EDITORIAL: Mending fences (12/26/82)

EDITORIAL

Mending fences

In the December 22 issue of the Catholic newspaper America, Msgr. Stephen Chomko disclosed that he will attempt to mediate the two-year-old rift in the Ukrainian community brought on in the aftermath of the oft-discussed 13th UCCA Congress. In making the announcement, Msgr. Chomko, who is president of the Providence Association of Ukrainian Catholics, revealed that on December 20 he had met with leaders of the Ukrainian National Association, the Ukrainian Fraternal Association and the Ukrainian National Women's League of America, three founding members of the UCCA who led the walkout at the fateful congress, as well as with a representative of professionals. He also indicated that he plans to meet with current UCCA leaders in an effort to set up a basis for constructive dialogue.

Clearly, Msgr. Chomko's initiative is welcome and much needed. Since the UCCA split, brought on largely by the opprobrious behavior of one political grouping that need not be named, the Ukrainian community has slumped into a dormancy laced with suspicion and distrust. Where once we could mobilize thousands of protesters to demonstrate for Ukrainian independence or the release of Ukrainian political prisoners, now we're lucky to get 50.

What's more, certain government officials have made it plain that they would rather deal with a unified community or organization - which the UCCA was before the coup - than have various political delegations streaming into their offices with the same cause.

The rift in our community has also alienated our young people, put such problems as assimilation and other pressing social issues on the back burner, and made the active concern for the Ukrainian liberation struggle secondary to emigre political squabbling.

Meanwhile, it doesn't take a whole lot of political gumption to realize that the Soviet leadership and, it can be argued, a measure of the 45 to 50 million Ukrainians in Ukraine, find the situation rather amusing, but for different reasons and to differing degrees. For the Soviets, the rift represents a tactical victory. A dispirited and bickering Ukrainian community serves their purposes well. Anyone who thinks that the Soviets did not have a hand in picking the scab off of a 40-year-old OUN wound isn't up on KGB methodology.

Our brothers in Ukraine, particularly the well-informed and those active in the Ukrainian cause, find it amusing that an emigre community, cut off from the homeland for some 40 years, has come to blows over so-called ideologies that, out of their historical, social and geographic context, have absolutely no bearing on modern-day Ukraine. It should be noted that they also find the situation deeply disturbing because they are aware that a divided Ukrainian community can do very little practical good for the Ukrainian cause.

For all these reasons and more, we hail Msgr. Chomko and the hierarchs of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, for their efforts to get the warring parties together. We only hope that both sides grab the peace-pipe firmly in hand, agree to bury the hatchet in the ground rather than each others' skulls, and get on with the business that should be paramount in our concerns - the business of working together to help our brothers and sisters in Ukraine, and working to preserve our community in the diaspora. It would be a useful way to start the year.

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