Newspaper Page Text
Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta
Vol. 18 No. 26
Thursday, July 17,1980
$8.00 per year
Brazil: Pope Reflects Social Gospel
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The Fisherman’s Ring
“Senora, how many people live
here?”
It was the white clad Pope of
Rome who spoke. To the
unbelievable horror of this slum
dwelling squatter in a back lane of
Rio de Janeiro, John Paul II was
standing in the middle of her
makeshift home. The one thought
piercing her mind was the breakfast
dishes still unwashed on the clothless
table.
“Twelve of
us live here,”
she replied
wondering what
she should call
this vision.
She saw the
tears swell up in
the astonished
eyes of this
mysterious,
increasingly
compassionate
Polish Pontiff.
“Come here, mother,” he said. And
standing in that room with walls
made from paper and mud, this
Brazilian peasant found herself in his
arms, ecstatically caught in the caress
of his tear-soaked face.
Brazil was different.
Poland had been heart pounding
delirium. Ireland had been a festival
of music and song to dance in his
childlike eyes. America had been a
trail of ticker-tape parades on
Broadway, off-Broadway and down
the ghetto streets of Harlem. And the
emerging nations of Africa with their
Christian newness delighted his
paternal pastoral ways with their
inquisitive freshness.
But Brazil was different. It was
two weeks of face to face encounters
with the living dead. The
hopelessness of the maze of slums
told him the stories. It told tales of
why clerics became political activists.
It logically explained the presence of
his brother-Bishops parading on
union picket lines. It warned the
continent that the muted rumbles of
the multitude were the sounds of
volcanic destruction. And seeing it
all, this glorious man of peace yelled
out uncontrouably “reform” or risk
the forces of violence.
The contrasts of the upbeat city
of Rio devastated this Pope. Standing
underneath the glittering, gleaming,
glass and concrete Sheraton Hotel he
looked across the narrow street at
the squatters gazing at him like an
ocean of ants. His hands rose up, not
in blessing but in desperate despair,
as he again wept over the terrible,
visible human disorder.
He chose Vidigal for the gift.
Home of 150,000 favelados - slum
dwellers - it traded misery for
carnival glee as the Pope they called
“John of God” appeared among
them. They had no gift but their
dark delirious welcome. He embraced
it and left his one and only
possession - the Fisherman’s Ring -
within the walls of their little church
suitably named for the poor man of
Assisi. That ring weds him to the
peoples of every continent but only
this one, this city, this slum enticed
it from its position of honor on his
papal finger.
The message was clear. Ruling the
Church from far away places, busy as
Father of every place, the High Priest
of all Christians everywhere, he
would remain with them, the
favelados, in Brazil, in Rio, in Vidigal
in their slum parish as part of the
struggling Church of the Poor. The
gift of the Ring said it all.
The message of the masses of
Brazil would be told.
POPE JOHN PAUL II presents a ring given to
him by Pope Paul VI in 1967 to Father Italo
Coelho at a hillside shantytown in Rio de Janeiro.
Father Coelho is coordinator for slum
associations in Rio. Beiow, children in a sium
dwelling outside of Rio await the arrival of the
pope above a sign which reads “Welcome John of
God.”
IHM PARISH
-Refugees Made Welcome-
BY MONSIGNOR
NOEL C. BURTENSHAW
It was in the month of May.
Monsignor R. Donald Kiernan was
watching the news as his cops and
robbers show, Hawaii Five-O,
ended. The 11 o’clock news
commentator said it simply, but
most pointedly. Thousands of
Cuban refugees would be coming
to the Atlanta area from their
makeshift camps in Miami. It was
enough. The Monsignor knew
what he must do.
Immaculate Heart of Mary in
northeast Atlanta has become a
parish heavily populated by
His panics. A Spanish Mass is
celebrated each Sunday. With that
kind of support readily available
to help, Monsignor Kiernan knew
that his parish should act. And, in
a spirit of outreach, act the parish
did.
Everyone immediately agreed
that the parish should involve
itself in the lives of some of the
Cubans coming to Atlanta seeking
a new life. Bob Becker and Dan
Cashin from the finance board
were ready. Joe Conboy and the
tough St. Vincent de Paul folks
were ready. Max Munox and
Fernando Mecias from the
Hispanic community were
anxious. “In my 31 years as a
priest” said the happy Monsignor,
“I have never seen such an
outpouring of spirit and
enthusiasm. It was great.”
A parish meeting was next.
Representatives from 140 families
of the parish showed up. “We got
things rolling,” says the pastor”
but I wanted to be sure that they
wanted to get in feet first. So I
asked them to return one week
later and once again state they
wanted to be involved. I felt that
a week would cool some
enthusiasts.” Police chaplains do
not like to be wrong. Monsignor
Kiernan, a long time chaplain of
Police Departments, was. This
time 160 family members were
there. They were off and running
to serve these new refugees.
Immaculate Heart of Mary
Parish formally extended the
invitation and 15 Cuban refugees
arrived. “Jack Bouska became the
hard working leader,” says
Monsignor Kiernan “as we made
these grateful men welcome.” The
parochial school children had
gone for the summer so three
classrooms were turned into
dormitories, storage rooms and
even a classroom to learn one
subject - English.
The adventure took shape. And
this Atlanta parish rose up to the
challenge. “Women arrived
everyday to cook,” recalls
Monsignor Kiernan with glee.
“Men and women hunted jobs,
teams came and taught them
English and others went out and
found apartments for them. The
activity was marvelous aand the
gifts of food and clothing was like
an avalanche of goodness.”
And these special guests
responded to the generosity.
There was no language barrier as
the refugees from Castro
attempted to repay the IHM
parishioners for their Christian
charity. The janitor found himself
helped on the grounds, or with
the painting jobs or simply
cleaning up the church. The
school kitchen was given a good
shine job and the men from Cuba
even serenaded the cafeteria at
night, when the work and the
learning was all over, with ballads
and songs from their homeland.
By the end of June the mission
was really accomplished. Jobs,
some very menial, were found for
these anxious and willing residents
of IHM. “They quickly showed
that they wanted to set up homes
of their own,” said Monsignor
Kiernan proudly, “so apartments
were found and groups of families
in the parish agreed to pay the
first month’s rent. It worked
fine.”
So with a little English to get
them by, jobs on the first rung of
the ladder to pay their way,
furniture and clothing to start
their home and true freedom to
make it all worthwhile, the 15
men from Cuba were launched by
their brothers and sisters who
cared in Immaculate Heart of
Mary. “One day, I know,” says
Monsignor Kiernan, “they will
bring their families to this country
and that will be the biggest day of
all for them.”
There is some bad news for the
pastor of IHM. They have
cancelled Hawaii Five-0 in the
upcoming season. But somehow
you get the feeling that a bigger
reward awaits Chaplain Kiernan
and his faithful parishioners who
grasped this golden opportunity
to serve.
McGarrett, Danno and all those
other dare-devils of the Hawaii
Police Department could not have
done a better job.
Ten-four.
NC NEWS SERVICE
Pope John Paul II’s whirlwind
tour through Brazil turned out to be
a traveling social encyclical.
On his trip, covering 13 cities in
12 days, he warned that Latin
America faces only two options:
rapid, significant reform or tragic
violence.
He outlined Catholic principles of
peace and justice at almost every
level, including:
- International peace and the
government’s role in social justice at
his first stop, in Brazil’s modem
capital of Brasilia.
- The rights of the poor in a
district of slum shacks in Rio de
Janeiro.
- Workers’ rights at a meeting
with workers in Sao Paulo.
- Religious rights in Porto Alegre.
- Ethnic, racial and immigrant
rights in Curitiba.
- Land and property rights in
Recife.
At a meeting with thousands of
civic, political, cultural, intellectual
and other social leaders in Salvador,
Pope John Paul laid out a basic
philosphy of Christian action for
social justice in the world today. It
was there that he warned all of Latin
America that it is on the brink of
violent revolution if it does not make
sweeping reforms to guarantee
human dignity and the basic
necessities of life to the continent’s
massive population living in misery
and poverty.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, the
pontiff repeated on several occasions
during his trip.
But each time he added that
poorness m spirit -does not imply
resignation to misery or the giving up
of one’s rights and dignity. He said
he was quoting Christ’s words to give
“a constant warning” to the rich.
Unlike the usual papal encyclical
on social justice, Pope John Paul’s
trip through Brazil did not appear in
one large, somewhat impersonal
written lump.
Instead it developed daily, each
portion of it taking on its own
specific impact, set in a concrete
context that illustrated the issues,
and with the personal aspect of the
pope’s physical presence.
In its practical impact it lay
between a teacher teaching in the
classroom of the real world and a
thinker transmitting his written
thoughts from the solitude of a papal
study.
Because they were spread over
nearly two weeks, his views were
featured daily on world radio,
television and the front pages of
newspapers instead of the two or
three days of hard coverage that
might be given to a new papal
encyclical.
Nevertheless, the individual events
on different themes, when taken
together, were like the chapters of a
complete social encyclical.
He called the trip a religious
pilgrimage, but the church’s social
teachings were the main focus.
He set the tone in Brasilia June 30
with his airport arrival speech. He
urged Brazil to “construct an
exemplary social context,
overcoming imbalances and
inequalities, in justice and concord,
with lucidity and courage without
shocks or ruptures.”
In a Mass homily later the same
day, he insisted that “the mission of
the church cannot be reduced to the
socio-political but consists in
announcing what God has revealed
about himself and the destiny of
man.”
But under the heading of church
teaching about man’s God-given
dignity and rights, the pontiff
quickly began to draw out numerous
socio-political principles implied by
the Gospel.
“To proclaim and defend such
rights ... is a constant factor in the
life of the church in virtue of the
Gospel entrusted to it,” the pope
told Brazilian President Joao Baptista
Figueiredo.
He proeerieri to list among rights
the church must promote those of
“life, security, work, a home, health,
education, religious expression -
private and public - participation.”
Still in his first day in Brazil, he
expanded that theme in a meeting
with diplomats to express the
church’s concern over international
questions of justice and peace. The
next day, at Belo Horizome, he
urged youths to “fulfill your duty,
practice justice.” He warned them
that “social justice is true only when
based on the rights of the
individual.”
As the trip went on, the specific
issues varied, but the message
remained the same.
At two key points in the trip, the
(Continued on page 6)
MONSIGNOR KIERNAN examines some of the clothing and
household goods donated by the parishioners for their refugee
guests. The 15 Cuban men received enough donated gifts to furnish
their new homes.