Stroessner Cancels Papal Event; Bishops to Proceed

President Alfredo Stroessner today canceled a meeting between Pope John Paul II and a church-backed group of government opponents, but Paraguay’s Roman Catholic bishops said the event will go ahead next week despite the unprecedented government decision.

“We will go ahead with the programming of this meeting because we see no reason to suspend it and that’s what we will tell the papal representative,” Msgr. Jorge Livieres Banks, secretary general of the Paraguayan Episcopal Conference, told reporters.

There was no immediate official Vatican reaction.

The unilateral cancellation of the meeting was the first such by a government during a papal tour.

In canceling next Tuesday’s meeting between the Pope and Paraguayan politicians, intellectuals, professionals and labor leaders, the government cited security reasons and alleged that it would be politically exploited by the opposition.

The Pope, currently in Bolivia, on Monday begins a three-day visit in Paraguay, the last leg of a four-nation tour of South America.

About 3,000 people were due to attend the Tuesday meeting between the Pope and the Builders of Society, a church-backed opposition group.

The bishops decided to go ahead with the meeting after an emergency session called by the archbishop of Asuncion, Msgr. Ismael Rolon.

Paraguay’s church has promoted a “political dialogue” in Paraguay which Gen. Stroessner, who has ruled since 1954, has rejected.