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About The Georgia bulletin (Atlanta) 1963-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 7, 1989)
PAGE 13 — The Georgia Bulletin, September 7, 1989 Brooklyn Church Leaders Deplore Racial Slayings s •3 1 f * - * BROOKLYN, N.Y. (CNS) — Local Catholic leaders sharply condemned racial violence following the murder of a black teen-ager by a white gang Aug. 23 in Bensonhurst, a heavily Catholic, Italian-American neighborhood of Brooklyn. Police said between 10 and 30 young white males may have been part of the bat-wielding gang that chased four young blacks and gunned down one, 16-year-old Yusef Hawkins. The next day a group of 20 local leaders, including several Catholic pastors, declared that they and “the overwhelm ing majority of our people are determined to do battle against the ignorance that leads to intolerance, hatred and violence.” Bishop Francis J. Mugavero of Brooklyn called Hawkins’ death “tragic and senseless.” He said that any “racially motivated violence” requires Christians to “reaffirm our belief in the dignity of each and every human being, regardless of race, language and way of life.” At weekend Masses in Bensonhurst parishes, priests urged parishioners to replace racial hatred with tolerance and love. CHICAGO (CNS) — Father George Clements, known for his adoption of three boys and social activism, has received death threats for continuing an anti-drug crusade started in June. Both Father Clements and Father Michael Pfleger are under police protection. They say the threats will not deter their crusade. The priests were arrested in June after they broke down the door of an alleged drug paraphernalia warehouse. The charges were later dropped. More recently Fathers Clements and Pfleger lobbied the Illinois Legislature for a bill that bans the commercial sale of drug paraphernalia. The bill was passed and signed into law by Gov. James R. Thompson Aug. 22 at Holy Angels Church, where Father Clements is pastor. The priests said they will work for passage of a nation wide ban on drug paraphernalia introduced by U.S. Rep. Charles B. Rangel, D-N.Y. Father Pfleger said either he or Father Clements will testify in September on drug abuse before the Senate Judiciary Committee. At the signing ceremony, Father Clements called for a national day of prayer and fasting on Sept. 5, the day Presi dent Bush is expected to unveil his administration’s anti drug strategy. “Jesus Christ told us some things can be accomplished only through prayer and fasting,” Father Clements told the New World, Chicago’s archdiocesan newspaper. Since their anti-drug activities became publicized in June, Fathers Clements and Pfleger have received death threats. Father Pfleger said callers often identify themselves as drug dealers. “You feel a sense of anger,” he said. “But sometimes you feel like you’re talking to a grown, mature businessman. Legal Problems? call 921-9214 Virgil P. Warren III Attorney at Law Caring Reliable Reasonable Fees $$ $$$$$$$$$$$$ Mortgage Loans Been turned down! Call us. 1st, 2nd, Refinan cing, commercial mortgages available, all credit accepted. 100% equity programs, with good credit. No income verification loans, No equity programs. New homes-no equity, up to $10,000 w/good credit. Foreclosures stops/with equity. For competitive market lending rates, call: 484-0720 Trust American Financial Services $$$$$$$£$$$$$$ “You and I as individuals have to build bridges between people, love one another,” said Father Arthur Minichello, pastor of St. Dominic’s Church, in his homily at evening Mass Aug. 26. The next day hundreds of demonstrators protesting Hawkins’ death marched the five blocks from the site where he was shot to St. Dominic’s, where a penance ser vice was conducted at the church steps. Father George Kuhn, a pastor from Manhattan's lower East Side who participated in the march, said that only a strong police presence prevented violent confrontation be tween the marchers and counterdemonstrators. “I never expected the numbers of people filled with hatred and viciousness,” he said. “The violence in their faces and words, it was scary.” Police said Hawkins’ attackers apparently mistook the black youth, who had come to the neighborhood to look at a used car for sale, as a new boyfriend of Gina Feliciano. Miss Feliciano, 18, had recently broken up with neighborhood resident Keith Mondello and begun to date Hispanics and blacks. Mondello, 18, was one of several whites in their late teens We’ve been told we’ve created a great loss of income, so I can see why that fits.” The priests have also suffered property damage. In July Father Clements’ car radio and air conditioner were stolen. Left behind was a sign that read: “The first of many. Your friendly drug dealer.” On Aug. 12, his car was stolen and found the next day heavily damaged. Father Clements said telephone callers told him they took the car and that “I better quit before it is too late.” And a brick was thrown through the front door of St. Sabina Church in Chicago, where Father Pfleger is pastor. A sign attached to the church threatened further reprisals. The priests said they remained undaunted. “I know what we’re doing is right,” Father Pfleger said. Fathers Clements and Pfleger will speak at anti-drug rallies, help monitor stores suspected of selling drug paraphernalia, and organize protests in front of houses identified by parishioners and community residents as the scene of drug sales, Father Pfleger said. “We are in a mighty struggle to save the United States,” Father Clements said. “Drug abuse is the worst plague to hit the world since the bubonic plague.” or 20s who were charged by police in connection with the at tack, which began outside Miss Feliciano’s house. Police said he had previously threatened her and warned her to stop bringing blacks into the neighborhood. What was supposed to be a neighborhood prayer service for Hawkins led by local clergy Aug. 28 turned into a rally led by Congress of Racial Equality leader Roy Innis and abrasive TV talk show host Morton Downey Jr. When Father Minichello tried to lead the group in prayer, he was shouted down by calls for Downey. The priests and others in the crowd who had come to pray walked down to the corner of the block to carry on the prayer service. James Tancredi, a Bensonhurst resident who helped organize the prayer service, told The Tablet, Brooklyn diocesan newspaper, that those who disrupted it were out siders. "This is our neighborhood that was standing here,” he said, referring to the ones who had left the rally to pray together. “Those other people ... I’ve never seen half of these people before.” Father Robert J. Thelen, episcopal vicar for Brooklyn West and a resident of St. Athanasius Parish in Ben sonhurst, was also among the priests who had come to help lead a prayer service. “It turned out to be a circus,” he said, adding that he “was extremely disturbed” by the demonstration led by Downey and Innis. At a news conference featuring religious and civic leaders Aug. 29 at the residence of Cardinal John J. O’Con nor of New York, Bishop Mugavero called for efforts to end “discrimination ... prejudice, division ... and violence.” But he also questioned the value of outsiders going to Ben sonhurst to demonstrate amid the high tensions. “You have to wonder what was accomplished,” he said. The Tablet, in an editorial prepared for its Sept. 2 edition, deplored the “mindless” killing of Hawkins by “a marauding mob armed with baseball bats and a pistol.” But the paper also criticized the “barbaric nonsense” of confrontations in the days that followed. Marches featuring people like Downey “are anything but peaceful,” it said, and words exchanged between marchers and counterdemonstrators have been “destructive and obscene.” Hawkins’ death calls for “mourning” and “reconcilia tion,” not for actions that “deepen the rift” between blacks and whites, the editorial said. The issue, The Tablet said, “is not whether we will be brothers and sisters in the Lord. The fact is that we are. 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