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PAGE 2 — The Georgia Bulletin, December 21, 1989
Sakharov Mourned As Fearless Voice For Human Rights
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope John Paul II, expressing
his “great sadness” at the death of Andrei Sakharov, said
the Soviet human rights activist was an able defender of
human and spiritual values.
The pope joined other world leaders in praising the Nobel
Prize-winning physicist, who died Dec. 14.
Sakharov was “deeply attached to the defense and pro
motion of human and spiritual values, the basis of every
civilization that is worthy of humanity,” the pope said in a
telegram sent to Sakharov’s widow, Yelena Bonner.
The pope recalled his meeting with Sakharov at the
Vatican last February and described him as a great
scholar. He offered his condolences to Mrs. Bonner and said
Sakharov would be entrusted to “divine mercy.”
Sakharov, a 1975 Nobel Peace Prize laureate and a
physicist known as the father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb,
died'in Moscow of a heart attack at the age of 68. Eighty
thousand people packed a sports arena Dec. 18 for his
public funeral.
He was described by U.S. church leaders as a “fearless”
man who became the “moral conscience” of his nation.
“He was obviously a genius. He was totally committed to
human rights. He was fearless and would walk into the
lion’s den. He was constantly getting up in front of (Soviet
President Mikhail) Gorbachev, and would say the most
blunt things right to the man’s face,” Holy Cross Father
Theodore M. Hesburgh, former president of the University
of Notre Dame, told Catholic News Service Dec. 15.
“He was sensitive not to human beings but to the great
problems facing humanity,” said Father Hesburgh, who
along with Sakharov was a member of the 10-person Inter
national Foundation for the Survival and Development of
Humankind that Gorbachev formed in 1987. The priest and
Sakharov organized the U.S.-Soviet foundation’s human
rights efforts.
Sakharov went from being an honored member of the
Soviet intellectual elite to a political outcast. Even during
his years of political disgrace and exile, he boldly called for
many of the policies now being advanced by Gorbachev and
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other reformists.
In December 1979, after he protested the dispatch of
Soviet troops to Afghanistan, Sakharov was detained and
sent to the Volga city of Gorky, where he remained in inter
nal exile for six years. It was Gorbachev, who in December
1986 ordered Sakharov’s release.
In the past year, however, the former dissident has been
leader of the loyal opposition to Gorbachev, urging him to
speed up reforms.
Robert T. Hennemeyer, director of the U.S. Catholic Con
ference’s Office of International Justice and Peace, said
Sakharov’s role will be difficult to fill.
“There is not an obvious replacement.... In the last year
especially, he’s been the moral conscience in Moscow,
reminding (Soviet leaders) of what the reforms were really
for and keeping people’s needs” at the forefront, Hen
nemeyer said Dec. 15.
Sakharov was a “persistent critic of a system that denied
human rights to its citizens,” Archbishop Stephen Sulyk of
the Ukrainian Archdiocese of Philadelphia told CNS in a
telephone interview.
He said Sakharov had “publicly urged the Soviet govern
ment to legalize the Ukrainian Catholic Church in the Soviet
Union.”
“Voices such as his have helped to foster the climate of
change that led to the visit of the head of an atheistic state
with the Holy Father and led to changes the world is
witnessing in Eastern Europe,” said Archbishop Sulyk.
As a scientist, Sakharov was “called the father of the
hydrogen bomb, but as a man who recognized the primacy
of moral principles, he risked losing prestige and position”
by calling on former Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev to
stop nuclear weapons testing, said Holy Child Sister Ann
Gillen. She is executive director of the Chicago-based Socie
ty of St. Stephen, an ecumenical group founded by an
Episcopal priest that seeks to support persons denied
religious freedom throughout the world.
President Bush, in a Dec. 15 message of condolence,
praised Sakharov’s courage and goodness.
“All of us who knew him will never forget his courage and
devotion to freedom. During the darkest hours of his strug
gle for human rights in the Soviet Union he embodied all
that is good and decent in the human spirit,” Bush said in a
message to Sakharov's widow.
In his last appearance on Soviet television Dec. 12,
Sakharov supported calls for constitutional changes that
would have paved the way for a multiparty system in the
Soviet Union.
No Christmas In West Bank Towns
BETHLEHEM, West Bank (CNS) — Two West Bank
towns linked to the birth of Christ have canceled Christmas
celebrations because of events connected to the Palestinian
uprising in Israeli-occupied territories.
Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, canceled its celebra
tions for the third consecutive year because of the uprising,
known as the "intifada” or shaking off.
The town of Beit Sahour, where tradition says shepherds
saw the star announcing the birth of Jesus, also has cancel
ed its activities.
This fall, the 10,000 residents of Beit Sahour — a mainly
Christian village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank —
peacefully withheld their tax payments through a six-week
siege by Israeli troops that ended in October.
The villagers claimed a victory over Israeli authorities,
but Israelis said they got the revenues they wanted through
the sale of about $1.5 million worth of property seized from
the residents.
“Due to the difficult conditions which our town is ex
periencing after the tax raids that lasted for a month and a
half and the detention of dozens of merchants and residents,
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Cathedral's Christmas Music
Expands Liturgy Of The Word
Archbishop Eugene Marino, SSJ, will be the principal
celebrant and homilist at the traditional Midnight Mass at
the Cathedral of Christ the King, Atlanta.
The Cathedral Choir, under music director, Hamilton
Smith and choirmaster Kevin Culver, will perform music
for this liturgy as well as for an 8 p.m. Christmas Eve Mass
and the 10:30 a.m. Christmas morning Mass.
An expanded Liturgy of the Word, beginning at 11:30 p.m.
will include tour Christmas readings interspersed with
music sung by the choir or the congregation, telling the
Christmas story.
The Offertory motet, ”0 Magnum Misterium,” by
Spanish Renaissance composer, Vittoria, will offer
listeners an unaccompanied, multi-voiced work based on a
familiar Gregorian chant melody. Vittoria was the most
Catholic of the Renaissance composers. Smith said.
All are invited to attend any of these Eucharistic celebra
tions and are reminded that the Midnight Mass will begin at
11:30 p.m.
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