77 Bishops Ask End to U.S. Arms Aid in El Salvador
Episcopal News Service. April 23, 1981 [81133]
New York -- Church reaction against U.S. intervention in El Salvador broadened dramatically in April when 77 Episcopal Church bishops pressed President Reagan to end military support and loosen strictures on refugees.
Presiding Bishop John M. Allin and his immediate predecessor, John E. Hines, were among the signatories to the petition which was created by the Bishop of Rochester, the Rt. Rev. Robert R. Spears. The signers represented the "liberal," "conservative," catholic and evangelical spectrum of the Church.
The call in the Spears petition parallels one made by the Executive Council in February. In two unanimously approved resolutions, the Council urged an end to arms importation and pressed for a more humanitarian refugee policy and for the Organization of American States and other groups to intervene to restore and maintain peace and justice in El Salvador.
Bishop Allin followed that action with a letter marking the anniversary of the assassination of Roman Catholic Archbishop Oscar Romero and commending the resolution to the Church for appropriate action.
Spears and a committee of eight other bishops drafted the mid-April letter which also spoke of the Romero assassination and noted that in the year since:
"...10,000 persons have now died violently and brutally, many in martyrdom for their faith. Still the conflict continues, now heightened by the increasing introduction of U.S. arms and advisors to El Salvador.
"We are conscious of the roots of the struggle of the people of El Salvador against a tyrannous and wealthy few and of their inherent right -- so courageously championed by Archbishop Romero and so many in his church -- to a decent and civilized life. Historically the Salvadoran conflict is best described as that of oppressed against oppressor.
"We therefore call upon all outside parties, including the United States, to end immediately all forms of military aid, assistance or credits to El Salvador.
"We call upon the State Department to grant to all Salvadorans entering this country in flight from the violence in their homeland the status of extended voluntary departure, even as previously extended by this country under similar conditions to refugees of Viet Nam, Laos and the Khmer Republic.
"Finally, we call for immediate and sustained efforts by the State Department to seek through the mediation of disinterested third parties a negotiated end to this terrible conflict so that the long aggrieved masses in El Salvador may live in peace and justice."
The letters and petitions are coupled with an outpouring of prayer and support for the people of El Salvador throughout the nation. In Seattle, Bishop Robert Cochrane and Dean Cabell Tennis led 3, 000 worshippers in a Palm Sunday procession as an expression of ecumenical solidarity with Salvadoreans.
The issue also found a monetary expression with the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief sending a $5,000 emergency grant to the Diocese of Los Angeles to support an ecumenical legal assistance fund to help the 150, 000 Salvadoreans who have fled to that region but face deportation threats.