IT WAS with great sadness that I read your review of Garth Lean's book Frank Buchman — a life. Jan 24. I never knew Buchman but it was through meeting people in Moral ReArmament that I was to find my way back to the Catholic Church after years of permissive living.
The lies and half-truths which are pedalled about Buchman and Hitler can be easily disposed of by any objective researcher and are clearly dealt with by Garth Lean.
On page 532 is an assessment of Buchman by Cardinal Kiinig: "His great idea was to show that the teaching of Jesus Christ is not just a private affair but has the great force to change the whole structure of the social orders of economics, of political ideas, if we combine the changing of structures with a change of heart. In that sense he opened a completely new approach to religion, to the teachings of Jesus Christ and to the life of modern man."
Just as Cardinal KOnig found something fresh in the approach of Buchman and MRA, so I have as a Catholic trade unionist.
The challenge for me and for those who want to change the world is that the new order can only be heralded in by the new man and woman. That was the challenge that Christ issued in the Sermon on the Mount, and which MRA clarified for me. For that I am grateful.
Patrick O'Kane Coventry