A needless shortage
Amidei, Nancy
still in the attack zones, surrounded by army troops and des- can see that the word of God is the great source of strength in perate for food and medicine. ...
...This is every day a new fervor will appear, then on identified...
...On January 20, 1979, as Ortiz was leading a retreat for teenage boys, the police and national guard had stormed the retreat house, battering down the metal gate with an armored car...
...housing stock...
...In 1981, munities...
...and mean it - that he or she believes in The question which ought to strike us When loyalty to those who have the resurrection of the body and the life of more than it does is whether we honestly handed on belief is considered more im- the age to come, that Christ's death was mean this as a declaration of belief, or portant than the belief itself, when the for all...
...Quinn saw something else...
...Anecdotes helped provide the full flavor of the com- In Portland, Oregon, where an estimated 3,500 homeless unidades' experience...
...IF WE BELIEVE WHAT WE PROFESS Religion can be God working among us...
...Cities and towns of every size got help to Members of the comunidades have been among the most upgrade housing codes, increase the number of affordable common targets of the death squads...
...We can be grateful for it, and There are elements of this familial and gratitude should make us generous rather D O WE BELIEVE, really, what we ethnic attachment to religion which are than possessive...
...or it can be the weapon we use against others by stressing the difference between ourselves, who possess the truth, "If your prayers are truly sincere, us from outside, with which we are from and all those others who do not...
...The Pentagon would gain $16 billion...
...We see vasive, and strange, We pray the creed munity from which we have received the the division between genuine and corevery Sunday and say that we look for the language of belief would be wrong...
...Camping (Orejas are the much-feared spies whose tasks include finger- within city limits is illegal, so they're `camping' in the parking ing "subversives" for the death squads...
...The difference But in less dramatic ways we live that belief as something which is handed on to is that God lights the fire in one case, andcontradiction too, and make the more Commonweal: 102...
...In a sister parish, three young men were found, throats cut, hands bound...
...Vincent's unidades with much-needed medicine...
...Most addition, they were to put an end to the spending and contractfederal grant programs aiding cities would be eliminated or cut ing abuses now tolerated in the Pentagon's budget, that would severely, as would funds for urban mass transit...
...Much of the low-cost housing bishop Oscar Romero, the comunidades in one parish alone stock in the nation is badly in need of repair...
...Those communities, he said, had suffered greatly when Mr...
...Generally, Hornbecker says, the saved the best wine for last...
...In addition, the president hopes to end the It needn't be that way...
...Overall, free up $20 billion - enough to do something about, among non-defense programs would lose $28 billion in the presi- other things, the crisis in affordable housing...
...I think it's a clear manifestation of the power of Such major military drives have become more frequent in El God at work in the church...
...If, in one of the casualties in the president's FY 1987 budget...
...Reagan wants to spend just a little over unidades, a threat to the church...
...iting and distorting...
...But rupted belief, and mourn it...
...Individual owning a home is beyond the reach of most citizens...
...the army burst into their village and carried off the medicine...
...You will under- genuine belief than by this use of creed- to serve truth, by looking for it humbly, stand then that prayer is educa- as-party and the acceptance of religion as more aware of our darkness than the tion...
...Public housing (which of the Salvadoran church, and which have sprung up by the began fifty years ago) expanded greatly with the landmark thousands in Latin America in the last fifteen years...
...they now belong to comunidades by state, the number of people needing low-cost housing, and that simply bear the name "the exiled...
...On the one judgment of Christ at his coming again in that community of belief can also be lim- hand, the average Christian will say - glory, and for life in the age to come...
...While Austrian "newlyweds" kept their archdiocese...
...On the other, this does not seem to whether it is not rather a sort of flag we belief is not seen as something which remove or transform the thirst for retribuwave periodically to indicate what party, calls us to transformation but rather as a tion, or lead to compassion for the among all the religions of the world, we totem of the tribe to which we belong, enemy, even though this is an essential might be identified with in case the Mar- religion is less like the burning bush part of the teaching of Christ...
...four times as many people as units...
...their lives...
...lands at last...
...Vincent's for food, Finally, one of the coordinators announced, "We have clothes, and a place to wash...
...still in the attack zones, surrounded by army troops and des- can see that the word of God is the great source of strength in perate for food and medicine...
...it is heresy, because truth is not unaware before, and that will give Islamic and Druse compatriots less by something we can possess...
...families come to us who are just living in their cars...
...and handicapped, loans for rural housing...
...where we enof the Elder Zosima" in well of the divided Christians of North- counter it, it is a gift which we cannot The Brothers Karamazov ern Ireland...
...If the president and Congress were to Farmer's Home Administration, and severely limit the availa- adopt a minimum corporate tax, of the sort in the Housebility of mortgage assistance...
...In January, St...
...claim to believe...
...Reagan took office, the federal government was and borne the sign of the cross, but had, also experienced joy...
...Not long before, a housed, but apartments are scarce, rents are rising, and a lot of fifteen-member women's delegation had presented their com- people just don't earn very much...
...If a city like Portland did want to make up for lost federal NANCY AMIDEI housing funds, it would be hard-pressed to do so when money (Nancy Amidei frequently reports on poverty, hunger, and for sewage treatment, police and fire protection, roads and human services issues in these pages...
...The peo- AMERICA'S postwar housing boom was long the envy of ple attending were from different parts of the San Salvador Europe...
...Last year, at a ceremony housing units, and keep urban areas liveable...
...we in the other...
...that marked the opening of a new chapel named after Arch- Now all that has changed...
...The priest and four of the boys were murdered...
...However we be- It is relatively easy to see how this question of hypocrisy versus true come believers, it has to do with a hand- applies to the most hideous political conbelief, but something more subtle, per- ing on, and to be ungrateful to the com- flicts, in Lebanon and in Ireland...
...It had begun with prayers, Scripture readings, and songs...
...We can hope you new strength...
...Vincent de Paul's says, "We've never had so many a year and a half old, "We already have our own oreja...
...spending about $40 billion for a variety of low-income housing "And I see here among you, in spite of how you have suffered programs: rent supplements, rehabilitation of deteriorating and been persecuted, a joy which is the gift of the Holy housing stock, urban homesteading, housing for the elderly Spirit...
...The Maronite Chris- not only unkind of us, even potentially a new thought of which you were tians in Lebanon are divided from their deadly...
...Public housing recalled six hundred of their members - "martyrs," they call has waiting lists nationwide (e.g., 60,000 just in Miami), and them - who had been murdered in recent years...
...But a few days later, was getting over two hundred calls a day for help...
...The two parishes had once shared a common pastor - Fr...
...All fire looks alike to Of several minds: John Garvey { some people, and it is easy for those who have no feeling for religion to refuse to make any distinction between the belief which transforms and the belief which PRAYER, POLITICS, & DOUBT murders...
...death squads had struck...
...For the coming Some church officials have said that they see, in the com- fiscal year, 1987, Mr...
...For Hornbecker and his staff of three (plus five regular Quinn was the final speaker...
...old, catechists and pastoral workers from the war zones, came He tries to negotiate with landlords to keep the families forward to speak to the archbishop...
...It is too easy for us to see the fire lit under heretics...
...Francis church, THE BUDGET SLAMS THE DOOR where Archbishop Quinn had just spent the evening...
...This isn't only a, good and enriching...
...But for those who were deciding whether to accept (Gene Palumbo is a free-lance writer and radio journalist the offer to spend the night at the church, there was more than who reports often from El Salvador for National Public the "regular" war to fear...
...contain...
...Just that morning, it appeared the Radio...
...dent's budget ($9 billion just from programs serving poor For the moment, however, Isaiah is being stood on his head: people...
...You programs entirely: public housing (now home to about 4 mil28 February 1986: 101 lion people), rural housing, housing for the elderly and dis- bridges, community development, and a broad range of social abled, and most of the funds available to maintain existing services are also being cut...
...In flawless Spanish, he com- volunteers, and up to a thousand occasional volunteers), Prespared the comunidades to the apostolic Christian com- ident Reagan's latest budget proposals spell disaster...
...When the members have had to abandon their homes because of threats National Low-Income Housing Coalition set out to quantify, and attempts on their lives...
...2 billion for housing, and eliminate many federal housing "They speak," he said, "in the language of Scripture...
...a heritage, a loyalty very close to re- light...
...One woman drew-sober laughter when can be found in just the "downtown core," Tim Hornbecker of she mentioned that while the community she belongs to is only St...
...lots near churches," and coming to St...
...The light isn't something we own From "Thoughts and Teachings gional or ethnic loyalty...
...Affordable housing Octavio Ortiz...
...Two men, each about sixty years families get evicted because they can't keep up with the rent...
...What they had in common was membership in names on a waiting list and lived with their in-laws, the comunidades de base - the small, grass-roots Christian many young Americans were buying their own homes, and communities which have played a major role in the awakening many more were becoming renters...
...this is a budget for beating plowshares into swords...
...This is true as or could possibly own...
...But all these com- the number of rental units available at a price they can afford, munities are still very much alive, and this night members had they found, in a study released this month, two, three, even come to speak with the archbishop about their lives and work...
...GENE PALUMBO Salvador...
...We find it tian sociologist we've been expecting which Moses encountered than it is like easy to see that contradiction...
...Housing Act of 1949...
...passed version of tax reform, that one item alone would generMeanwhile, Portland is only one city where affordable ate about $40 billion - more than enough to forestall any new housing is in short supply, and where housing assistance is but cuts in housing and every other domestic program...
...A NEEDLESS SHORTAGE Ortiz is now buried behind the altar at St...
Vol. 113 • February 1986 • No. 4
