From a Special Correspondent in Venezuela Caracas:
AFTER a series of -strikes
the Catholic Andres Bello University here was ordered closed and its 7.500 students banned from campus.
University President Pio Bello said in early November he had appointed an arbitration commission to find a solution to several months of conflict between traditionalists and progressives.
The Jesuit run university has been the target of attack by a few rich patrons since the Jesuit Superior General, Father Pedro Arrupe, launched a worldwide reform of Jesuit institutions in 1968 to help educate the poor.
First to follow the renewal line was the school of sociology. Soon the schools of theology and journalism joined. But conservatives, led by the Andres Bello Foundation, succeeded in having several students and professors expelled earlier this year.
The foundation, which provides less than five per cent of the university's budget, has been outspoken in opposing change.
At the annual meeting of the Venezuelan Chambers of Commerce Federation here, Alfredo Anzola Montauban, an executive of Creole, the largest oil company operating in Venezuela, charged that the Catholic university "is educating our future leaders in an ideology bent on destroying the essential freedoms of man, including private initiative."
Later two foundation board members travelled to Lima. Peru, in efforts to obtain from Father Arrupe, then visiting there. a reversal of the Jesuits' renewal policies. They also sought the closing of the Jesuit social research centre in Caracas. Centro Gumilla.
At that time several university students were suspended, and soon 30 others and five professors who had joined in protest were expelled.
Archbishop is 95
PORTLAND, Oregon: Retired Archbishop Edward Howard of Portland has celebrated his 95th birthday, which makes him the third oldest Bishop in the world.
According to Bishop Francis P. Leipzig, Church historian, the two oldest prelates live in Italy: Antonio Teutonico, born in 1874, and Augusto Betaz2oni, born in 1876.
Archbishop Howard retired in 1966.