Doctrine of Father Feeney Is Challenged by 'Agnostic'

A local officer of the Collegiate Montaigne Society, an organization which terms itself "devoted to the quiet promulgation of the skeptical thought of the Great French essayist," tossed a debate challenge last night on the doctrines of Father Leonard Feeney of St. Benedict's Center.

Richard W. Wallach '49 1L. Upper New England acting chairman of the intercollegiate group, placed as paid advertising matter in today's CRIMSON an "open letter form a confused agnostic" asking Father Feeney to debate on the issues of Catholic doctrine he has raised.

Father Feeney is the Chaplain of St. Benedict's Center, and has strongly argued the controversial doctrine that salvation outside the Roman Catholic Church is impossible.

Universal Problem

Speaking for his society, Wallach asked, "Would you, Sir, deny me the . . . right to gamble on some other religious solutions of the Universal Problem, if, in faith, I should (nonsense, of course), meet all the other criteria for admission to a Catholic Heaven?"

The Collegiate Montaigne Society, although not organized under a Harvard-Radcliffe Charter, has operated within the University for several years. Theodore Spencer, the late Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory, once termed it "one of the most encouraging intellectual manifestations in the student body that has come to my attention in a long time."