t eanc 0 VOL. 26, NO.
37
. FALL RIVER DIOCESAN NEWSPAPER FOR SOUTHEAST MASSACHUSETTS CAPE COD & THE ISLANDS
FALL RIVER, MASS., FRIDA v" SEPTEMBER 24, 1982
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. When Pope John Paul U met Yasser Arafat, cliairman of the' Palestine 'Liberation Organiza tion, he placed himself and the Vatican in the midst of the con troversy over the turbulent, vio lence-torn Middle East.
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AT A DISCUSSION with Bishop Daniel A. Cronin prior to the national. 5t. Vincent de Paul meeting now in progress in Hyannis, diocesan Vincentians display scrapbook de tailing their role in Notre Dame fire relief ef forts. From left, Father Daniel L. Freitas, Vincentian director; the bishop; Ray Pelletier, council disaster chairman; Joseph Gromada, Fall River district council president. (Torchia Photo)
Vincentian parley here
Amin A. de Tarrazi, president general of the Society of St. Vin cent de Paul, headquartered in Paris, will be among speakers to address the 68th annual national meeting of the Society on Satur day. The gathering is now in pro gress in Hyannis. Also on the Vincentian pro· gram are Bishop Daniel A. Cro nin, honorary convention chair- . man as Ordinary of the host diocese, who will be main speak. er at a banquet tomorrow night; Cardinal Humberto Medeiros of Boston, who will preside at a Mass, also tomorrow, at which Bishop Cronin will be principal celebrant; and Massachusetts Governor Edward J. King, key. note speaker at tomorrow's morning session; The meeting, which began yesterday and will conclude Sun day, has drawn some 800 Vin centians and their spouses to Dunfey's Hotel in Hyannis. With the theme "Family Values in the Eighties," delegates are participating in a wide range of seminars, workshops and recrea· tional activities.
Yesterday's schedule, directed towards leaders in the national organization, began with a con celebrated Mass at St. Francis Xavier Church, Hyannis, the scene of all convention Masses. Sightseeing and the second an nual St. Vincent de Paul Nation· al Charity Golf Tournament fill· ed the day. Also scheduled was a council administration com mittee meeting at 2:30 p.m. and a 5 p.m. Mass. Regional and na· tional committee meetings and a gathering of regional spiritual advisors took place last night. , Today's opening sl!ssion of the national meeting WillS scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. with remarks by Vito V. Gerardi of New Bed· ford, convention chairman. Open ing prayers were by Bishop Thomas E. Murphy of Great Falls ,/Billings, Montana, episcopal advisor. A welcome was .~xtended by Charles Rozak, president of the Fall River Diocesan. Vincentian Council, and by Martin J. Flynn, a Hyannis selectman. The open ing address, setting the conven tion'theme, was by John R. S'im mons, president of the U.S. Vin·
centian Council. National committee meetings followed, with Raymond Pelle· tier of Westport among speakers at the Disaster Committee gather. ing. His topic was Vincentian response to the disastrous Notre Dame fire that took place in Fall River last May 13. Other committees holding meetings were Extension; Spirit ual Advisors; 'and Social Justice, which had among panel members discussing "What's in It for the Family" David Motta of Somer set. Also Public Affairs, Leadership Development, Stores and Work shops and Time and Place com mittees held workshops or panels. Today's luncheon had as guest speaker Mrs. Dolores Leckey, ex ecutive director of the Bishops' Committee on the Laity and' a frequent contributor to the Know Your Faith feature of The An chor. An afternoon discussion of the Birthright program as an alterna tive to abortion will have Mrs. Susan Anderson of Hyannis as Tum to Page Ten
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Even before the private, 20· minute meeting took place Sept. 15, <Israeli government officials and numerous Jewish organiza· tions had denounced the papal agreement :to meet the man who leads a terrorist organization that is pledged to the destruction of Israel. The Vatican insisted that the meeting was· not political, but part of the pope's broader con cern for all the peoples of the Middle East and for an end to the perennial violence in the re.. gion. It repudiated any inter· pretation of the meeting as an endorsement of the' ,PLO or its methods. The day before the pope and Arafat met, Lebanese President elect Bashir Gemaye<l was assas sinated and iIsrael responded by going :into West Beirut, adding to the tensions surrounding the meeting. A massacre Sept. 17-18 of hun dreds of Palestinian civilians in two refugee camps in West Bei rut, apparently by Lebanese Christian militiamen but without Israeli interference, caused Ara· fat to appeal to the pope and to superpower leaders to intervene. The PLO news agency, Wafa, said Arafat asked Pope John Paul to help "stop crimes committed against unarmed Palestinian and Lebanese civilians." Pope John Paul on Sept. 19 emotionally denounced :the "hor rendous massacre" and "ruthless
... excess of barbarism," saying his soul was "fiHed with bitter ness" at news' of the killings. On Sept. 15, just minutes after his meeting with Arafat, Pope John Paul at his'Wednesday gen eral audience mourned the assas sination the day before of Ge· mayel and issued a public plea
for peace with justice for all the peoples of the Middle East. He emphasized the rights of the Israelis, and Palestinians without, however,' mentioning ,the PLO. One official of the PLO, which only recently had its' organiza tional back severely bent when Israel forced its army and leader ship out of Lebanon, hailed the meeting as "a turning point in favor of ,the PLO." A statement by the Israeli Foreign Ministry expressed shock that the pope "did not recoil from" meeting Arafat and said his action "harms the peace pro cess" in the Middle East. By the time all the dust set tled on the controversy, it was clear that Israel and the PLO, in interpreting the meeting polftic ally, were operating on a differ ent track from the Vatican. A diplomatic communique sent out by !the papal Secretariat of State and released Sept. 14 by the Holy See's U.N. observer mission said that the meeting was "to be interpreted as a sign of the good will and concern of the supreme pontiff for the Pales tinian people without any polit ical significance, particularly as regards the character of repre sentation for these people as claimed by the PLO." The communique made no ref ernce to Arafat's position as head of the PLO, indicating that ,tht> pope was meeting him as an .individual and not as a repre sentative of the organization. Similarly, a brief Vatican communique after the meeting made no reference at all to the, PLO, referring to Arafat only as "Mr. Arafat."
The pope's public response to reports of the West Beirut mas sacre, in his Sunday Angelus talk Sept. 19, was one of the most emotion-laden statement of his pontificate. Visibly moved, the pope said, "One hears reports of hundreds and hundreds of victims-babies, Turn to Page Tvvo
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