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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, MAY 3, 1985
After reading your article on abortion in The PLA�N TRUTH, I was
very surprised at how many women have had an abortion. I can'-t
see how anyone could take the life of an unborn child. They must
not realize that they are killing one of God's wonderful mira
cles. If they don't want to have a baby why don't they use one of
the birth control methods•••• At least then they wouldn't have to
murder an innocent, helpless, unborn child. God has a purpose
for each and every one of us on earth, and I don't think taking a
life is one of them.
s.R. (Chillicothe, OH)
I am a Catholic priest. I congratulate you on your article based
on statistics on abortion. It is one of the best I have read.
Without hesitation, I could use it as it reads from the pulpit.
ON THE WORLD SCENE
J.M. (McAllen, TX)
--Richard Rice, Mail Processing Center
"BITBURG CONTROVERSY" SOURS u.s.-GERMAN RELATIONS;
CENTRAL AMERICA: U.S. POLICY IN SHAMBLES
Everywhere the United States looks these days there is trouble. Forty
years after emerging as the world's preeminent power, challenges abound as
never before. After a highly successful first term in office, President
Reagan is surrounded, rather suddenly, by foreign problems. Rebuffed by a
"let's-not-get-involved" Congress, his Central American policy lies, for
the moment at least, dead in the water. His policy of "constructive en
gagement" with South Africa, intended to diffuse regional conflicts
throughout Southern Africa and keep the Cormnunists at bay, is under attack
both in Congress and on the campuses of American colleges.
The all-important relationship with Japan is seriously endangered by de
mands for trade retaliation against Tokyo. At stake is continued harmony
between Washington and its former Pacific enemy of forty years ago.
On top of all this, as the time to commemorate the 40th anniversary of V-E
Day (May 8, 1945) draws near, the President finds himself caught between a
rock and a hard place with regard to relations between the
u.s.
and the Fed
eral Republic of Germany, the modern-day western two-thirds of America's
primary World War II European adversary.
It all revolves around the
"Bitburg controversy."
President Reagan had agreed to a request by Chancellor Kohl to visit the
German army burial ground in the small town of Bitburg, near the Luxembourg
border, as a visible expression of the reconciliation between the American
and German peoples. Chancellor Kohl suggested this, it is said, as a result
of having had a similar reconciliation with President Mitterrand of France.
They earlier met-at a cemetery in Verdun, France, which contains the re
mains of both French and German soldiers of World War I.
An.xious to emphasize the good relations between the two countries at pres
ent, the President good-naturedly consented. Shortly afterward the plan
blew apart when it was discovered that the Bitburg cemetery contains the
remains of 49 Waffen-SS soldiers among the 2,000 bodies lying there. (An