U.S. Church Group Seeks Funds for Nicaraguans

An interfaith church group Thursday announced a public campaign for funds to match the Reagan Administration’s $27 million in humanitarian aid to Nicaraguan rebels with an equal amount of aid to the civilian population of the war-torn Central American nation.

At a news conference, Roman Catholic Auxiliary Bishop Thomas J. Gumbleton of Detroit denounced Congress’ appropriation last June of aid to the rebels, known as contras . He called this “nothing more than aid to an armed force--it has nothing to do with healing wounds, feeding the hungry or clothing the naked.”

The interdenominational “Quest for Peace” has already raised $9 million privately, said Gumbleton, who led a movement to place U.S. Catholic bishops on record against aid to the Nicaraguan guerrillas.

Civilians Only

He and others said the distribution of Quest for Peace supplies will be carefully supervised by representatives of U.S. charities to ensure that the aid benefits only the civilian population, not Nicaragua’s Sandinista government or its armed forces.

At the same time, Gumbleton defended the regime, which this week initially suppressed--but later permitted--the publication of a letter from Pope John Paul II to Nicaraguan Catholics. Foreign Minister Miguel d’Escoto, a member of the U.S. missionary order of the Maryknoll Fathers, is a friend of his of long standing, the bishop said, as are other Catholic clergy members who support the Managua government.

The Sandinistas “are not and never will be Marxists,” Gumbleton declared. “Changes have been radical,” he said, “but they are leading toward more social justice than in the years of Mr. (Anastasio) Somoza (the late dictator, ousted by the Sandinistas in 1979).”

One emotional appeal for funds was made at the news conference by Sister Marjorie Tuite, a member of the Dominican Sisters of St. Mary’s of the Springs, who said she has visited Nicaragua 10 times.

‘True Humanitarian Aid’

“I was in the women’s hospital in Managua and saw that there were no sheets and women were huddled two in a bed,” she said. “What else can we do but support true humanitarian aid?”

The new aid effort will concentrate on medical supplies, said Father William R. Callahan, a Jesuit who since 1983 has coordinated the Quixote Center, a Washington-area peace and relief organization.

Callahan said the greatest need is for hospital equipment and medicine, wheelchairs and crutches, which Quest for Peace members will ship by air to Managua.

Organizers of the new relief effort listed as part of their campaign the American Friends Service Committee, Oxfam America, Witness for Peace, the Archbishop Oscar Romero Relief Fund and other groups.