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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 23, 2003)
eMa&e PtieattaHCi* GenteM. * * * OF BRAZOS VALLEY Monday, June 23, 2003 THE BATTALION WANT SOMETHING FREE YOU CAN REALLY USE? FREE PREGNANCY TESTS & STD TESTING Peer Counseling for women & men Post Abortion Peer Counseling Pregnancy Support Services Open M-F 9-5 and some evenings & Saturdays Call for an appointment 695-9193 846-1097 205 Brentwood 3620 E. 29th St. College Station Bryan DISCOUNT TOBACCO Low Prices Everyday • Cigarettes • Snuff • Tobacco Import Cigars 1220 N. Texas Ave., Bryan, TX (979) 778-1 41 0 TRAVIS LANDING 1673 Brlarcrest Dr., Ste. A-104, Bryan, Tx (979)774-1995 CULPEPPER PLAZA 1623 Texas Ave. S., College Station, Tx (979) 695-1 256 Why bother with parking when you can walk to TAMU? Huge 1 & 2 bedroom floor plans - Conveniently located only 2 blocks from TAMU Casa Del Sol 696-3455 www.rent.net/direct/casadelsol Texas A&M University Dr 9 e= $ Church St Z on | §. D GO © Cross St Casa Del Sol Direct hit EVAN O’CONNELL • THE BATTALION Sixteen-year-old Matt Sheehan from Helotes, Texas, removes his arrows from a target during the 4-H State Archery Tournament on Saturday. The three-day tournament was held at A&M's Riverside Campus. Wildfire may get easier to fight By Arthur H. Rotstein THE ASSOCIATED PRESS SUMMERHAVEN, Ariz. — The uncontrolled wildfire that destroyed more than 250 homes in this mountaintop community moved on a course Sunday that would take it into an area where terrain and lighter vegetation will make it easier to fight, fire officials said. However, crews didn’t know how soon they would be able to attack the fire in that area, and the blaze’s growth in other forested areas was still creating difficulties. “This fire’s going to be here for a while and it’s going to be very large,” said Jeff Whitney, deputy commander of the team battling the fire. The fire had burned across more than 8,800 acres in the mountains northeast of Tucson and was only about 5 percent contained Sunday. Firefighters don’t expect to totally control it for a few weeks. The blaze was fueled by pine forest ravaged by years of drought and a beetle infestation and driven by wind gusting to 60 mph as it roared through Summerhaven on Thursday. The flames soon spread across the top of 9,157-foot Mount Lemmon and headed down the north slope. Firefighters focused their efforts Sunday on an area around a University of Arizona observatory and a group of radio and television towers, and a ridge where they hoped to stop the fire before it advanced on scattered homes. ii This fire’s going to be here a while and it’s going to he very large. — Jeff Whitney firefighter Three towers had already been lost. Whitney said the fire had charred a half-circle around the observatory. Crews planned to light backfires by Monday to close the circle, depriving the fire of the fuel it would need to move into the observatory com plex. Crews also planned bad burns to clear vegetation ata the ridge, where they were mi ing a stand between the flame! and homes southeast ol Summerhaven. Whitney said officialsevacii' ated a camp that had been sched uled to host 250 people begin ning Sunday. The camp was about three miles from thefire'i northern edge. The cause of the fire, whirl began Tuesday, remained investigation. Investigatorsnw expected to survey the fire's starting point on Monday. The community Summerhaven had about year-round residents but its pop ulation grows during the mer and weekends as T residents drive up the to escape the desert heat. On the Net: National Interagency Center: http://www.nifc.gov/ Sex abuse reforms are working but major work still lies ahead By Richard N. Ostling THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Subscribe Now at www.MSCOPAS.org! ST. LOUIS — America’s Roman Catholic bishops face a critical six months ahead in which a series of reports will either support their claim that sex abuse reforms are on track or provide ammunition to their increasingly vocal critics. “The bishops are more hopeful. I think we feel more confident. I think we’re beginning to get a handle on it,” Bishop Wilton Gregory, pres ident of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in a weekend interview as the group’s semiannual meeting adjourned. Across town, however, members of a clergy abuse victims’ group attending their own nation al conference said they doubted the bishops’ claims. More than two dozen members the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests took to the microphone during the meeting to describe their own ordeals and the betrayal they felt in the church’s response. The bishops’ future credibility in the eyes of the U.S. laity — 66.4 million strong — will depend heavily on the National Review Board, an independent monitoring panel of prominent lay Catholics, and two investigations the board is supervising: a statistical survey of abuse cases and an audit of how each U.S. diocese is com plying with reform policies. The board plans to issue a progress report to the Catholic population after its next meeting, July 28-29 in Chicago. Around the end of the year, the board also will produce a major document on the causes of the sex abuse crisis that has roiled the church for the past year and a half. The crisis began last year with evidence that church leaders in Boston had shuffled abusive priests from parish to parish rather than remove them. Since then, at least 325 U.S. priests have resigned or been dismissed from their duties. The bishops’ image was shaken further last week when former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating resigned as the review board’s chairman amid strong criticism over his remarks compar ing some church leaders to the Mafia. One dispute that precipitated Keating' remarks — the participation of some dioceses ii the survey — has since been resolved, the bish ops said. Gregory, bishop of Belleville, 111. insisted in an interview that his colleagues areal ready to participate. “Are the bishops on board? Yes. Are they pro ceeding? Yes. With sincere commitment? Yes he said. The board’s upcoming reports will rely onth bishops’ cooperation and self-reporting, whic has some skeptics concerned. “If bishops don’t share information with thei lay people, journalists, civil lawyers, grand juries and prosecutors — and some or many don’t — how can we hope they will share it with a stranger sent by the National Review Board? said SNAP’s national director, David Clohessy. During SNAP’s national meeting, the 200del egates created their own platform that, among other things, tells victims to “insist on full pub lic disclosure by church officials” and urges bishops to meet with abuse victims. On Sunday, members of SNAP held signs and posters of children’s faces and marched outside the Archdiocese of St. Louis’ Cathedral Basilica, handing leaflets to parishioners leaving Mass. The message: They can no longer wait for bishops to do the right thing. They support each other and invite other victims to join them and find healing. “My faith is in God, not the men in leader ship,” said Barbara Blaine, 46, of Chicago, the founder of SNAP. “We are being church to one another. We’re doing what the bishops should have done.” A year ago, the national bishops’ conference spoke of ongoing dialogue with victims. But since then, SNAP and The Linkup, another national victims’ group, have had no meetings with Gregory or with the hierarchy’s special committee on abuse, headed by Archbishop Harry Flynn of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Flynn and Gregory said contacts are now most appro priate between individual bishops and victims on the local level. 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