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THE BATTALION
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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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