Church Tables Question of Altar

--The Church of England’s Court of Ecclesiastical Causes Reserved deals in weighty matters. Right now, it is meeting for the second time in its history to consider a weighty issue. “This case is probably the most important ritual case since the Reformation,” attorney Peter Boydell told the court. The question before the clerics is: What is a table? More to the point, the court is deciding whether to allow an 8 1/2-ton marble sculpture by Henry Moore serve as an altar in the renovated St. Stephen Walbrook church in London. The historic church was designed by architect Sir Christopher Wren and completed in 1679. Moore, who spent five years carving the sculpture, died an agnostic last August. Boydell, acting for real estate developer and art patron Peter Palumbo, who commissioned the work, is appealing a ruling last February by George Newsom, chancellor of the Diocese of London, who said that Moore’s artwork did not meet the 1845 canon law’s definition of a communion table. The canon law defines a table as “a raised surface incorporating legs or a central pillar at which people might sit.” Newsom had turned down Samuel Johnson’s definition of a table as “a flat surface raised above the ground.” Johnson wrote the first English dictionary in the 18th Century.

--There is probably no one better qualified to chronicle the ordeal of William J. Schroeder, the longest-living artificial heart recipient, than his widow, Margaret. Thus, in the spring, a book, which will be co-authored by Margaret, will be published about the man who received a Jarvik-7 artificial heart on Nov. 25, 1984, and lived for 620 days. He died last Aug. 6. Margaret said that if her husband were alive today, he would be the one doing the talking. “He would be going out and speaking to schools, to the press, to anyone who would listen,” she said. “There would be no stopping him.” She added: “I don’t know if there’s ever going to be such a thing as a normal life (for her) again.”

--J.R. is only a junkyard dog but, according to workers at an industrial park in Brentwood, N.Y., he has got his winning ways. “ . . . J.R.’s got this personality that’s unbelievable,” said Charles Memblatt, chief operating officer of Allou Distributing Inc. “When a vet walks in, he gives his paw and stands there placidly, as if to ask, ‘Can you help me?’ ” Help was just what J.R. needed after he developed a limp about a year ago. Memblatt asked for contributions, and workers at the park scraped up $700 for reconstructive surgery at Tufts University in North Grafton, Mass. “He’s just a junkyard dog, but he became ours, the complex’s,” Memblatt said. “He would act utterly glad to see you and would turn in circles and cry.”