The reasons for the Holy Office's decision did finally become clear to Buchman, but only gradually. They were a combination of understandable pastoral concerns and one profound 'misunderstanding' - a word which Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, then Prefect of the Holy Office, himself later used.45

The Holy Office's concern in 1951, nearly a decade before Vatican II, was whether it might be dangerous to let Catholics and non-Catholics participate jointly in an action which drew upon the spiritual heritage of each. There was a fear that the differences between the heritages might be obliterated, leading to 'indifferentism', meaning 'the affirmation of the equal value of the various religious confessions which claim to originate from Christ'. 'We do not say that Moral Re-Armament teaches this equality of value,' wrote an observer in Rome, 'it breathes and lives it, which may be a more discreet method but is also a more effective way of unintentionally spreading it.'46 It therefore appeared dangerous to allow Catholics to participate.

'My friends and I offered facts which might allay this natural pastoral concern,' says Michel Sentis, a French Catholic working with Buchman. 'In practice, we said, Moral Re-Armament did not cause people to deny their spiritual heritage; on the contrary, it often led individuals to renew their loosened ties with their own church. The "conversions" of which Moral Re-Armament was the instrument were conversions within the religious confessions of the people concerned, or conversions from atheism. These facts were listened to with sympathy, but we were told that the Church would judge in the long term whether our optimistic view was justified.'

'There were a number of other criticisms, which could be summarised as concluding that non-Catholics in Moral Re-Armament had a mode of thought and spiritual conception which differed from the Catholic tradition,' continues Sentis. 'These criticisms, which were, of course, justified, seemed to us to reveal a lack of realism about the necessary dialogue between different Christian confessions. Rather than discouraging the Catholics working with Moral Re-Armament, we thought that the Church should try to clarify the issues for them, as certain bishops were already doing for members of their own dioceses.'

The 'misunderstanding' was more serious. As a result of distorted information, the Holy Office at that time had an inexact, indeed a totally mistaken, impression of the actual structure of Moral Re-Armament. It was convinced that behind the lack of organised framework which Buchman had always encouraged, there was a carefully concealed hierarchy similar to that of various secret societies it had encountered in the past. This view lay behind the prohibition against Catholics holding positions of responsibility; and it also gave rise to suspicions of duplicity which meant that all information proffered from Moral Re-Armament sources was received with distrust. Hence, for example, the evidence of Count Lovera di Castiglione was disregarded, since he was thought to have been duped.

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