Rebuke from the Church

A thunderclap of ecclesiastical anger cracked last week around the ears of Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, Colombia's Roman Catholic President. It was set off by the Lenten pastoral letter of Crisanto Cardinal Luque, couched in the measured terms of churchly tradition, yet unmistakably a cry of cold indignation against the recent bull ring massacre (TIME, Feb. 20) in which Rojas' political opponents were maimed and killed by government thugs for having booed his daughter at the bullfights the week before.

Cardinal Luque referred to the riot as "those unspeakable happenings that merit all our reprobation because of their seriousness and the notably criminal circumstances surrounding them, and because they symbolize an alarming social disintegration." The church newspaper El Catolicismo was additionally irked that Rojas' son-in-law and No. 1 apologist, Samuel Moreno, should try to laugh off the riot in his newspaper as "trivial and paltry." Said El Catolicismo: "Thousands of witnesses denounce the vengeful spirit in which the riots avenged discourtesy with inhuman cruelty, cowardice [and] a reign of brute force."

No other publications were permitted to reprint El Catolicismo's stern words; clandestine duplicates were passed from hand to hand and read avidly. But the reprints were not the only notable news reports in circulation. Two important Bogota dailies, both suppressed by Rojas Pinilla, popped up again last week under pen names. Internationally respected El Tiempo reappeared as El Intermedia (Interlude), and El Espectador as El Inde-pendiente. In makeup, typography and content, down to the smallest detail, both papers were identical with their forerunners. Such transparent disguise presumably meant that Strongman Rojas, smarting under criticism, was willing to let them start up again with only a legalistic switch in names to get him off the hook. But censorship went right on.

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