12/02/05: Vigil Aimed At Morlino
Vigil Aimed At Morlino
The Capital Times :: METRO :: 1B
Friday, December 2, 2005
By Pat Schneider The Capital Times
Marian Fredal says she's not certain yet what will be the upshot of Bishop Robert Morlino's involvement with an infamous military training center in Georgia. But she was at the Madison Diocese's headquarters Thursday to voice her concerns and join a dozen of the faithful in what was to be a 25-hour vigil.
"I pray the bishop will reject the culture of death," Fredal said.
The group gathered for a press conference at Bishop O'Connor Catholic Pastoral Center before entering a chapel there for a rite of fasting and watchfulness aimed at dramatizing to Morlino, local Catholics , and the community at large the seriousness of what is at stake.
Morlino was in Fort Benning, Ga., Thursday for his first meeting as a member of the advisory Board of Visitors of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly known as the U.S. Army School of the Americas.
Critics say the school trains torturers and assassins for death squads that have killed thousands in Central and Latin America.
"Anyone who has paid attention over the past quarter-century knows that this institute stands in a tradition of murder and violence," Rev. Frederick Trost said.
"Some of us pray to God that Bishop Morlino may not be fooled, as so many before him have been fooled, by the rhetoric and lies that make evil good, that make war peace, that make of abominable cruelty justice," Trost said.
In his first public remarks upon being named bishop of Madison by Pope John Paul II in May 2003, Morlino spoke of the need for the church community to counter a "culture of death" that reveals itself in abortion, euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.
"Catholics need to support life at all stages," Dennis Collier of Madison, a member of Pax Christi, an international peace organization, said Thursday.
Local Catholics are not certain if Morlino was aware of the significance of associating with the institute when he accepted a position on the13-member board in October.
"I don't think he understood the political implications and how much people care about this," said Fredal, who describes herself as a Catholic peace and justice activist.
Madison area Catholic activists have long protested the School of Americas, which changed its name in 2001. Groups of them have often journeyed to Fort Benning for demonstrations marking deaths at the hands of those trained there.
Those holding vigil today will end their demonstration with a memorial service for four American nuns -- Dorothy Kazel, Ita Ford, Jean Donovan and Maura Clark -- who were raped and killed by National Guardsmen in El Salvador on Dec. 2, 1980.
A 1995 United Nations report linked School of America graduates to their deaths, as well as to the assassination of Salvadoran Bishop Oscar Romero that year and the slayings of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter in 1990 in El Slavador.
When Morlino visited Christ the King Catholic Parish in McFarland on Oct. 30 to speak on moral theology, he was pressed to talk about his appointment to the board, Fredal said.
Morlino at that time expressed skepticism over previous reports on the institute and reported that military chaplains call the criticism exaggerated, Fredal said.
"He wants to see for himself," she said.
Rev. Jerry Folk said the documentation of crimes by School of Americas graduates is so convincing that "anyone, no matter how skeptical, would be hard pressed to deny it -- even to themselves."
What's more, techniques "field-tested" at the School of the Americas are used in places like Abu Ghraib in Iraq and hidden prisons in Europe, Folk said.
Fredal said local Catholics hold a gamut of opinions on Morlino's involvement.
"Some think he's very sincere and wants to find out what the school is about, and others feel he is very pro-military and supportive of the school. We really don't know."
Some wonder if he is being manipulated to lend the imprimatur of the Church to the institute. Morlino rejected that idea in an interview in the Nov. 3 Catholic Herald. "If I thought someone were manipulating the Office of the Bishop, I would be furious and I would never cooperate."
Morlino has refused to make further public statements until after his meeting with the Visitors Board, an arm of the Defense Department that he says advises Congress.
"He'll finally find out what the advisory group does, and he said he'll give interviews after that," spokesman Bill Brophy said.
The community wants to know if the members of the advisory board will have the staff and money to conduct their own investigation into the institute's activities. "How will they know they're not being used?" Fredal asked.
One benefit of the whole thing has been that people are making the effort to learn more about the history of the School of the Americas, Fredal said.
Barbara Parsons, a retired UW-Platteville professor, called for the school's closing, which has failed before Congress several times.
"It's time to end this taxpayer funded school for terrorists," she said.
\ E-mail:pschneider@madison.com