The Rev. Richard B. Griffin S. J. '51, Catholic chaplain of Harvard and Radcliffe, will fly to Paris on Thursday to participate in a "Catholic Commission of Inquiry" into the recent growth of antiwar sentiment within the Catholic community of South Vietnam.

Griffin and 39 other Catholic clergy and laymen from 29 American cities will spend 11 days meeting with Vietnamese Catholics and members of the four official delegations to the Paris peace talks.

The project, called "A Catholic Commission of Inquiry into a Just Solution to the War in Indochina," was organized by the People's Commission of Inquiry, based in Minneapolis, Minn. The latter group sent a similar delegation to Paris last summer.

Peace Feelers

"We hope to find out the feelings of the Vietnamese Catholic community about the war and about conditions for peace acceptable to them," Griffin said yesterday.

He said the commission will report its findings to American Catholic groups, after returning to the United States June 1. "We'll try to promote understanding among American Catholics of the suffering of our Vietnamese brothers and sisters and of possible alternatives to the policy of Vietnamization."