Protestant, Catholic Leaders Join Protest Over Bitburg Visit

NEW YORK — Many Protestant and Roman Catholic leaders have joined Jewish protests to President Reagan’s plan to visit a German military cemetery at Bitburg on Sunday. A fervent Reagan supporter, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, was among those disapproving.

The Moral Majority leader said the President “should admit he was wrong, and I don’t think it would be an indication of weakness for him to do so.” Falwell said his advice would be “recant; don’t go.”

The Rev. Robert W. Huston, ecumenical officer of the United Methodist Church, called the decision a “tragedy of moral myopia and insensitivity.”

Eugene Fisher, director of the Catholic secretariat for Christian-Jewish relations, said the Nazi SS troopers buried there “not only butchered Jews but also killed unarmed American prisoners of war.”