The Pinochet grip

...The letter called for a day of prayer and fasting for peace and reconciliation, and was read at the churches following Sunday Mass...

...The year of Jarpa's efforts included little or no dialogue, but had been marked by the continual arrests of prominent democratic leaders...

...The meeting of the Chilean bishops in Rome with exiles during their ad limina visit grew out of the prelates' desire to see what type of pastoral assistance might be offered to these people, some of whom have now spent more than ten years outside their country...

...Seven of the eight priests and religious detained in Santiago during the past four weeks have been released to the Papal Nuncio, rather than to Archbishop Juan Francisco Fresno of Santiago, their more direct ecclesiastical superior...

...Many observers of the Chilean scene believe that these measures, and the increased level of political repression in Chile, especially in poor working-class areas and of youth, are effectively eliminating the democratic parties from any future role in the country, and greatly strengthening the Communist Party of Chile...

...In Punta Arenas, however, a conference sponsored by the bishop of that city to mark the worldwide observance of human rights day was prohibited by local authorities, as was a public Eucharist that was to be part of the celebration...

...The recent signing of the protocol in Rome took place in a peaceful atmosphere that was far different from the threats and signs of imminent war that existed between the two countries less than four years ago...

...This action occurred shortly after a special ambassador was reportedly dispatched to Rome to report to the Vatican on the political conduct of the Chilean bishops, and to request for Pinochet the power to name future members of the Chilean hierarchy...

...By a curious coincidence, pressures against the church have been increased at the moment when Argentina and Chile have accepted the results of papal mediation in their dispute over sovereignty of the Beagle Channel...

...The minister of interior, Sergio Onofre Jarpa Reyes, a long-time conservative politician, took advantage of this meeting to resign his post, supposedly to leave President Pinochet free to rearrange his cabinet as the circumstances might warrant...

...Low-flying helicopter gunships and the sound of machine gun fire often punctuated the nights during the five hours of curfew...

...The only change that had taken place was that a state of siege had replaced Jarpa's ineffective policies of promoting an opening to democratic opposition leaders...

...FRANCISCO GUZMAN (Francisco Guzman is the pseudonym of an American priest who served many years in Chile...

...But since the declaration of a state of siege on November 6, due in part to the fact that sixteen Chilean bishops met with several hundred of the more than ten thousand Chilean victims of enforced exile, thereby making an illusory "opening to democracy" more difficult, relations have never come as close to the breaking point as they are now...

...Two weeks after Gutierrez's case was made public, a pastoral letter of Archbishop Fresno and a public statement by the Chilean Episcopal Conference were completely censored by the government...

...In addition to the arrests of religious, the government expelled Spanish Jesuit Monsignor Ignacio Gutierrez, Vicar for Solidarity, the archdiocesan office which has been documenting cases of human rights violations and offering all types of support to the victims of Pinochet's regime...

...Several days later, Jarpa and all but one of the ministers of the cabinet were reinstated to their original positions...

...A similar measure had been taken earlier in Santiago, when the eleventh annual Semanas Sociales, a week of conferences dedicated to a study of the social teaching of the Catholic church, was also prohibited...

...Pinochet's regime had apparently appealed to Pope John Paul, without success, to replace the bishops who had participated in the Rome meeting...

...This expulsion was seen as being especially significant, since it marks the first time a person specifically designated for a task by the Archbishop of Santiago has been impeded from carrying out that assignment...

...The eighth priest, Colum-ban Father Dennis O'Mara, was expelled from Chile following his fifth arrest in twelve months for participation in an anti-torture group formed mainly by priests called Movimiento Sebastian Acevedo...

...The ambassador was not Commonweal: 102 received by the pope or by any other Vatican official...

...Recent measures by the authoritarian regime are tantamount to a persecution of the church never before seen in that predominantly Catholic country...

...These searches, sometimes carried out by more than six thousand heavily armed soldiers, were often accompanied by the detention of every male sixteen years of age or older, beatings of women and children, and wanton destruction of what little the poor possessed...

...The police did not intervene subsequently in the prayer services which occurred...

...This group espouses nonviolent protest against the use of torture by Chilean police agencies, and claims more than five hundred documented cases within the past year...

...Church under fire THE PINOCHET GRIP CHILE'S LONG ORDEAL IN THE ELEVEN YEARS since General Augusto Pinochet seized power in Chile in a bloody coup, relations between his government and the Catholic church have often been strained...

...In addition to the usual curtailment of civil liberties, a total censorship of the mass media was imposed, including a virtual blackout of information on events within Chile, except for visits and speeches of Pinochet and other military leaders...

...In early to mid-December, house-to-house searches in poor sectors of Santiago took place to further terrorize the populace...

...The Chilean government has been careful to keep diplomatic lines intact with the Papal Nunciature in Santiago...