Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 5—The Georgia Bulletin, July 24, 1980
1500 LATIN PRIESTS
‘Liberation Is Irreversible'
75 CENTS A DAY - On a street in Brazil, Edi
works as a shoe shine boy earning about 40
cruzieros (75 cents) a day which he gives to his
mother. He has a sister and five brothers. Ohe
repairs shoes, one buys and sells bottles and
another, who is only 6, also shines shoes. Pope
John Paul II focused the attention of the world
on the poor people of Brazil with his recent
12-day visit to the country.
TENNESSEE
Ring Connection
BY JOANNE LAMPHERE BECKHAM
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (NC) ~ The highlight of Pope
John Paul IPs Brazilian trip for Mrs. Ghislaine Miller, a
parishioner of Sts. Peter and Paul Church in Chattanooga,
came when the pope presented his papal ring to a slum
parish in her native Rio de Janeiro.
After touring Vidigal, a slum area, the pope gave the
ring to Father Italo Coehlo, who works among the poor.
Father Coehlo is an old friend of Mrs. Miller, who worked
with him in Rio during the 1950s. Then a student at a
Catholic High school in Rio, she became involved with the
Catholic Students’ Movement, an arm of Catholic Action
which Father Coehlo organized. After graduating, she
worked for a year in a similar organization for young
working girls. Father Coehlo was working with the poor
through those two organizations and the Catholic Workers
movement.
“The workers in Brazil are very poor,” Mrs. Miller said.
“His work was mainly with youth. He gave everything he
had away to help the poor.” Father Coehlo himself is a
native of extremely poor, drought-affiicted Northeast
Brazil.
Mrs. Miller, married to a newspaper editor who was
once a correspondent in Rio de Janeiro, lived in Brazil
intermittently for 22 years.
She said Father Coehlo’s parish, which includes the
slums, is located in a high-rise shopping center in the heart
of Rio’s resort area. His rich parishioners support a
modem day care center for poor children and reading
classes for the illiterate in the slums.
ELECT
JUDGE CLARENCE
COOPER
to the
Superior Court
Fulton County
M.I.T. Research Fellowship , Municipal Court
Judge 5 years, Assistant District Attorney Fulton
County 8 years. Emory Univ. Law School Harvard
Univ. - Masters of Public Administration.
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BY MANUEL
CASTILLA RAMIREZ
MEXICO CITY (NC) -
A letter to Pope John Paul
II by 1,500 priests in Latin
America said the struggle
for liberation from
poverty is irreversible and
“an imperative of the
Gospel.”
This struggle cannot be
won without conflict,
added the letter which was
published at the time of
the pope’s trip to Brazil.
At the time of publication,
however, the names of the
1,500 priests were not
given.
“Inspired by the
wirntess of love from
those who gave life itself
for their friends, and by
the living experience of
our oppressed brothers
and sisters who are left out
of social progress, who are
massacred every time they
cry for justice, we
proclaim that we join this
process of liberation as an
imperative of the Gospel,
which makes it
irreversible,” the letter
said.
Struggling for redress
from injustices started
during colonial times and
suffering from violence
and genocide, people’s
liberation “obviously
cannot be accomplished
without conflict, contrary
to what leaders in other
lands expect,” the letter
added.
MAY MEETING
OF PRIESTS
Its text was drafted in
May at a meeting of priests
held in Mexico to study
implementation of the
directives issued by the
third conference of Latin
American bishops held at
Puebla, Mexico, in
February 1979.
The letter was
circulated in Latin
America and among the
clergy in other countries.
Besides the signatures, it
carried supporting
statements from priests in
Belgium, France, Spain
1 il TT„!i„ J Ol.l —
(Xiiu Hie united oiateb.
Mexican Father Jesus
Garcia, a leader of church
social action programs,
said arrangements were
made for the letter to be
delivered by Cardinal
Evaristo Paulo Arns of Sao
Paulo, Brazil, during the
pope’s visit to his See July
3.
In Brazil, the pope said
Latin America needs
urgent and immediate
social reforms: otherwise
the changes will come
through violence. The
pope opposed violent
change, however, saying it
would lead to further
injustices.
The letter said, “the
church in Brazil is
contributing key new
insights to the church in
Latin America and the
world, because it is a
church being born by the
force of the Spirit among
the poorest of the people
of God.”
Saying that “we want
to share our experience in
the faith” with the pope as
he visited the poor in
Brazil, the letter went into
some history in the
struggle for liberation on
the part “of the voiceless.”
GREATEST
GENOCIDE IN HISTORY
“Under the guise of
subduing primitive and
savage peoples, the first
settlers (from Europe)
justified themselves in
decimating the natives,
one of the greatest
genocides in history. The
Indians were killed and
oppressed in the name of
the cross of Jesus
Christ. . .
“We believe the hour
has come for the church to
admit this sin of
complicity with the
Portuguese and Spanish
colonizers, and to embark
in a healthy self-evaluat
ion,” it said.
“Following World War I
a new coalition of forces
displaced the center of
power from Europe to
North America. And
leaders in the United
States launched their
design on Latin America as
an underdeveloped
continent within the orbit
of the capitalist system.
Again we were colonized,
this time under the guise
of ‘fraternal aid’ which
really resulted in the
exploitation of our great
natural resources,” the
letter added.
The letter said that
multinational corporations
share responsibility with
governments in this
exploitation. Because of
all this string of injustices,
struggle follows, it added.
“It is not so much a
conflict between church
and state, but a
fundamental conflict
between the common
good of the majority of
the people, the exploited
masses, and the special
interests behind the state,
that is, a conflict between
an oppressed majority and
a privileged minority,” it
said.
VACUUM OF POWER
“These are the reasons
prompting these leaders to
establish, as they have
Sue McConne
Republician 58th District
Sue McConnell is a woman with common-
sense, let's put her kind of sensibility in our
state government. .
• Government must be accountable to the people. Our tax F
money must be Utilized — Not Merely Spent. :
• Government is not free. We, therefore, must limit 0
government only to those things which the people cannot ■]
reasonably do for themselves. a
• Everyone is talking “tax decrease.” The undisputable fact ♦
is, unless anu until there is a decrease in government spending o
there will be no tax decrease. 5
9 Government closest to the people is government by the !
people. We must demand a return of our Constitutional rights t
to govern at the local and state level. \
• We must remove communistic and atheistic teaching from *
our schools.
• Sue McConnell is a DeKalb County businesswoman, wife t
and mother. She and husband Larry have been married 23 ■;
years, have three children and have lived in DeKalb County
for 12 years. a
The residence is 4849 Kenilworth Dr., Stone Mountain, Ga.
30083. Phone 296-7599.
YOUR VOICE IN GOVERNMENT
BROOME
uudGE
* done in the southern cone
of South America, military
governments which take
recourse to bloody
repression, alleging that
there is a vacuum of
(civilian) power and that
national security, false to
us, requires this type of
regime,” it said.
“The patience of the
Latin American people has
reached its limits,” the
letter said in pointing to
turbulence in Central
America.
‘‘The people of
Nicaragua said ‘enough’ to
dictatorship and the
peoples of El Salvador and
Guatemala pursue by all
means their path to
liberation,” it said.
“For us, priests, Christ
is incarnated in the history
of the poor in our
continent, and therefore
He lives among them
under the hunger for bread
and the thirst for
justice ...” the letter
added.
The letter listed
clergymen, such as
Archbishop Oscar Romero
of San Salvador, El
Salvador, and priests in
Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil,
Chile, El Salvador,
Guatemala and Mexico,
who were killed, jailed or
tortured “because of their
love for the poor.”
The letter discussed the
controversial issue of
priests and politics.
“Our bishops have
adopted preferential
option for the poor,” it
said.
“What they seek is not
alms, but the return of
what has been stolen from
them. Thus opting for the
poor means unavoidable
political action,” it said.
“This is the way many
Christians understand the
situation, and we are
willing to take ail the
risks ... As ministers of
Christ’s church, we hope
that your visit to Brazil
means a renewal in the
commitment made at
Medellin and Puebla to the
«*•-effuse-- of the- poor.
Archbishop Romero said -
that their cry for
liberation ascends to God
and no one can stop it,”
said the letter.
BACK HOME -- Pope John Paul II
smiles and waves as he walks
alonongside Italian Premier
Francesco Cossiga at Leonardo da
Vinci Airport in Rome upon his
return from Brazil. In a short
statement the pope described his trip
as a marathon.
Parole Shows “Love And Pardon
VATICAN CITY (NC)
- The recent granting of
parole to a former Nazi
official held in Italian
prisons since 1951
i ndicates a praiseworthy
attitude of “love and
pardon,” said L’Osservat-
ore Romano, the Vatican
daily newspaper, July 15.
The military tribunal of
Bari, Italy, granted
“provisional liberty” to
Walter Reder, a
66-year-old former SS
major, after a six-hour
hearing.
The court said,
however, that Reder
would not be released for
at least five years because
of a provision of the
Geneva Convention which
allows a war prisoner-to be
held after parole is granted
because of dangers to his
safety.
Reder was convicted in
September 1951 of war
crimes in connection with
the Sept. 29, 1944
massacre of 1,836
residents of the Italian
town of*‘Ma*>zabotto. He
received a life sentence.
“Love and pardon
certainly do not cancel the
crimes committed, which
always remain grave crimes
towards God and men,”
said Franciscan Father
Gino Concetti in a
L’Osservatore Romano
editorial.
“They claim, however,
a change-of-mind, a radical
conversion: never more
hate, violence and war in
the world,” the Vatican
theologian added.
He emphasized that
“Christians are called to
give witness (to love and
pardon) even in the
cruelest tests.”
The Vatican’s attitude
toward the decision on
Reder was not widely
shared in Italy.
Corriere Della Sera,
Italy’s respected daily
newspaper, declared in an
editorial that “there are
unpardonable crimes” and
the Communist mayor of
Marzabotto, Dante
.inCShOG riairmont
w — ——
gjpjMR Shoe Service
S«rvie» Bill Antonelli
141 Clairmont Ave.
Decatur, Ga. 373-3676
Cruicchi, strongly
condemned the court
action.
“How can we forget?
How can we pardon?” he
said. “It’s easy to say:
Let’s put ourselves a step
above, more than 30 years
have passed. But here
there are people who
remember, who suffer
nightmares, who have not
had peace since those
terrible days of 1944.”
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PUNCH #87 DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY AUGUST 5, 1980
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