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only enhance the reelection chances of President Johnson in 1968. The steering committee voted to extend TLD’s support of attorney Doran Williams, who is providing legal aid at Rio Grande City for farm worker families. At the annual convention in May TLD members voted to pay Williams $150 monthly for three months; the commitment was extended by three months. An executive committee was elected: A. N. “Nate” Slough, Austin; Chris Dixie, Houston; Janet Massey, Midland; David Lambert, Fort Worth; Nick Reyes, Houston; Bettie Ford, Port Arthur; Moses LeRoy, Houston; Otto Mullinax, Dallas; and Emmit Tuggle, San Antonio. “I believe we’re on the way to developing a strong organization,” Platt told steering committee members as the meet ing drew to a close. “I hope we are. Someone this morning said that one of our functions is to point out who the enemy is. I think we know who he is. He’s hunting leopards in Africa at the present time,” Platt said of the governor. “The people of Texas are not going to be willing to give him a fourth term; my efforts will be directed to giving Texas a liberal governor next year.” G.O. The Archbishop’s Dilemma San Antonio When young radicals accuse old liberals of “selling-out,” it is. hardly news, but when the young radicals are widely respected priests and the old liberal one of the most progressive bishops of the Catholic Church in America, the ecclesiastical hell-raising both puzzles and engulfs the whole community. In San Antonio, with its almost 300,000 Catholics, the conflict between Archbishop Robert E. Lucey and some 35 social activist priests has drawn the attention of the press, organized labor, and Mexican-American groups, and has perplexed liberals, who always thoughtthe archbishop was one of the good guys. The conflict within the church revolves around those incidents: the shifting of militant priests from positions of influence; the removal to South America of a priest who was injecting political activism into the deeply religious, 6,000-member Cursille movement; the temporary banishment of Fathers William Killian and Sherrill Smith for picketing in Rio Grande City against the archbishop’s wishes; and the severe punishment by suspension of four priests who had called for freedom from Lucey’s authority. The implications of these minor \( at least for in the right for the local church. That there has been a turn from social activism and militant involvement of the church with the poor and minorities in San Antonio is not difficult to document. But finding the reason is quite another story. It is necessary to look at the record of Archbishop Lucey, now 76, who has long been a champion of the underprivileged and had frequently bucked the San Antonio’s business establishment by calling for a “system of higher wages, stronger labor unions and better education.” He integrated the Catholic schools before the 1954 Supreme Court decision and through his national Bishop’s Committee for the Spanish Speaking had been active in seeking solutions to the problems of the Mexican-American poor. Considered something of a “bolshevik” in the thirties, Lucey Mrs. Rogers is a housewife who is active in San Antonio public affairs. She is a journalism graduate of the University of Texas at Austin. 4 The Texas Observer formed friendships with Walter Reuther and young New Deal congressman Lyndon Johnson. Priests in Lucey’s diocesewith his encouragement until recentlyhave walked picket lines, set up political action programs for the poor, created a unique Maruheih Rogers If migrant-worker ministry, and have been deeply involved in the war on poverty. As recently as August, 1966, he conducted a memorable mass for the Valley farm workers marching through San Antonio and gave them his warm blessing in their quest for a minimum wage and union recognition. THE FIRST public indication that Lucey may have changed came early this year when he banished the two priests, Smith and Killian, to New Mexico for their involvement in the Valley strike. This, to, many Mexican-Americans, seemed to nullify his previous support of La Causa. But there were other factors those involving church protocalthat were not seen by the public. Bishop Humberto H. Madeiros of Brownsville, in whose diocese Rio Grande City lies, had vigorously protested intrusion of outside priests in the strike. Although indicating his sympathy to the plight of the farm workers, Madeiros had insisted that any involvement in the strike come from the laity within his Brownsville Diocese. Archbishop Lucey thus had the dilemma of passing over his priests’ forays into the Valley or facing the possibility that Bishop Madeiros would complain to the Vatican Apostolic Delegate in Washington, D.C., that Lucey could not control his own priests. A complaint of this nature could discredit the excellent record of the San Antonio archdiocese and might even bring pressure on the archbishop to resign, since he is already past the retirement age Pope Paul VI suggested for highranking prelates. Since the archbishop and his priests have always aided union organizing campaigns in San Antonio and interceded with management on behalf of the unions, Lucey’s failure to give significant aid this year to a local union in a do-or-die strike at Pioneer Flour Mills was a clear sign that there was indeed a change. But one San Antonio labor official reported the archbishop told him, “Everyone thinks I’ve changed. But I haven’t changed; if anything has changed it is the community.” This statement may have been more revealing that Lucey intended, for San Antonio is indeed changing, with MexicanAmericans and low paid workers seriously challenging the power structure for the first time in years. Union organizing activity has finally reached some of these groups, and strikes, protests, and demonstrations are becoming more frequent. And, this summer, local voters approved a referendum called to sample opinion on establishment of a minimum wage here. “Although the archbishop has probably not altered his basic position,” one dissatisfied priest asserted, “his beliefs have never really been put to the test at a time when the increased militancy of priests and the awakening Mexican-Americans of South Texas are shaking the power structure.” . An example of this was the eight-month strike by the International Union of Elecat Steves Sash and Door, owned by HemisFair president. Marshall Steves. Father Smith, a charismatic priest with a devoted following among union members, Mexican-Americans, and blue-collar and migrant workers, had attended three bargaining sessions, presenting the case of the strikers to Steves’ representatives. He was rebuked by the archbishop for this, although he had done similar things for many unions in the past ten years. One priest said of the episode, “The archbishop helped develop the climate where militancy could take place, but the pressures from businessmen such as Steves, plus several prominent Catholic laymen and older conservative priests in the diocese, have grown as this militancy has extended.” So, as the impoverished of San Antonio have become more active in their own behalf, and more effective in working social change, this city’s more powerful citizens have come to see that they can no longer afford the luxury of overlooking Lucey’s, and his priests,’ active advocacy of change. Such is the archbishop’s dilemma. Paul Thompson, wide-swinging columnist for the San Antonio News, speculated that the pressure may have come from