Sanctuary

'WE'D RATHER BE wise and sensitive than clear," Krister Stendahl, Dean of the Divinity School, said yesterday, explaining how his Faculty was dealing with the "serious questions and thorny questions" raised by an AWOL marine seeking sanctuary in the Andover chapel. Students have already pledged to support Paul Olimpieri with passive civil disobedience, should federal marshals come to remove him, and for a faculty that last fall supported divinity school students resisting the draft, it would tortuous to cast out a marine deserting in moral disgust at the Vietnam War or to condemn students trying to help him.

The Corporation has authority to remove the marine from the building, but so far that prerogative has been wisely waived. The issues raised by Olimpieri's appeal are questions of conscience directed peculiarly to the Divinity School. The Divinity School should be left full power to decide what kind of sanctuary Olimpieri can receive there.