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The Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta Vol. 21 No. 28 Thursday, August 18,1983 $10.00 Per Year At Lourdes Pope Cites State Limits On Religious Freedom BY NANCY FRAZIER LOURDES, France (NC) -- Illuminated by the flames of thousands of candles, Pope John Paul II called Aug. 14 for an end to religious persecution throughout the world. The pope closed the first day of his 30-hour visit to Lourdes and Tarbes, France, by joining in the traditional nightly candlelight procession at Lourdes, one of the world’s most famous Marian shrines. In an address to 200,000 people after the procession, he also pointedly criticized the government of French President Francois Mitterand, with whom he had met earlier in the day. As examples of those suffering from religious persecution in the form of “permanent restriction of personal freedom or social discrimination,” Pope John Paul listed “parents who are refused the possibility of securing for their children an education built on their faith.” The French church and the pope have strongly criticized a plan by the country’s Socialist government to nationalize Catholic schools. “Today, to prisons, concentration camps, hard labor, expulsion from one’s own country, have been added other forms of punishment, less remarked upon but more subtle: not a bloody death, but a sort of civil death; not only segregation in a prison or in a camp, but permanent restriction of personal freedom or social discrimination,” Pope John Paul said. “There are hundreds and hundreds of thousands of witnesses to faith, very often ignored or forgotten by public opinion,” he added. “They are believers forced to meet secretly because their religious community is not authorized,” the pope said. “They are parents who are refused the possibility of securing for their children an education built on their faith.” The Vatican gave no details about Pope John Paul’s hour-long private meeting with Mitterand. The topic of Catholic schools in France was believed to have been a key theme. Asked about his talks with the pope on Catholic schools, Mitterrand said, “the affairs of the state in France are the affairs of the state and each one understands it very well.” He said he and the pope discussed “international affairs: peace and freedom, the problems which have come up since our first meeting in Rome (Feb. 27, 1982), those which have become worse and the rare ones which (Continued on page 8) Pope John Paul II prays before a statue of Mary in the grotto at Lourdes Headquarters In Atlanta Network Mobilizes Against Klan BY CHRIS VALLEY The white robes and pointed hoods are familiar. You have seen them in history books when you were a high school student. But this isn’t a picture in a history book. This is College Park, Georgia. And this is 1983. “Klan activity in Georgia between 1981 and August 1982 increased 300%,” says Evelyn Newman, office manager for the National Anti-Klan Network which is headquartered in Atlanta. The National Anti-Klan Network is a national clearinghouse for information on Klan activity. Organized in 1979, the Network is a loose group of organizations which have come together because of common concern about the increase in KKK activity. It provides an avenue through which affiliated organizations can know of activities to counter the KKK, and can participate in coalitions to combat the KKK in particular local situations. “The Klan cannot be ignored,” maintains Lyn Wells, director of the Network. “They exploit local issues and polarize whites and blacks, non-foreigners and foreign-bom. They are highly organized and skillful.” Forty-one counties in Georgia have active KKK groups. The majority are in North Georgia. All three of the major Klan factions are represented in Georgia: the Invisible Empire-Knights of the (Continued on page 9) Prejudice In Small Town, Page 8 COLLEGE PARK - About 100 robed members of the Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan marched and rallied here May 28th. They were led by their national leader, Imperial Wizard Bill Wilkinson (3rd from left). (Photo courtesy of the National Anti-Klan Network)