THE CATHOLIC FIGHT FOR FREEDOM

...During the past year the government at least acquiesced in the murder of two priests and made little effective protest when a right-wing terrorist group threatened the Jesuits either with expulsion or extermination...

...Cooperative efforts on hunger and poverty are encouraging, but certainly Christianity is failing to meet this challenge in the abortion issue...

...In the face of incidents like this, it is hard to see how proponents of the death penalty can continue to believe that it is effective as a deterrent...

...I expect that this kind of desperation and frustration lies at the base of much popular and legislative support of executions...

...All of the terrorism on the part of the government has been legitimized by the enactment on November 25, 1977, of the "Ley de Orden"—authorizing the banning of strikes and demonstrations, the suspension of habeas corpus and the banning of any statement which could be construed to even question an act of the government or of the armed forces...

...That loan had been held up by the International Development Bank since May, 1977...

...The second phase in the campaign to liquidate the farmers' unions began with a systematic oppression of the work of catechists and of all groups that come together for religious exercises...

...This priest was probably the most prominent clergyman in El Salvador...

...A state senator said to me several months ago with regard to capital punishment, "We do not know if it is a deterrent or not, but we have to do something...

...On March 5, 1977, the Episcopal Conference of El Salvador stated that there "has been a campaign against the church not only through the press, but through other means, such as threats and intimidation of priests, laymen, institutions and publications of Christian orientation...

...I was astonished to witness the President himself holding up a picture of Father Grande while protesting in an emotional outburst that the people of his country should not portray him, the President, as the murderer of this priest...

...In a talk of over an hour which I had with President Romero on a trip to El Salvador in January, the President, who took over on July 1, 1977, after a fraudulent election earlier that year, repeatedly told me that there would be no problem whatsoever in El Salvador if the "priests would only stay with their religious duties...

...The Congress, however, was not given the opportunity of voting on the granting of a $90 million loan for the San Lorenzo Dam to El Salvador...

...Shortly after the publication of her article, Daniel Webster, one of the inmates of North Carolina's death row, took his own life with a razor blade, dramatically illustrating his own suicidal drive [News & Views, Dec...

...COLLINS KILBURN Director of Social Ministries North Carolina Council of Churches 159...

...The endless, specious arguments between pro- and anti-abortionists serve, merely to solidify these positions, while obscuring the one approach on which the majority could agree—cooperative efforts to reduce the need for aibortions...

...I preached on Epiphany to a crowded cathedral in San Salvador...

...I heard at least 40 separate stories of murders, disappearances or jailings of husbands or sons against whom no charge was brought...

...In the fall of 1977, Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher decided to assist El Salvador in the construction of this hydroelectric project., El Salvador had already arranged for European financing of the dam, but the State Department instructed its representative at the Inter-American 134 Development Bank to vote on November 3 in favor of a loan which symbolized to the people of El Salvador that the United States is not going to "play hardball" on the question of human rights...

...Congress can, if it so desires, terminate some $4 million worth of economic assistance given to El Salvador through AID...

...ROBERT F. DRINAN (Father Robert F. Drinan, S.J., represents the Fourth Massachusetts District in the House of Representatives...

...The U.S...

...To the Editors: The article by Sister Lois Spear in the November 25 issue underscores one of the frequently neglected arguments against the death penalty, namely, that it most probably induces some persons to murder...

...marilyn kramer ______Death on Demand_______ Raleigh, N.C...

...The government of El Salvador is approaching with great apprehension the first anniversary on March 12 of the martyrdom of Father Rutilio Grande, S.J...

...Father Greeley should have asked whether Christian theology and liturgy will be able to make Christians aware of the awesome mystery and paradox of this gift and give us the sense of direction, purpose, and humility to discern and follow goodness without creating a crutch, a fantasy, escapism, that allows us to avoid responsibility for good and evil...

...Anderson concluded that, in addition to El Salvador's notoriously bad record for several decades on human rights, that nation is now engaged in a more ruthless oppression of human rights than ever before in its modern history...

...Thus, in our outrage at violence, we collaborate with it and encourage it...

...Can Christianity find a broader criterion for morality that will bring goodness closer to the loving that frees others from selfconcern to love in their turn, as Jesus did...

...The scurrilous and omnipresent literature which attacks Archbishop Oscar Romero (no relation to the President) is absolutely incredible...

...Or will Christianity remain a haven for those who want the comfort of a commitment to the loving Jesus without the discomfort of a commitment to help and share with their fellowman, a platitude to justify selfinterest, with love distorted into the self-righteous duty to save the world for our own personal salvation, becoming a force for evil rather than good...

...By exercising his freedom to choose, man becomes responsible for good and evil and can never be free of this responsibility to live the childlike existence of Eden...

...But, we cannot discharge this responsibility without the knowledge of good and evil, and the traditionalists' claim to this knowledge is being seriously challenged by those who clearly see the evil in the unloving consequences of what the traditionalists call good...

...The applause came from a group that understood that the Congress and the American people could, if they so desired, turn things around for the peasants of El Salvandor...

...That campaign continues and has the backing of President Romero at least as the by-product of his repression of the peasantry...

...We do not know how many murders are motivated by a desire to destroy themselves, but there have been studies which document increases in homicide rates before and after highly publicized executions...

...This openly anti-clerical campaign boomeranged on El Salvador, making that tiny nation of 4.5 million people notorious in the international press...

...But there simply has to be a way by which the Congress and the people of America can assist three million El Salvadorans who are desperately poor and anxious to share in some way in the recently tripled coffee export profits of the oligarchy of El Salvador...

...I was amazed but gratified that there was an ovation at the end of my talk...

...The government is also engaged in a studied attempt to divide the clergy and to portray social activist priests and bishops as a tiny minority...

...As a result, General Romero has started a campaign of vilification against the 225 priests and six bishops in El Salvador...

...This is a feeble protest which actually could hurt the people rather than the government of El Salvador...

...Thomas Anderson, the author of the best book in English on that nation...

...135 lost forever the fairy tale land of Eden...

...The people are demanding it...

...Even General Romero appreciates the ancient Christian adage that the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians...

...Virtually every attempt to discredit the clergy is tied in with a contention that the clergy has been infiltrated by Communists...

...Another colleague, John J. McAward, Associate Director for International Programs of the Unitarian-Universalist Service Committee and an expert on Latin America, opined that El Salvador is the closest of all Latin American countries to having an open persecution of the church...

...There are few good options for the Congress in dealing with a nation like El Salvador which continues to violate the political, social, religious and economic rights of its citizens...

...He was the president of the Priests' Senate and the headmaster of the Jesuit high school...

...One of my companions on the trip to El Salvador was Dr...

...He had also devoted himself to a rural parish where he was massacred by gunmen whom the government never sought to apprehend...

...In the countryside in El Salvador one can literally feel the fear, anguish and desperation which fills the lives of the peasants...

...IN EL SALVADOR THE CATHOLIC FIGHT FOB FREEDOM General Carlos Romero, the President of El Salvador, has a problem'which no other Latin American dictator confronts: a militant clergy determined to organize the peasants into an effective labor union...

...The end of the first phase of a classic church-state confrontation is occurring in El Salvador...

...Can Christian love become the impetus for a sharing, cooperating world...

...The sermon, carried nationwide by radio, centered on human rights...