The Rev. Luis Barrios, an Episcopal priest canonically resident in the Diocese of New York, was sentenced to serve two months in a federal prison after he and five others were found guilty in January of entering the Fort Benning military base in Georgia as part of a protest against the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. He is scheduled to begin serving his sentence on March 9.
Fr. Barrios and others opponents claim that graduates of the institute, formerly known as the U.S. Army School of the Americas, “have been implicated in some of the worst human rights violations in the Western Hemisphere.” They want the government to order the school closed permanently.
Reading this reminded me of an amusing feature I enjoyed when I subscribed to Sports Illustrated. Each magazine featured a somewhat bizarre happening that was labeled “This Week’s Sign That the Apocalypse is Upon Us.” Goddess???
Barrios is a disgrace. Just another 60’s radical wannabe. Probably be appointed US representative to the OAS by the current administration. Just kidding (I think!).
When I was an Army officer, I worked closely with officers from the former School of the Americas, both US staff and Latin American graduates, and was very impressed. Of course, what folks like Barrios don’t like is that the school provided training that helped Latin American countries defeat marxist guerrilla movements in their countries – a major sin in the eyes of the liberal elite.
Has the word “screwball” fallen out of favor?
“worst human rights violations in the history of the Western hemisphere”? Really? They killed people in numbers as in the Inquisition or World War II Nazis? And let’s not even go too far south of our border and discuss some of that behavior.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this the same chap who was using his parish to initiate children into a Hispanic street gang?
“Mother Goddess”?? Sounds pagan to me. What branch of the TEC does this person belong to???
Maybe they’re part of the Collyridian Britannic Episcopal Church ( http://thecbec.wordpress.com/ — you can’t make this stuff up. ) They provide a wealth of material at this address http://collyridianliturgies.wikispaces.com/ for “traditional Anglican liturgies that honour the Divine Feminine.”
A two month sentence that Fr. Barrios will wear as a badge of honor no doubt.
Will Kairos pay him a visit?
Three members of his favorite community activist group, the Latin Kings, just got indicted for murder here in Lexington, KY. It was an “internal matter.”
Called on to the carpet for “Vocational Immaturity”? But I thought “vocational immaturity” was a core TEC institutional value.
From the article:[blockquote]“Though I may disagree with elements of your actions, I consider those actions to be a living out of your vows as a priest rather than a violation of them,†Bishop Sisk said.
In an open letter to supporters after his conviction, Fr. Barrios said that the ultimate goal of his social activism is “being able to organize the religiosity of the people, so they can reach their liberation.†He said it is his “duty to our Goddess to build a better world.â€
[/blockquote]If Bishop Sisk won’t consider a criminal conviction “conduct unbecoming,” he ought to consider this heresy, but of course he won’t.
Just the latest enormity in what TEC promotes and tolerates. When will that institution hit bottom??
There has been some discussion on other lists about this man’s support for Puerto Rican independence. New York may have the highest number of peculiar Episcopal clergy though there are some other dioceses that may have a higher percentage of such.
I think the objection to the SOA had to do with death squads, torture, and the support of dictatorships. I’m sure there are nice people in the SOA. And I’m sure they thought they were doing the right thing. Most of us do. In Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, the violence was pretty brutal. The Caravan of Death, in Chile wasn’t a lot of fun either.
If there had been democracy in Latin America, there would be some socialism, but it would not be much different than it is now.
John,
I’ve known a number of Chilean officers and spent some time there when Gen. Pinochet was still the army commander. Whatever his faults, he saved the country from becoming a Cuba-style communist state and made it the lovely, stable, economically successful nation he handed over to his successors, having agreed to respect the results of a plediscite he allowed to take place. How many leftist dictators have ever allowed themselves to be voted out of office (exception, perhaps, Daniel Ortega)? I’m sure there were some extra-judicial actions taken to deal with the communists, but such things are sometimes necessary (Lincoln and suspension of hadeas corpus, etc.). The Chilean officers I knew were not some banana republic thugs as portrayed in such propaganda pieces as “House of the Spirits”. They were civilized, cultured gentlemen.
Evan, they were cultured, civilized murderers, able to rationalize the killing of innocents. It was not merely soldiers, but writers, artists, and free people – enemies of the state. And this is a theological point, as well.
There is no evidence that if Allende had power he would have tried to make it a dictatorship. If he had, why wouldn’t he have tried previously to make it such?
Communists are active participants in several European countries. Kerala and Bengal have both had communist governments, I believe. And as far as Cuba goes, perhaps if we had ended the embargo a few decades ago, Castro would have been deprived of his only justification for maintaining power: that the US is at war with him, and he is, essentially, a war-time leader.
That said, Barrios has no real parish….
I wonder if Rev. Barrios is upset by Frank Griswold or Kate Schori going to Cuba and uttering not so much as a syllable in criticism of the regime there, preferring instead to pillory (as JW does above) US policy.
I have to say that, while I did get a good whiff of Pinochet’s tear gas whilst in Santiago, it was only one of two Latin American countries I spent any time at all in where I never had a gun pointed at me.
Rev. Barrios – “I am Episcopalian.” ’nuff said.
Re #16 – Your comment reminds me of Paul Robeson’s “To You Beloved Comrade” eulogy to Josef Stalin
Fr. Barrios said that the ultimate goal of his social activism is “being able to organize the religiosity of the people, so they can reach their liberation.†He said it is his “duty to our Goddess to build a better world.â€
There are forty one words here which seem to be placed in a random order.
Since none of the other posters on this thread have any actual experience with the School of the Americas, perhaps a little reality might be permitted to intrude? I served at Fort Gulick, Canal Zone and treated many of the staff, students and families of the School. My clearest recollection is of a conversation in the Officers Club bar with several Central and South American officers. This was just before Nixon resigned. They kept asking us when the US military was going to arrest Congress and the Supreme Court and prevent Nixon from being “deposed.” We could not convince them that not a single US officer was going to raise a finger to save the President from a Constitutional process to impeach and, if convicted, remove him from office. Our Latin American colleagues kept insisting that, very soon, the Joint Chiefs would declare a state of emergency, seize all the TV and radio stations, declare martial law, etc. They just could not believe that nothing like that was even possible. The orders would not be given and, if given, would not be obeyed. Shortly after Nixon’s resignation, I met one of them who told me something along the lines of: “Well, I guess you Yanquis really do practice that stuff you teach about civilian control and loyalty to the Constitution!” I think that the experience of watching the most powerful military force on earth sit quietly by and let the Constitution govern taught the students more than any class could have done.
#22, thus proving that even Galbraith can be wrong. Modern conservatives are more nearly like the classic liberals than any other historic group. They can, and many of them do actively, support private charity and church-connected charity and NGO-style charity while deploring the forced charity represented by the socialist/progressive state.
“Selfishness” = “not wanting to give the State money so that those morally superior people can best decide what to do with it”
Generosity = allowing the Government to take 98% of our money so that it can create bureaucracies to pretend to do good, but in rality creates a dependency nation; in favor of a ‘welfare state’ to take care of the citizens ‘from the womb to the tomb’ (which becomes a shorter journey, especially if FOCA is passed!).
Selfishness = wanting to keep our money and limit the government to doing only those things delineated by the Constitution. [i](see: [url=http://www.infowars.com/resources/states-rights.html]State’s Rights Sovereignty movement[/url])[/i]
rality = reality
typo = apology
Selfishness = conservatives who give to charity
generous = liberals who force others to support programs with their money, but not the liberals own money.
The real issue is, of course, Bishop Sisk and not this nut-job priest. It is likewise an indictment of an ordination “process” that seeks out those on the liberal fringe especially if they are of the “right cultural background” and then does not know how to discipline them when they go around the bend — especially if it would make a bishop seem culturally insensitive.