Wallach does not know what the Church means, salvation means, or outsides it means. When we get these things settled we can have a wonderful discussion. I couldn't discussion anything with him now."

Wallach, in a statement to the CRIMSON last night said, "Father Feeney is a man who claims he has the road to salvation, and he called me damned, laying his hand upon me in so saying, for finding another road from his to the Christ he pretends to revere. He told me yesterday that Ernest Renan, Charles Dickens, Blaise Pascal, Thomas Merton ('a weak T. S. Eliot'), and Bishop Wright were damned."

"If I am damned and people like himself are saved, I would suggest to Father Feeney that I am destined for better company than he is," he added.

Father Feeney denied laying a hand on Wallach. He said, however, "If I should maintain that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church, I must include Mr. Wallach. I am surprised he was insulted at my consistency.

Wallach's statement went on, "Father Feeney is a man rightly repudiated by his parish, his Order, and by his Church at Rome. His is the mentality that applied the torch to the medieval fagots of the Inquisition; his is the dogmatism that forced Galileo to recant and burned St. Joan of Arc. His is the bigotry at which sincere Churchmen pale with horror.