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Public
Employee Press CNR
holds panel on religion and politics
Religion and Politics: the Power
of Faith was the topic addressed March 20 by a panel of distinguished faculty
as the DC 37 Campus of the College of New Rochelle presented its second roundtable
forum at union headquarters.
Participating in the discussion were Professor
Swapna Mathias, who teaches sociology at CNR and St. Johns University, and
Dr. Segundo Pantoja, who teaches political science at DC 37 and at Borough of
Manhattan Community College.
Mathias gave an overview of religion in the
Middle East and Pantoja discussed liberation theology, which evolved in
Latin America when brutal military dictatorships ruled the region, he said.
The
other panelist, Professor Luis Barrios, could not attend because he was serving
a 60-day sentence in federal prison. The Catholic priest was one of several hundred
activists who took part in a nonviolent civil disobedience action in November
demanding that the United States close the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security
Cooperation at Fort Benning, Ga. Previously named the School of the Americas,
the notorious facility taught torture techniques to secret police and death squads
from Latin American dictatorships.
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