Page 15 - Priorities #16 2001-February

Benedictine Letter
Bishop Gassis has become a spokesperson for the persecuted in his native country, Sudan.
Bishop Macram Max Gassis, a highly respected human rights advocate for Sudan, visited Woodside Priory with a message of serious suffering and need in his native country. He met with small groups of students and made a presentation in the Chapel to the entire campus community.
He illustrated his points with a videotape of the conditions in the Nuba Mountain region, where he is striving to improve health conditions and maintain a school.
Bombing has left the school damaged and children injured. The church is caring for some 1,200 children at this facility, many of them orphans and many of them victims of enslavement.
A civil war has divided the country, with the Muslim Northern troops having control of the government and attacking and persecuting the Catholic and other non-Muslim native people of the South, the bishop said. The situation is widely recognized as an attempt at genocide and the Catholic church’s effort is the only help available for some of these people, the bishop said.
The regime does not permit the World Food Program of the United Nation and the Red Cross to do rescue work in the area, he said.
The bishop airlifts in food and such supplies as used clothes, seeds, tools, scholastic materials, bibles and medical supplies. The usual cost per trip is $18,000perflightcarrying2.5tonsofgoods. The program to support the children costs $120 per child per year, or $144,000.
Equipment to produce clean water, ground transportation vehicles, and pay for teachers and catechists are among other needs listed on Bishop Gassis’ website.
Bishop Gassis became a spokesperson for his country by testifying before a committee of Congress in1988. In1990,whenhecametotheUnitedStates for treatment of cancer, the Sudanese government barred his return because of his criticism of its human rights record.
Realizing that he could not go home, he turned instead to publicizing the Sudanese dilemma around the world.
More information is available at the Bishop’s website, www.petersvoice.org/bishop.htm
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