t eanc 0 VOL. 33, NO. 46
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Friday, November 24,1989
F ALL RIVER, MASS.
FALL RIVER DIOCESAN NEWSPAPER FOR SOUTHEAST MASSACHUSms CAPE COD & THE ISLANDS Southeastern Massachusetts' Largest Weekly
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EI Salvador: "Ever-growing source of grief" Christian role in EI Salvador
Chorus of denunciation
By Judith Trojan and Henry Herx
By Catholic News Service Pope John Paul II, the ·V.S. Catholic bishops and political and human rights leaders around the world have denounced the murder of six Jesuit priests, their cook and her daughter in EI Salvador Nov. 16, and called for peace in the warring nation. In separate telegrams to the Jesuit order and Archbishop Arturo Rivera Damas of San Salvador Nov. 17, the pope said he had been "deeply saddened" over the murders, which he termed an act of "abominable. violence." To the Jesuits, the pope expressed his "sentiments of immense pain" and said he shared deeply in the "sadness of the entire Society of Jesus and of the families of the victims." The pope said he prayed that the victims' "sacrifice may not be in vain, but that it be a seed of brotherly love and harmony throughout the martyred country of EI Salvad-
NEW YORK (CNS) - The part taken by Christians in EI Salvador's decade-old civil war is the subject of "La Lucha"-the struggle-a religious special airing Sunday, Dec. 3, 12:30-1:30 p.m. EST on ABC. Actor Mike Farrell of "M.A.S.H." fame guides viewers through the realities of life in EI Salvador, a country of social inequality and desperate poverty and a killing ground in which torture and murder of civilians have become part of life. Christians opposed to the regime's abuses and narrow economic base see their work as spiritually rooted in the Second Vatican Council, especially as interpreted by the 1968 conference of Latin America bishops in Medellin, Colombia, which enunciated the church's "preferential option for the poor." Viewing Christianity as a spiritual force not ,only for personal change but also for social change, priests and'religious began orgal1izing Christian base communities of workers and peasants who read the Bible and discussed its application their lives. Jesuit Father Ignacio. MartinBarQ, interviewed in the program which was filmed last summer, states that the poor began to understand that their impoverishment was "not only inhuman but against the will of God." Father Martin-Baro was one of the six Jesuits slain at Central Turn to Page Three
A WOMAN flees with her baby from hl~r home inEl Salvador, left; right, actor Martin Sheen participates in a procession and Mass at a Los Angeles church honoring the priests and women slain in El Salvador Nov. 16. (eNS/UPI photos)
New EI Salvador slayings ,shock world WASHINGTON (CNS) - The brutal slayings of six Jesuit university leaders and two household staff members Nov. 16 inSan Salvador reopened for U.S. Catholics the "ever-growing source of grief' known as EI Salvador. teilled were Jesuit Fathers Ignacio Ellacuria, Ignacio Martin-Baro, Segundo Montes, Juan Moreno, Amando Lopez and Joaquin Lopez y Lopez. Fathers Montes and Ellacuria, the director of the Central American University Institute for Human Rights, and the university rector, respectively, had visited the United States in recent years to discuss human rights problems.
Father Montes had told Catholic News Service Nov. I that 1989 had seen "a large increase in human rights violations" but that deathsquad activity had apparently decreased. He also said governmentled harassment of clergy and human rights advoca.tes had recently increased. During a 1986 press conference, Father Ellacuria had said the Reagan administration had fanned the fires of Salvadoran civil war but that the Catholic Church, too, was guilty of "not doing everything that we should or could" for peace. The violence that flamed across EI Salvador in the 1980s seared
Stang kicks off $1.5 million drive kickoff, chaired the original Stang building campaign. Stang alumnus Piitrick Carney, president of Claremont Corporation, is chairing the current drive, which has as its theme, "The Tradition Continues. '" The Nov. 16 program opened on a somber note as Father Richard W. Beaulieu, diocesan director of education, called for a moment's silence for the Jesuit priests and household workers slain that day in EI Salvador. Speaking briefly, Bishop Cronin noted the "Christian values and vir~ues" which Bishop Stang has for 30 years inculcated in students. Understandably, he said, the Turn to Page Two
Archbishop Romero, the women missionaries and the slain Jesuits and household staff members will be remembered at 2 p.m. Dec. 3 at St. Mary's Cathedral, Fall River, when the Diocesan Council of Turn to Page Six
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On behalf of his brother bishops, Cincinnati Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk, president of the V.S. Catholic .Conference and the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, pledged "continued solidarity" with the Salvadoran bishops. Archbishop Pilarczyk also wrote to President Bush, urging the U.S. government to press for an investigation of the Nov. 16 murders. "This horrible crime is another tragic example of the bloody violence and deadly denial of human rights that haunts EI Salvador," Archbishop Pilarczyk said in a Turn to Page Six
Walesa requests prayers for Poles
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At a celebration of the 30th anniversary of Bishop Stang High School, North Dartmouth, which was combined with the kickoff of a $1.5 million fund raising campaign, Bishop Daniel A. Cronin announced a diocesan pledge of $250,000 to the drive. Proceeds of the campaign, the first since the school's opening, will fund building improvements, upgrading of athletic fields and facilities and establishment of a $350,000 endowment fund for financial aid and faculty enrichment. Over $725,000 has already been ph:dged to the campaign, for which Bishop Cronin is honorary chairman. Dr. Arthur F. Buckley, honorary cochairman, who celebrated his 75th birthday the day of the
into American consciences as well when San Salvador's Archbishop Oscar A. Romero was murdered in March 1980 and when in December of that year killers murdered four American Catholic missionary women: Maryknoll Sisters MauraClarkeand Ita Ford, Ursuline Sister Dorothy Kazel and lay missioner Jean Donovan.
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CHRIST THE KINIr::il PARISH Ma!;hpee ~ages 7·12
WASHINGTON (CNS) - Polish Solidarity leader Lech Walesa has asked American Catholics to pray for the people of Poland as they make their transition from Communism to democracy. "We need your prayers and we need your understanding," he said during a visit to U.S. Catholic Conference headquarters in WashingtonNov.17. He also repeatedly thanked the U.S. church for its support of the Polish people' and of the trade union movement, Solidarity. Walesa visited the bishops' headquarters during a week long U.S. trip that also included stops in New York, Chicago and Philadelphia.
In an interview with Catholic News Service, Walesa emphasized that he requested the meeting with conference employees "As the chairman of Solidarity, I never had the opportunity to thank the people of the American church," he said. "Their prayers, their appeals and their direct assistance- it was very, very important, -financial assistance most important. "So it was sort of my duty to thank the shepherds of the church and ask them for their prayers," he added. The 46-year-old founder of Solidarity, who won the 1983 Nobel Turn to Page Two