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Atlantans To March For Human Rights
BY THEA JARVIS
In a spirit of concern for human rights and dismay over rising Ku Klux Klan
and neo-Nazi activity, Atlanta church and civic leaders have set out to forge a
new bond of solidarity within the community.
At a press conference held Tuesday morning at Mayor Maynard Jackson’s
office, representatives of “People Against Persecution” announced plans for a
silent march of remembrance to honor those who have been persecuted for
racial, religious, or ethnic reasons.
The march will be held on Sunday, Nov. 23 at 3 p.m. It will begin just
outside Ebenezer Baptist Church on Auburn Avenue and end at Central City
Park, where speakers will address the gathering.
Organizers of the march include among their concerns the missing and
murdered children of the city of Atlanta.
Father John Adamski, pastor of St. Anthony’s Catholic Church, Rabbi
Beverly Lemer of The Temple, Lino Domingues of the Latin American
Association, Reverend Timothy McDonald, assistant pastor of Ebenezer Baptist
Church, Earl Shinholster with NAACP, Reverend David Rankin, senior minister
of the Unitarian-Universalist Congregation of Atlanta, and Libby Davis, of
Atlantans for International Education are among those actively involved in the
planned march.
Pamela O’Brien, parishioner of St. Anthony’s and 20-year veteran of the
human rights movement, initiated the idea of the march.
“We should do something now before it’s too late,” says Ms. O’Brien, citing
stepped up Klan activity, neo-Nazi maneuverings, and statements by avowed
racist J. B. Stoner and Baptist leader Bailey Smith as examples of increased
effrontery in the human rights arena.
Ms. O’Brien notes that such undercurrents operate from a base of fear, and
that fear in both the black and white community is running high.
“Fascism doesn’t come the way people think, with alot of goose-stepping
and swastika-brandishing,” says Ms. O’Brien. “It comes very quietly, sneaking
insidiously. It begins with people telling us how to live, how to worship, who is
moral, and who is immoral.”
Queried about the new religious-political movement, the Moral Majority,
Ms. O’Brien replied, “I fear the Moral Majority very much.”
As a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a 60-year-old
international organization dedicated to world-wide peace and social justice,
British-born Pamela O’Brien carries “an individual responsibility to do things
around the world” to promote racial and religious harmony.
She sees a clear parallel to present events in the infiltration of Nazism within
South Africa during the thirties.
“What happened in South Africa could happen here,” she claims. “We
already have a bad economic situation, and inflation is plaguing us all. We look
forward to food and water shortages in the future. These factors can combine
to make fascism a possibility unless we do something now.”
(Continued on page 6)
forgia
Vol. 18 No. 40
Thursday, November 13,1980
$8.00 per year
«* *•
SPF
Tfttyi. “Hitl
Enviable Courage
Stefan Wyszynski is 80 years old.
He paid a leisurely visit to an old
compatriot in the Vatican last week
and got the word. John Paul was
most direct with this great old
controversial warrior from Poland.
His mission of leadership is not over.
He may not retire. He will return to
his duties in Warsaw and continue his
defiant confrontations with the
Communist regime which seeks to
silence the extraordinary vitality of
the Polish
Church.
Cardinal
W yszynski will
go. This glorious
human chapter
of modern day
Poland knows
the need. He
also knows the
danger. Polish
prisons are no
foreign fields to
this patriarch.
He has fought many battles with the
Red oppressor. Some he has won,
others have been lost. But his ever
vigilant presence has been an
important pillar of assurance to a
persecuted Church daring to practice
it’s beliefs.
The old Cardinal misses his most
famous collaborator. Before Karol
Wojtyla left Poland to surprisingly
occupy the vacant chair of Peter, he
stood strongly at the side of the wily
old Wyszynski. Together, patiently,
with painstaking slowness, they
sought new freedoms for the Church
under a system unaccustomed to
yielding any.
They pounded on doors for
simple permission to build churches.
They argued for the necessity of a
Catholic, teaching, free press. They
fought conscription of their priests
into the Red army and daily, risking
personal freedoms, they publicly
backed the growing demands of the
Polish worker.
The recent victories won by the
unrelenting labor movement in
Poland - victories that took down
tyrannical leaders - were due to their
outspoken, fearless leadership. And
the world, terrified that awful threats
might be fulfilled, stood in awe at
this old man and his fearless
cooperator, now leading the Church
in Rome.
Father Hans Kung has had many
words for Pope John Paul as he
continued his well publicized tour of
the United States. Most of those
words have been uncomplimentary in
print, and while the press has danced
most merrily to his tune, his bitter
sensationalism has fooled no one. He
was rightly censured for his
impatient teachings, not just by
Rome, but by his own German
Bishops, not to mention his gallant,
liberal, theological confreres. The
Jesuit Father Rahner, long a student
of liberal causes, would simply say
that Kung obviously is no longer a
Catholic.
Cardinal Wyszynski now goes
back to Poland. There will be no
fanfare, just thoughts of dangerous
challenges to be met, cunning,
admitted enemies of the Church to
be foiled and a godless system of
injustice to be endured.
The iron curtain Cardinal shames
the outspoken inactivity of so many.
W. GERMANY
Controversy Frames Papal Trip
ul s,
NC News Service
When Pope John Paul II arrives in
West Germany Nov. 15 he will find
the birthplace of Protestantism
simmering with newly revived
ecumenical tensions which may last
well beyond the five-day visit.
The papal trip is primarily
designed to mark the seventh
centenary of the death of St. Albert
the Great, but the pope said in his
Sunday Angelus talk Nov. 9 that he
considers the visit “particularly
important from the ecumenical point
of view as well.”
Many Germans, too, see the
pope’s scheduled hour-long meeting
with representatives of non-Catholic
Christian churches Nov. 15 in Mainz
as a key event of the visit.
The length of the meeting has
already caused a furor among some
German ecumenists, who say the
issues which need to be discussed
cannot be adequately covered in that
time.
But time has always been at a
premium during Pope John Paul’s
previous visits to 14 countries, and
the West Germany trip will be no
exception.
The schedule for the Nov. 15-19
trip includes seven Masses and 16
meetings in seven West German
cities.
The pre-trip ecumenical problems
arose primarily from three booklets,
published hurriedly because of the
shortness of time between the
announcement of the papal trip and
the pope’s arrival.
One of the books describes Martin
(Continued on page 6)
Quinn: Church Has Unique Agenda
HOSTAGE ANNIVERSARY - Cardinal Terence Cooke of New
York greets Louisa Kennedy, center, and Barbara Rosen, wives of
United States hostages in Iran, Moorehead Kennedy Jr. and Barry
Rosen. The wives and relatives of the hostages then participated in a
prayer service (bottom) in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. The
service marked one year of captivity for the U.S. embassy officials
in Iran.
WASHINGTON (NC) - The
church must at times take unpopular
positions if it is to be true to its
mission, Archbishop John R. Quinn
of San Francisco, president of the
National Conference of Catholic
Bishops, said Nov. 10.
In a report to the U.S. bishops on
the recently concluded world Synod
of Bishops in Rome, which among
other things affirmed church
teaching on contraception and
divorce, Archbishop Quinn said the
church “must ultimately set its own
agenda, and must do so, of course,
ultimately out of the sources of
faith.” '
He added, “And while this does
indeed involve a process of discerning
the signs of the times in light of, and
on the basis of, the Gospel as handed
on in the church, it can and not
infrequently does require the church
to be ‘against the world for the
world,’ that is, to take positions and
insist on truths which the spirit of
the times finds unacceptable or
incomprehensible.”
Archbishop Quinn’s speech before
about 250 bishops gathered for their
annual meeting in Washington
marked his last as bishops’
conference president. The bishops
were scheduled to elect a new
president later during the Nov. 10-13
meeting.
Archbishop Quinn stressed that
while most press accounts of the
synod focused on the issues of
contraception and divorce, “it is
important to bring into relief the fact
that 21 major topics were treated in
the synod which resulted in the
formulation of 43 major proposals or
resolutions which were both
doctrinal and pastoral.”
He said the synod, which had the
theme of “The Christian Family in
the Modern World,” also dealt with
issues such as the value of celibacy,
(Continued on page 6)
Election Buoys Pro-Life, Dismays Justice Groups
WASHINGTON (NC) - Pollsters
said that Catholics helped Ronald
Reagan sweep to the presidency in an
election which left church groups
expecting big gains for their causes or
fearing a move backward in social
justice concerns.
Pro-lifers and supporters of
tuition tax credits were delighted
that the party which supports their
issues had scored such a major
victory Nov. 4.
But other Catholic groups
concerned about such questions as
disarmament, domestic social
legislation and international affairs
were left wondering whether their
issues would«reeeive less attention.
Reagan, 69, former Hollywood
actor and two-term governor of
California, was elected with 51
percent of the popular vote.
President Carter, who lost his bid for
a second term, received 41 percent of
the vote, and independent candidate
John Anderson took 7 percent of the
vote.
But it was in the electoral vote
totals that Reagan built a landslide
victory. He won in 44 states with a
total of 489 electoral votes while
Carter won only six states plus the
District of Columbia for a total of 49
electoral votes.
Catholics, according to several
election day polls, gave Reagan
between 46 and 48 percent of their
votes. Carter received about 43
percent of the Catholic vote, and 9
percent of the Catholics who went to
Pope John Paul sent good wishes
to President-Elect Reagan following
the election. The first-person
telegram marked a departure from
the usual Vatican practice. In the
past the Papal Secretary of State
transmitted the message. Pope John
Paul personnally signed this
congratulatory message which was
dated Nov. 5.
the polls chose Anderson.
“I am not frightened by what lies
ahead and I don’t think the
American people are frightened by
what lies ahead,” said Reagan in a
victory statement in Los Angeles on
election night.
“Together we are going to do
what must be done - we are going to
put America back to work,” he
added.
Among the congratulatory
messages sent to Reagan were ones
from Pope John Paul II and
Archbishop John R. Quinn of San
Francisco, president of the U.S.
Catholic Conference and National
Conference of Catholic Bishops.
“I pray that Almighty God will
assist you in your role of leadership
in your country and in striving to
build the edifice of world peace on
the solid foundations of truth and
love, freedom and justice,” said a
telegram from the pope.
The first-person telegram marked
a departure from usual Vatican
practice. In past presidential
elections, the papal secretary of state
transmitted congratulations in the
pope’s name to the new
president-elect.
Archbishop Quinn’s message to
Reagan offered congratulations on
the victory and cooperation in
dealing with “the many critical
problems, domestic and
international, which our nation faces
at this time.”
(Continued on page 6)
Flight From War To Drought
NEW YORK (NC) - Somalia,
in the northeast African region
known as the Horn of Africa, has
“the most significant and
disastrous refugee problem in the
world at this time,” said Kenneth
F. Hackett, regional director for
Sub-Sahara of Catholic Relief
Services (CRS).
“The refugees are fleeing from
war to a country that’s in the
midst of a drought,” said Hackett,
who recently visited Somalia.
The 1.5 million refugees in
Somalia comprise more than 25
percent of the population of the
country and they continue to
arrive at an average rate of 1,000 a
day.
Somalia, generally considered
the eighth poorest nation in the
world, is a country of nomads,
whose average per capita income
is less than $150 a year. Unusually
severe drought conditions affect
about 50 percent of the 3.5
million permanent inhabitants of
Somalia.
CRS, the overseas aid and
development agency of U.S.
Catholics, has joined Church
World Service, the international
relief agency of the National
Council of Churches, and
Lutheran World Relief to form
Inter-Church Response for the
Horn of Africa (ICR-HA). Each of
the three agencies in the assistance
consortium has agreed to commit
a minimum of $250,000 a year
for three years.
In the consortium, Church
World Service will be responsible
for water resource development
and health care delivery, CRS for
food and nutrition programs and
Lutheran World Relief for
agricultural development, solar
energy and other technologies.
Hackett said the consortium’s
first priority will be to provide
immediate material assistance,
such as tarpaulins, soap, skin
cream and water containers. There
is enough food in Somalia, but
there are difficulties in
transporting it to the refugee
camps, he said, and ICR-HA will
work on solving this problem.
ICR-HA’s longer range
projects, Hackett said, include
improving availability of fuel
supplies so people do not have to
walk 15 to 20 miles a day to
collect firewood; helping the
people to grow their own food;
developing a reforestation plan;
and improving sanitation and
water systems to prevent the
spread of parasitic diseases.
Hackett said ICR-HA will
provide assistance on the basis of
need. “We’re not involved in
conversion or proselytization,” he
said. “In fact, that’s contrary to
our mandate.”
The consortium will aid both
the refugees and the permanent
residents, he said. “It is likely that
the situation will continue for a
number of years and, although it
is not the policy of the Somali
government or the intention of
the refugees to stay in the camps,
it will be some time before they
can resume their traditional
nomadic lifestyle. In the
meantime, we’ll try to help the
individuals work together as a
community to become as
self-sufficient as possible.”
*
WOMEN AT THE WELL -- In a refugee camp in Somalia, women
come to draw water from a well.