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Since many U.S. church groups are on record as being opposed to the Viet Nam war, there is some likelihood that the symbolic expression of the right of sanctuary will spread further. And it might be more than symbolic. Some lawyers contend that churches could offer temporary protection to draft resisters or other violaters by demanding that police pursuers produce warrants before searching pews and manses.
Place of Confrontation. Exercising sanctuary privileges will, at best, only delay the inexorable law. Yet many clergymen are delighted with the opportunity to use their houses of worship in what they feel is an openly defiant way of supporting dissent. Roman Catholic Monsignor George W. Casey of St. Brigid's Church in Boston says that he finds some comfort in the fact that draft resisters—most of them nonreligious—have sought the church "as a place of confrontation. Church has been fading from the sight of young America. We hear the word 'irrelevant' so often it makes us wince. It is good, in a strange way, to know that in the minds or maybe just in the memories of youth, a church is still a sign of moral force."