The News from Paterson, New Jersey • 27

SATURDAY, 1ST 27, 1983 The News, North Jersey 27 I iDSIHIOP The reverend was a poet By JIM BISHOP The man in Misericordia Hospital looked tired His big ugly hands traced a silent pattern on the bedspread. His eyes searched the ceiling. Johnny Kelly was moving off stage. once upon a long ago, he was a rough, tough kid. The voice was loud and Brooklyn in timbre.

Johnny Kelly could play ball, defend himself with his fists, argue ably on subjects about which be knew little, and swim. One day he was swimming at Coney Island and a big wave picked him up, spun him, and jammed him headfirst into the sand. it xkjfu iwttTCMDfuttomfl Wmmam Leftist Central American priests should learn a lesson from their Vietnam brothers By JACK ANDERSON WASHINGTON Some Roman Catholic priests in Centra America seem to have schoolboy crushes on left-wing revolutionaries. In Nicaragua, their reward was an embarrassing, organized booing of Pope John Paul II by the Marxist leaders they had supported. Cracking down THE PARTY is over.

No longer can athletes in International competition use drugs to boost their performances. That fact was underscored dramatically this week at the Pan American games in Caracas, Venezuela, when 11 athletes were disqualified for drug use. Another 12 U.S. athletes packed up and went home rather than take the tests and face suspensions if found guilty of drug use. The use of a new, far more thorough test to detect drug use has stunned the amateur sports world.

That is sad, for it shows just how widespread the use of drugs is. Athletes in track and field and weight lifting competitions regularly use anabolic steroids, derivatives of the male hormone testosterone. The steroids, athletes believe, help them build muscles and gain strength, boosting their performances in competitions. No matter wnat the apologists say, the use of drugs by athletes in international competitions is wrong. For one, body-building chemicals give the drug user an unfair advantage over the athlete who is "clean." Fairness aside, there is the health issue.

Steroids harm the body. In males, they can lead to liver damage, enlargement of the prostrate and sterility. In females, they can lead to broader shoulders, deeper voices and body hair. Arguments that "everybody does it" or me "Americans are being picked on" do not hold up. Chief apologist was Bayonne's Ian Pyka, a shot-putter and one of the 12 Americans who withdrew from the games to avoid testing.

He held a press conference Wednesday to deny using steriods, the more serious drug. He had a right to defend his honor. But it was a sorry performance for another reason: He attacked" the testing of athletes at the Pan American games, an inexcusable position to take. The tests, he said, were "sprung on us." The Americans, he continued, were being picked on. He is wrong on both counts.

Pyka and other athletes know the use of drugs is illegal. They were warned before the competition that a new test would be used. They ignored the warning at their peril. Those who used steroids and other banned drugs (there are 100 of them) were breaking the rules. Period.

The rules were routinely flouted because of lapses in the old testing method. Before a new test was developed, drug detection went back only three months; athletes would simply stop using drugs three months before the competition. But with the new method, use of drugs can be traced back as far as a year. This should clean up international competitions ence and for all including the Olympics. The new test is going to be used at the 1984 games in Los Angeles.

After the Olympics, the test should be applied to all athletes, from all countries, at all events, so no one has an unfair advantage. It's time athletes clean up their act. The testing at the Pan American games puts them on notice they are going to have to. Their brothers in established communist countries could tell these naive clergymen what it's like to live under the heel of an anti-religious regime. It might cool their revolutionary ardor a bit.

In Vietnam, persecution of Catholics has taken a cruelly The kid was 14. He was in a spasm when they dug him out. After that, John Bernard Kelly was a quiet boy. He went for long walks alone. He meditated.

At 17, he insisted that he had a girlfriend. Everyone knew that John Bernard Kelly had never been seen with a girl. He studied for the priesthood at Dunwoodie, in Vonkers. One of the priests who taught Johnny was Father Duffy. It was Father Duffy who saw the big rough kid for what he was: a poet.

After his ordination, the young priest developed spasms. They averaged six a week. The doctors found no evidence of epilepsy. No evidence of brain damage. It was Monsignor Lavelle, pastor of St.

Patrick's Cathedral, who broke the bad news to Father Kelly. He took the young priest to a baseball game. The white-haired monsignor squinted out toward short. "He couldn't play that position if they left him alone in the park," the monsignor said softly. "He'd make a great right fielder, but that's the way it goes.

They keep putting people into the wrong jobs. "Now take yourself, Johnny. You're not going to get a church. I wish there as a nicer way of saying it, but there it is. We can't use a priest who might become ill in the middle of mass.

You understand that?" Father Kelly clasped his hands between his knees and bowed his head. He understood. The monsignor nodded. "All right. As long as I draw the breath of life, John, there will always be a room with your name on it at the cathedral.

I don't want you ever to forget it. His Eminence has thought about your particular problem and he has decided to organize a Catholic Writers Guild. You're head of it." The spasms lessened a little in the middle years. Three a week. The Writers Guild bought an old brownstone building on West 71st Street.

For years, the priest could eat nothing except melba toast and honey. Still, when he met writers, his big fists would curl, his jaw would come out, and he would demand to know why more of them were not writing about his girlfriend the Blessed Mother. He was at his best when writers were discouraged. His cure was to roar with rage, the long arms flailing, the voice demanding how a writer with all this talent could afford to sit and brood like a schoolgirl. Father Kelly used this rough therapy on me when I didn't have two dimes and no editor wanted anything I might write.

When he passed 70, Father Kelly's spasms had almost disappeared. He sat long hours alone in the brownstone house among the dusty books. He sat alone. He wrote doggerel and he wrote about his girlfriend. When the book was finished, it was called "Heaven Is a Circus." No publisher begged for it.

In a final humiliation. Father Kelly borrowed money and published it himself. The man in Misericordia Hospital looked tired. His big ugly hands traced a silent pattern on the bedspread. His eyes searched the ceiling.

Johnny Kelly was moving of stage. Alone. He looked up once, and he mumbled, "I know who you are," but he didn't. He had an appointment. In follow-up operations, more than 1.000 leaders were arrested.

The government disbanded all" Catholic monasteries and forced the monks to take secular jobs. Many ordained priests, unable to get recognition from the authorities, go underground, holding secret masses in private homes. Two dioceses Ho Chi Minh City and Long Xuyen are doing well under state control, apparently because of good personal connections between church leaders and government officials. In areas, most of the churches have been converted into grain and fertilizer warehouses or military barracks." In those still open, the authorities limit the hours of mass. In Ho Chi Minh City, churches allowed to remain, open are "strictly for the benefit of foreign visitors, whom the authorities wish to impress with their tolerant attitude toward religion." All Bible study has been outlawed except during public ceremonies or shortly before or after mass.

Though some religious materials have been allowed to be published, including a Vietnamese translation of the Bible, most church publications have to be printed and distributed secreUy. Even a Catholic orchestra, organized to play on religious occasions, was ordered to disband when it became too popular. The musicians were quickly drafted into military service. Footnote: The plight of the tiny Protestant community in southern Vietnam Is even worse. Churches have been seized and clergymen arrested on charges of ties to the CIA or the Montagnard rebels.

WATCH ON WAR: Intelligence sources warn that words no longer can save Lebanon; it will take military power to preserve the peace. But President Reagan is looking for an excuse to pull the U.S. Marines out, not to bolster their presence in Lebanon. His peace efforts, meanwhile, have failed. He has lost the confidence of Lebanon's President Amin Gemayel, who has complained privately that, he misplaced his trust in the United States.

Gemayel no longer is listening to U.S. promises; he Is more impressed by what the Syrians are doing than what the Americans are saying. For Syria is stirring up the Druzes, Palestinians and Lebanese leftists who are waging civil war against Gemayel's government. The Syrians are also -deploying their tanks in Lebanon for a confrontation with the Israelis. ironic turn.

According to refugees who have escaped to Thailand, the regime is using the church's resistance to communist authority in Poland inspired and encouraged by the pope as an excuse for its attacks on Catholicism. A confidential cable from the American Embassy in Bangkok reports that Vietnamese refugees have been describing "an intensified government campaign to weaken the Roman Catholic Church, citing the 'lesson of One priest who escaped told embassy officials that "the communists were frightened by events in Poland and thought that the Catholics might be 'up to something' in Vietnam as well." The cable predicted increasing pressure on Catholics in the near future. Catholics make up only about 5 percent of Vietnam's population; they are hardly in a position to undermine the communist regime, or even cause it significant difficulty. Recognizing this, the embassy cable suggested that the events in Poland were actually "only a convenient excuse for Hanoi" to crack down on its Catholic minority. This, of course, does not make the repression any less real.

The anti-Catholic campaign in Vietnam is the subject of two other confidential cables and two secret State Department reports obtained by my associate Dale Van Atta. Here are the major points: Hanoi's goal is "to limit the size and composition of the Catholic clergy in the SRV (Socialist Republic of Vietnam) and to prevent the Catholic church from becoming a focus of Independent political power." At least 200 priests have been arrested since 1975. The biggest sweep came in early 1978, when leaders of the "Inter-Religious Front" resistance movement were taken into custody. Other voices 'What convinced the president that this 'leopard' had changed his Atkins Takes exception to food review From the Los Angeles Dally News: Most of the time, crime news is bad news. For once, we have good news to' report.

Behind all those headlines about murders, robbery and justice gone awry, crime experts are detecting quiet progress in crime prevention and a growing sense among Americans that they actually can do something to make themselves safer. The evidence of this success does not show up yet in nationwide crime figures. But researchers are starting to find a new spirit of optimism among Americans, a belief that crime can be prevented, and they have seen some local crime-prevention programs work dramatically. Those are the conclusions of a national study commissioned by industrialist Harry E. Figgie involving interviews with 100 criminal justice experts and analyses of eight state and local crime-fighting programs.

John C. Pollock, head of the research firm that conducted the survey, said he discovered a "strong, growing, nationwide confidence and optimism regarding certain crime control strategies." superior to both. Where in fact, at any dinner theatre do you get prime rib (especially good and served as you like it)? Where else do you get a tour of the kitchen and an explanation of how the food is bought, prepared, and served, plus an introduction to the staff? at the remarks about the food, and decided a great injustice was done to the reputation of Perona Farms Dinner Theatre. I was elected to do something about it. In reference to her remarks about Neil's New Yorker and the Bethwood Dinner Theatre, we were all in agreement (having been to both places) that the food at Perona Farms was far pleased and said they wanted to come back.

The second time was with a small group, on my recommendation, and each one of the group had high praise for the food and plan to make a return visit. Rodi's column was brought to my attention at a gathering of this small group, each one of whom was stunned I would like to take exception to Rodi Alexander's commentary on the food at the Perona Farms Dinner Theatre. Having been there twice, I was especially impressed with the including the menu, the service, the portions, the atmosphere and the tour of the kitchen. I was with a large group the first time and everyone was well JOSEPHINE MURAT Clifton Support Democratic siate Has Kissinger changed? Wat Sferoa ble candidates to state and county offices with a mandate from the people to protect our general welfare. CHAUNCEY I.

BROWN III Paterson A publication of AUBRITTON COMMUNICATIONS COMPANY John Buzzetf Publisher Today, our state is facing some difficult decisions. Heads of households, senior citizens and youth are caught in budget cutbacks. It will, take political muscle to combat these threats, and the only candidates that have been successful in combating these threats have been state Sen. Frank X. Graves Assemblyman Vincent "Ozzie" Pellecchia, and Assemblyman John A.

Girgenti. However, it has been repeatedly charged that political candidates and party leaders have ignored the problems of the minorities, but these candidates have not. I believe that voter registration and voter participaUon on election day would force every politician to pay attention. We need only to look at our history to substantiate this. Our voting power can send responsi couch," A dm.

Chester Ward and Phyllis Schafly assert that, as an internationalist first, Dr. is guided by the philosophy that, since the "omnipotent" Soviets will not make concessions "necessary for peace," we therefore must continue making whatever concessions "necessary for peace." However, must never forget that the word "peace" means nothing more than another camouflage for the advancement of international communism to the Kremlin. That is why politically astute Americans wonder which brand of peace-at-any-price Kissinger will embrace this time for Central America. And what convinced the president that this "leopard" had changed his spots? KEN ATKINS Meridham President Reagan's credibility-quotient with me has slipped precipitously since his illogical appointment of Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin-confidante Henry Kissinger, chief U.S. overseer of Central American policy.

At least, loyal Latin American expert Jeane Kirkpatrick will be overseeing the overseer and reporting to Reagan. Aside from the many faux pas wherein we and our allies wound up second best due to Dr. Kisssinger's "legendary" diplomatic dealings, is the fact that, despite his tough talk of late, he remains a closet pacifist convinced of Soviet Invincibility. Columnist Pat Buchanan calls him the "acknowledged master of the camouflaged retreat." Can Kissinger truly speak for the United States now in Central America? In their 1975 book, "Kissinger on the Maureen Urbanowltz Managing Editor S. Scott Rohrer Editorial Page Editor Rick Maddock xecuti ve Sports Editor Delta Rodovlch Newi Editor Alfred G.

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