An estimated 7,000 protesters gathered on November 21 and 22 outside the gates of Ft. Benning, Ga., in the largest-ever demonstration against the U.S. Army's School of the Americas (SOA), where Latin American soldiers train in combat and counterinsurgency techniques. Opponents of the school claim that members of Central American militaries have learned techniques of torture and murder there. SOA grads have been accused of involvement with the murders of Archbishop Oscar Romero in 1980 and six Jesuits and two women in 1989 in El Salvador.
For the last nine years, the vigils and protests held outside the gates of SOA in November have included members of Grandmothers for Peace, Amnesty International, and representatives from Jesuit schools and parishes, including John Carroll University in Cleveland, St. Ignatius Church in San Francisco, St. John's High School in Toledo, Regis University in Denver, and Boston College.
The 2,340 who walked onto the base this year carried white crosses with the name of a victim of violence in Central America. Symbolic caskets led the procession, and as people marched, the victims' names were read. In past demonstrations, protesters who walked into the base were arrested for trespassing; this year, presumably because of the large number of protestors, those who trespassed were bused about a mile away and released.
One goal of the ongoing protest is to persuade Congress to cut funding to SOA. In the past two years, bills proposing to do so have been narrowly defeated. From reports by Robert Scullin, SJ, Marlon Villa, and Dan Reim, SJ.
How does Michael Kaniecki, SJ, bishop of Fairbanks, Alaska, visit all the Catholics in his 409,849-square-mile diocese? By piloting his single-engine Cessna 207, complete with an episcopal coat of arms that includes an airplane propellor in its design. Kaniecki flies 21,000 miles a year, visiting remote areas that cannot be reached any other way. "When the temperature dips to 30 below zero, I don't fly unless it's an emergency. The coldest it's ever been when I flew was 58 below," says the bishop.
Founded in 1641, St. Ignatius Parish in Port Tobacco, Md., is the oldest continuously active Jesuit settlement in the United States. The first Jesuits to arrive in the area lived among the Potobac Indians at nearby Chapel Point and served colonists, Indians, and slaves from the "olde wooden chapelle" there. The present church was built in 1798 and blessed by John Carroll, SJ, the country's first Catholic bishop.
The parish has been celebrating its bicentennial with a variety of events, including monthly open houses and a 200th anniversary cookbook complete with heirloom recipes. The church was featured in an article in December's Southern Living.
Caravaggio's masterpiece The Taking of Christ was painted in Rome in 1602 but disappeared in the 1700s, and the art world lost track of it. Mislabeled as the work of another artist, the painting was purchased for less than $1,000 and given to the Dublin Jesuits in the 1920s. It was only in 1993 that the painting, gracing the Leeson Street community dining room, was recognized as a Caravaggio. Cleaned and restored, the painting now hangs in the National Gallery of Ireland, but in the spring of 1999 it will make its first appearance in North America in an exhibit of Italian baroque art at Boston College's McMullen Museum of Art.
Ladies Praying with a Child (India, Akbar period c. 1580, watercolor and ink on paper) is part of a current art exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., entitled "The Jesuits and the Grand Mogul: Renaissance Art at the Imperial Court of India, 1580-1630." The exhibit's curator is Dr. Gauvin Bailey, assistant professor of art at Clark University in Worcester, Mass., who has also taught at Weston Jesuit School of Theology. Bailey specializes in the arts of the Jesuit missions in Asia and South America and has authored several articles for Company in this area. His exhibit will be at the Smithsonian until April 1999.
The Woodstock Theological Center Library of Georgetown University presented an exhibit, "St. Ignatius of Loyola: 450th Anniversity of Publication, 1548 -1998," this fall. Items on display included this first-edition copy of the Spiritual Exercises, one of only two in the United States (the other is at the Library of Congress).
Tommy Lasorda, two-time manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, is the new national spokesman for Red Cloud Indian School in Pine Ridge, South Dakota. During a recent visit to the reservation, Lasorda gave inspirational talks to students, signed autographs, and ate with the Jesuit community. "Lasorda was very direct with the kids," notes Fr. Peter Klink, SJ, Red Cloud's development director. "He basically had three points: respect your parents, stay off drugs, and get an education."