Larry Rosebaugh presente!

Jack Cohen-Joppa offered this observation: “nice obit by a local reporter, but for its failure to mention the 1981 Prayer Pilgrimage to Pantex [Texas], for which Larry served one year in federal prison.”

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http://www.bnd.com/breaking_news/story/775148.html

 

Tuesday, May. 19, 2009

Former Belleville priest gunned down in Guatemala City BY GEORGE PAWLACZYK - Belleville News-Democrat

 

BELLEVILLE -- The Rev. Lawrence Rosebaugh, a 74-year-old priest who studied at a seminary in Belleville but spent most of his life living among the poor in Central and South America, was shot to death Monday during a robbery in Guatemala City, Guatemala.

 

"As a priest he was not the collar type of priest," said his close friend, Sam Hladyshewsky of Shiloh, who attended the former St. Henry's Preparatory seminary in Belleville with Rosebaugh during the late 1950s.

 

"When you looked at him, you'd think he was the poorest of the poor.  And those are the ones he served," said Hladyshewsky, a former priest.

 

According to a written statement from the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate at the Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows in Belleville, of which Rosebaugh had long been a member, the priest was murdered during an attempted carjacking. The statement said the funeral will be today in Guatemala City.

 

"He lived on the street most of the time because he ministered to the homeless," said the Rev. Allen Maes, an Oblate priest at the shrine.

 

However, The Associated Press reported Tuesday that Rosebaugh was killed during a robbery in which a gunman also wounded a Congolese priest. A spokeswoman at the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala City said she could not legally provide any information about Rosebaugh's death.

 

Rosebaugh, whose late mother, Mildred Rosebaugh, lived for years in the apartment community at the Shrine, often returned to the metro-east and was looking forward to retiring here within a few years. He published his autobiography, "To Wisdom Through Failure," in 2006.

 

In April, Rosebaugh, who signed his letters "Lorenzo," sent emails to Hladyshewsky, telling his friend about his work at a Guatemala hospital ministering to AIDS victims and helping street people. He also spoke of working with the sisters of Mother Teresa and of providing a liturgy at a vigil for two boys, ages 13 and 16, murdered by gangs in one of the poorest sections of Guatemala City.

 

In another recent message, Rosebaugh wrote, "This Holy Week I had three good days of retreat by myself in a great quiet place with beautiful trees and nature, only to view the devastated living conditions of the poorest just across the way. To have that reality so close made for an even better Holy Week for me."

 

In 1977, Rosebaugh was mentioned in an article in the June 20 issue of Time magazine, after he and a religious worker were arrested in the streets of Recife, Brazil by local police while handing out vegetables to the poor. They were held for four days on charges later dropped that may have been filed simply to remove the poor from the area in advance of a visit by President Jimmy Carter, according to newspaper stories at the time. Rosebaugh and his companion later met with Carter's wife Rosalyn, who commented to a Time correspondent, "I have listened to their experience and I sympathize with them."

 

Rosebaugh, four fellow priests and nine laymen gained national attention in 1968 during the height of the Vietnam War when they broke into a Selective Service office in Milwaukee and removed 10,000 service records, which they burned publicly with what they called "homemade napalm."

 

Through that act, Rosebaugh and his fellow protesters became known as the "Milwaukee 14." They were eventually convicted of the break-in and served about a year each in jail.

 

In the 2002 book "From Warriors to Resisters: U.S. Veterans on Terrorism" edited by Margaret Knapke, Rosebaugh and others continued their anti-war activities at Fort Benning, Ga. in the late 1980s.

There they went at night to a pine forest near where hundreds of Salvadoran soldiers lived in barracks while being trained by U.S. advisors. Using a recording of Salvadoran Catholic Archbishop Oscar Romero's last sermon against the war in his country, given the day before his assassination, Rosebaugh, another priest and a woman used a "boom box" to broadcast Romero's message to the Salvadora troops.

 

The narrator of the incident, the Rev. Roy Bourgeois, later wrote that all three were arrested and, "...sent to prison for 18 months.  But the truth could not be silenced and we spoke from prison."

 

Contact reporter George Pawlaczyk at gpawlaczyk@bnd.com and 239-2625.