NEWS & VIEWS:
NEWS & VIEWS Guerrilla-Priest Dies The Spanish priest who emerged as the "brains" of the guerrilla movement in Colombia [Commonweal, 1/18/74], and as a successor of sorts to Father Camilo Torres,...
...The most numerous group comprised those born in 1909 who had 142 priests aged 63...
...The Vanishing Priest Michael M. Winter assesses the clergy situation in England and Wales in The Tablet: "It is notoriously difficult to decide how many priests we need in parishes...
...JOHN DEEDY 19 April 1974: 148...
...15, Ramsey's retirement date...
...In the report CoResponsibility and the Clergy, Appendix C publishes the dates of birth of all priests at work in England and Wales at the end of 1972...
...Father Lain, 34, arrived in Colombia in 1967, and labored for three years as a worker-priest in the factories of Bogota and Cartagena...
...Ehrlichman and not Mr...
...I believe that my true priestly consecration begins now...
...He slipped back into Colombia in 1970 and joined the Army of National Liberation (ELN), where he quickly assumed a leadership role...
...Still in Bondage The possibility of the Anglican Church of England gaining control over the appointment of its own bishops [Commonweal, 3/29/74] has been broached by The Times of London in conjunction with the recent resignation of Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey...
...We keep going by a variety of short-term expedients, such as priests saying three Masses each Sunday, and borrowing religious as supply priests, yet such improvisations are unsatisfactory...
...A month later the government expelled him on charges of subversion...
...Faced with the reactionary and oppressive violence which characterizes the system that exists in Colombia and throughout Latin America today, there is no alternative other than revolutionary, liberating violence...
...Signature of Exxon senior vice president on note accompanying brochure disputing charges that "the oil industry has contrived the present energy crisis": W. T. Slick, Jr...
...By contrast those born in 1948 (then aged 24) totaled only 28 priests...
...Is there any way of telling whether the situation will improve or get worse...
...The established process has been set in motion," Longley noted...
...Longley's guess as the man to be recommended to the Queen for the Canterbury post: Archbishop Coggan of York...
...The decision is due before Nov...
...The death of Father Lain leaves the Colombian guerrilla movement, on the wane since the slaying of Camilo, nearly devastated...
...The Church doesn't have a prayer of a chance for change in the Canterbury nominations and elections, wrote religious affairs correspondent Clifford Longley...
...Odds and Ends -Suggestion from Wash ington Post letter-writer Laura Somers: "Hereafter, when Richard Nixon is about to go on the air, it seems only fitting that he should be heralded: `Ladies and gentlemen, the Presi dency of the United States: " -Comment from Timesman Seymour Hersh in connection with the narrowing of White House confidant John Wilson's legal representation from Ehrlichman and Haldeman both to Haldeman alone: no one could or would explain "why, if a separation of counsel, was necessary, it was decided that Mr...
...Parliament will decide...
...He then became pastor of the parish of Barrio Meizen, one of the poorest slum, areas on the southern end of Bogota...
...He died in a gun battle on Feb...
...I also unmask the Church as an accomplice to thisthe defender and strongest support of this regime, abusing in this way the hold she still maintains upon the conscience of vast sections of the proletarian masses-a Church which condemns violence and rebellion on the part of the poor while condoning and co-existing with the violence and repression exercised by the rich, exploiting classes...
...Nevertheless, observers expect that Camilo, and now Lain, will still have a strong influence in the national elections slated for April 21...
...Camilo popularized abstention from voting as a form of political protest in Colombia, and this year it is projected that as many as nine million eligible voters half the voters of the country-will take what they presume would have been his lead and abstain in protest against the social and political structure of the country...
...NEWS & VIEWS Guerrilla-Priest Dies The Spanish priest who emerged as the "brains" of the guerrilla movement in Colombia [Commonweal, 1/18/74], and as a successor of sorts to Father Camilo Torres, is dead...
...It is rather like the question of the pupil-teacher ratio, which is perhaps workable at 30:1...
...On Feb...
...On that basis we in England are far below the point of adequate care...
...Those looking for quick developments are certain to find the paper's assessment disappointing...
...If a similar yardstick were applied to the parochial clergy one might hazard a guess that one priest could cope with 150 practicing Catholics and 300 lapsed...
...Father Domingo Lain, like Camilo, met his fate at the hands of Colombian army troops...
...It is neither atheistic nor Christian...
...Haldeman would be the one to go looking for new representation...
...Any amateur mathematician can make himself a graph of the table, and the result is staggering: the clergy are plunging toward extinction...
...The identification was completed and an official army report issued at the end of February...
...It is, therefore, a right of the oppressed and exploited in order to overcome the conditions forced upon them...
...It has been recognized by Church leaders that, whether they like it or not, it is too late to do anything about it...
...20, almost eight years to the day after Torres was killed by soldiers...
...Longley commented that Prime Minister Wilson "is thought to be looking for a steady and reassuring choice as part of his style of moderation...
...I have taken the path of armed struggle for this reason...
...15, 1970, the fourth anniversary of Camilo Torres' death, Father Lain wrote an open letter to the Colombian people explaining why he had joined the guerrillas: "In making public this decision, I renew the irrevocable commitment I made upon my ordination as a priest, of consecration and fidelity to the poor and the oppressed, and of oneness with them in their struggle to liberate them from all slavery...
...Violence has no religious creed...
...I cannot fail to denounce the brutality and injustice of the Colombian regime which maintains itself solely through violence and intimidation in order to keep the majority of the the population subjected to the greatest misery and most inhuman exploitation...
...For this we must study the age structure...
...It is rather the result of economic, historical and sociological laws in the formation and development of societies...
Vol. 100 • April 1974 • No. 7
