TWO ATTACKS AND A WARNING

The notion of Moral Re-Armament being a secret society with a hidden hierarchy had first been mooted, in a comparatively simple form, by a pamphlet issued in Paris in 1949 by a certain 'Michel Rovers', but had since become elaborated, on the evidence of an informant whom one official later described as having 'the soul of a traitor', into a more complicated form. It had grown to the point where the Holy Office believed that Moral Re-Armament was strictly organized into seven grades, ranging from 'the Founder' alone in grade one, 'the Policy Team of fourteen members' in grade two, 'the Central Team (sixty-two members') in grade three, 'the full-time workers (more than a thousand)' in grade four, 'the friends', 'the supporters' and 'the contacts' in grades five, six and seven respectively.

Buchman with Peter Howard

The existence of this misunderstanding only became known to Buchman and his friends after one of their number, a Catholic, summoned by an official of the Holy Office, was suddenly confronted with the question to which MRA 'grade' he belonged. Mystified, but remembering the example of St Paul, whom he tried limpingly to follow, he replied, 'The least of the least.' He was therefore classed as a mere 'contact' and encouraged to maintain his touch with Moral Re-Armament. He gathered from this talk a hint or two of where the misunderstanding lay, but the full meaning of his interview only became clear to him in 1958 when the fantastic story was set forth in one of five articles in the Jesuit fortnightly review, Civiltà Cattolica,47 by Father Prudenzio Damboriena, who had attacked Moral Re-Armament in the influential Monitor Ecclesiasticus48 during the previous year.

The difficulty experienced by sincere officials, who had only second-hand information, was to find a pigeon-hole into which the organism created by Buchman could be placed. Some priests, no doubt wishing to help, tried to identify it with purely secular bodies like Rotary or the Scout movement, and insisted that if Buchman promised never again to use religious language - the name of Christ, the Holy Spirit and the Cross of Christ, for example - all would be well. In Buchman's absence, conversations were held with Peter Howard. The record of one such conversation shows clearly that their attempt could not have led anywhere. One priest urged Howard to drop all religious terminology from Moral Re-Armament's statements. Howard said, 'If somebody comes to me and asks the places where I have changed, can I tell him?' 'Yes,' was the reply. 'If he then asks me where I find the power to break habits of sin, can I tell him "Christ"?' continued Howard. 'No, you are on no account to mention Christ. That is the point we are discussing.' Such a course was obviously out of the question.

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Photo: Peter Howard (centre), farmer, author and sportsman, to whom Buchman entrusted his work shortly before he died.
©David Channer/MRA Productions