MORE THAN ONE MISSION
Roger has lived his adult life with a definite sense of mission. To make his life worthwhile he does not live in dreams, nor fall back on alibis, neither wait for tomorrow, or the next day, or next month, or next year to answer what he perceives to be his calling, which is to lead a just and active life to better serve his community. He is aware, though, that beyond his desire for world betterment is his own personal enrichment, as he always reminds himself of the French maxim:
“Une âme qui s’élève, élève le monde”
(A soul that elevates itself raises the world).
SPIRITUALITY IN ACTION
With his thoughts confused at times, or his hopes and dreams shattered perhaps, Roger seeks solace, inspiration and renewal of faith in his first places: the Crib, the Altar and the Cross. He does not depend only upon the quality of his strong moral and religious life and then shelter his own inner conviction behind the shield of a let-the-dust-settle attitude. He tries to overcome his real inclination to be an enclosed individual in order to respond to an open world, and is willing to forego the comfort of world opinion and accept the discomfort of responsible behavior to recover the liberty and virtue of lost ideals.
Though not a fanatic activist, Roger vigorously defends his religious principles when unfairly attacked. On September 29, 1978, the student managing Editor of “The Collegian” (Los Angeles City College newspaper) published an article entitled “Religion: It’s going, going, it’s gone”. In it he maintained that religion is on the way out, that people are beginning to question the relevance of the churches in the world and finding it harder “to swallow the tripe that has been preached from the pulpits”, that religion discriminates against homosexuals claiming that God loves them, but hates their “sin”, and that as people start keeping “what is good for them” and “giving up the foolish”, “one of the first things to go will be religion”.
Many students and professors felt offended by it, and several letters poured into the newspaper, including Roger’s “Religion -not going, going… it’s here!” The Editor refused to publish any of those letters. For three weeks Roger battled him, the journalism department and the faculty advisor. Finally Roger made the threat that if his letter was not published he would make copies and distribute them throughout the 20,000 student campus, pointing out the Collegian’s lack of objectivity.
Finally Roger’s reply was printed with an apology. In it he listed some of the many religious movements and revivals that have sprung up in recent years (such as the Charismatic movement, the Cursillo, Marriage Encounter, Youth Encounter, Christian Family…), precisely to rekindle the life of the religion the newspaper columnist seemed so anxious to see go away.
Furthermore, after explaining how easy it is to understand God’s love for the homosexuals while hating their “sin”, just as parents love their children while at the same time hating their bad deeds, Roger offered for the reporter’s consideration what Chesterton said about the church: “She is the only institution which protects us from the degrading servitude of becoming a child of our time.”
While reassuring the readers that religion will triumph now as it has in the tides and currents of history and that wishful thinking does not history make, Roger lets them know that he chooses Christ’s promise to be with us “to the consummation of time” over the columnist’s prediction of religion’s doom.
Numerous professors and students congratulated him for his response to the offensive column. Though the Managing Editor did not write any more anti-Christian articles in “The Collegian”, the incident proved to Roger what he often complained about, that in their resistance to herald Christian ideals, reporters practice wolf-pack journalism to savage Christianity making honesty an exceedingly scarce virtue in their reporting. Many reporters, Roger believes, consider themselves as clean as an elephant’s tusk and maintain that, in a pluralistic society, Christians should practice the virtue of silence and not inhibit the freedom of others.
Roger refuses to be an armchair Catholic who tends to keep his religious beliefs quiet. He trusts that, if he immerses himself in the currents of the ethics of expediency that swirl around him, he is not opening an unwanted door to meddling in the freedoms of others. On the contrary, he is exercising an important and necessary role in an open society of many views. He did that while he was editor of “The Clarion”, the monthly bulletin of St. Angela Merici’s church, and, occasionally, to correct misconceptions or erroneous printed statements.
“The Collegian” of April 8, 1983 published an appealing article “Making love is no sin”. Reacting to the television mini-series “The Thorn Birds” (a story of a love affair between a priest and a woman), the writer emotionally condemned priestly celibacy. That did not disturb Roger, since there has been a theological debate on the subject raging within the Catholic Church. What prompted Roger’s reply was the sarcastic and derisive misinformation the author of the column gave as reasons for the existence of celibacy.
After pointing out that celibacy is not the exclusive domain of Catholicism and that renouncing the use of sex does not make priests sexless zombies devoid of their manhood, Roger traced for the readers the historical development of celibacy and the compelling reasons, human and divine, for the preference of celibacy over marriage to facilitate the priest’s function as a mediator between God and man, dedicated to the salvation of souls. He concluded: “Yes. Making love is no sin, but its use outside of a legitimate and freely chosen state certainly is”.
Writing is not the only way Roger takes a stand for his beliefs and defends his religious convictions. Though not an activist in the true sense of the word, he often challenges people to be honest and truthful in what they say as well as in what they write. In 1973, he and Josie were chosen to represent Orange County at a Pastoral Encounter for Spanish people in the Western Catholic Dioceses of the United States. When they arrived at the conference on a Thursday evening, the air was tense. The violently prone radicals had taken over the organization of the gathering. They had changed some of the most sacred songs into revolutionary songs. By Saturday afternoon, Roger was rather upset even at Josie, for although she did not agree with what was going on, she was condoning it saying that this was the way to vent their frustrations…
By Sunday morning, Roger could not hold it any longer. Here is a Catholic convention, he reasoned, to improve understanding between the Church and the Spanish people, and the name of Christ has not been mentioned even once during the whole weekend… That morning, a representative from Washington gave a most disturbing and provoking talk, blasting the Anglo clergy and boasting that his office had been responsible for this gathering of about one thousand people.
At the end of the speech, with his knees shaking, Roger stood up and took the speaker to task, pointing out for everyone to hear that the Anglo priests he had maligned were in fact the ones that planned the meeting two years earlier in Miami… There was much commotion, but Roger persisted and made the speaker acquiesce to the truth. When the final document was written, cool heads prevailed. The radicals had to resign themselves to issuing a minority report.
Many conferees had been feeling uncomfortable during the whole weekend but did not dare to say anything because of fear. They applauded Roger’s courage and many delegates made it a point to congratulate him during the day. After the Mass which concluded the activities, Cardinal Manning who heard of the incident upon his arrival that afternoon, took Roger aside and thanked him for having attended the meeting and for having been a “disruptive influence” that morning.
Roger stood up for his principles on several other occasions, one of them very painful because it involved the Spiritual Director of the Cursillo, a priest friend whom Roger admired at one time, but who had alienated good, solid lay leaders and caused tension and fear in the Cursillo by his authoritarian control and less than exemplary behavior. Being a member of the Cursillo Secretariat, Roger was approached by many in the Cursillo community to intercede before the Bishop of the Diocese. After much prayer and study, and with great sadness, Roger decided to fulfill the unpleas ant duty to report the priest and to demand his dismissal from his position as Spiritual Director of the Cursillo Movement in the Diocese. Roger had a private audience with the Bishop in February. By July, the decision was made to replace the priest in question, and in November the official change took place.
Though very conscious of his own need of inner spiritual formation, Roger does not reduce his religious conduct to an abstract formula of daily prayer or militant defense of his principles. He conceives his spirituality as having the full pulse of life. It is not a withdrawal from life, but a plunge, a deeper involvement, into it. Enriched with that love and joy which are products of an intensive religious life, he understands that he has to return those two gifts in full measure, that his own human hands must be Christ’s hands in this world, his mission Christ’s work and his presence anywhere Christ’s influence therein.
In the early seventies, Roger made it a practice of going to the Long Beach Veterans’ Hospital every Sunday afternoon with a group of friends to talk to the sick who had returned from the war in Vietnam. At times, the group entertained them with songs, particularly during the Christmas season. Soon the sick started asking for the celebration of the Mass in the hospital. They went to Mass in crutches and wheelchairs and volunteered to read the scriptural passages. It was a truly fulfilling mission of love and joy for the group.
Roger had other opportunities to experience, first hand, that genuine love and human understanding can win the hearts of others. Late one Sunday night, he and Josie were coming from Palmdale with the couple living across the street from their house. There was a car accident on the San Bernardino Freeway. People slowed down to look but no one stopped to help except Roger and his companions. They saw a young man and woman who just got married and were on their way from Chicago to Bell in Southern California. The young man was lying injured on the pavement and his wife holding onto him in tears. Roger and his companions took the young couple to San Bernardino General Hospital and stayed with them until the doctors gave the diagnosis. At three o’clock in the morning, they took the young bride to one of their homes. Towards midmorning, they returned to the hospital for the young injured man and took the young couple to Bell. The couple continued visiting frequently with the two families who had helped them. Six months after the accident, the couple decided to embrace the Catholic faith.
As fulfilling as such works of mercy are, Roger knows, however, that his first field of action is his own home, that the fruits of his efforts may not be seen immediately, but that they eventually come. When Connie came from Nicaragua to his house, she enrolled in evening school to learn English and to obtain a high school diploma so as to secure a good position in life. Things were going rather well, but she was burdened with very serious emotional problems and remained aloof in the practice of her religion. She would accompany the family to Mass, but it was obvious that she was not at ease and could not hide her sense of anxiety and, at times, resentfulness.
To make her feel at home, either Roger or Josie used to read to her Rubén Dario’s famous poem “La princesa está triste…” (The princess is sad). Connie finally left home and, for two years, avoided contact with the Fernández family.
Suddenly, one day she called the Fernández to let them know that she had gone to Las Vegas and married “a wonderful guy”. She asked them not to worry because he was a very decent person and would take good care of her. Soon, she started visiting, alone at first, and later with her husband and their baby. The frequent visits brought some change in them. They remarried in the Church, they made the Cursillo, and Connie wrote the Fernández the following note: “This princess is no longer sad because she has found her King”.
In early 1982, Josie went to St. Charles Priory at Oceanside to spend some time in prayer and meditation. When she returned home, she handed Roger the following message: “I think of you and how you have made this possible for me. How you have truly influenced my environment…! These last few weeks have been the pits for me. I am not good at walking the desert of spirituality— give me the mountains any day… But you have been so kind, gentle and understanding… And now I need this time alone with my God and again you have scored A plus in comprehension and heart-reading ability. Not every husband would tackle the house with seven kids. But you prove in action what you feel in piety and know in study…”
CONTROVERSIAL POLITICAL STANDS
While he was actively involved in religious endeavors, Roger was also dedicating precious time to participate in political discourse in the communities where he lived and worked. On October 4 and 5 of 1971 there were small demonstrations against the recruitment of Marines at Los Angeles City College. The police described those disturbances as “Communist demonstrations”. The Collegian Associate City Editor wrote a column decrying the police report as an insult to students, professing outrage at the easy use of the word “Communist”, and giving credit to “thinkers… who want nothing to do with war and those who represent it”.
Believing that no student nor group of students have a right to deny other members of the college community the freedom to choose whatever vocation they wish, including the Marine Corps service, and piqued by the words “Communist” and “thinkers”, Roger decided to write a response to the challenging column. His reply was printed by “The Collegian” under a sensational caption spread across the letters to the Editor section “Instructor, Columnist Differ on Views of Communism”. In it, Roger expressed a sincere appreciation of the fact that the columnist could be “tired of hearing the word Communist” but could say so freely. “Those of us who lived under Communism”, Roger wrote, “were also tired of hearing the expression “Yankee Imperialism” and could say nothing about it without risking imprisonment or death by a firing squad”.
In his reply, Roger indicated that those “thinkers” would be more credible in their opposition to war had they expressed equal aversion to Communist avowed expansionist aims as well as for “Yankee Imperialism” and Marines’ recruitment. He also suggested to the readers that the small group of demonstrators (100 out of a 20,000 student body) might represent clear evidence, not of apathy, but of a massive dissent against few dissenters. In addition, Roger addressed himself to the columnist: “I abhor war just as much as you do, for as a result of war and Communist dominance I have known indescribable hunger, experienced abject misery, witnessed despicable injustices, and suffered atrocious repression. I want this country to remain free. The Marines will help to preserve it so. You may be “tired of hearing the word Communist”, but I am alarmed at the prospect of having to call “thinkers” those who insist in deny ing to others the right to think differently”.
In April 1972, the Young Socialist Alliance brought a speaker, Cuban expert Harry Ring, to address the Los Angeles City College community. Roger attended the conference and at the end of the speech challenged Mr. Ring’s assertion that “…before the revolution, most of Cuba’s 936,000 students were forced to pay for their education, but today the 2.3 million students receive their education free…” Roger had not yet finished pointing out that “students in Cuba are forced to work up to five months of the year…”, when the president of the host club interrupted him and announced to the audience that Roger was “an avowed supporter of Franco”. Roger was not allowed to continue, but Mr. Ring tried to answer him by saying that “mobilization” of the Cuban people is the only way they can insure the goals of their revolution.
The college newspaper carried a report of Mr. Ring’s lecture under the title “Cuba: People, Places and Castro”. It faithfully informed its readers of Mr. Ring’s contention that “…because of the economic blockade imposed on Cuba by the United States, an economic dependence on Moscow has been created which has caused trade debts, and has consequently subjected Cuba to political dependence on the Soviet Union as well”. Moreover, and incredibly from Roger’s perspective, the speaker maintained that Cuba under Castro was not a police state.
Unfortunately in Roger’s view, most people are convinced that the United States did, in fact, force Castro in the Soviet Union’s orbit. That is a fallacy universally held as true, maintains Roger, because the public has been misinformed by vicious propaganda. He felt compelled to correct Mr. Ring’s glaring misstatements. “The Collegian” published his letter under the caption “Fernández Takes Issue With Cuban Expert Harry Ring”. Roger reminded the readers that the United States did not act in any way against Cuba until, and after, Castro had signed an economic bad deal with the Soviet Union. In his reply to Mr. Ring, Roger wrote: “To maintain that the unenforced, partial U.S. economic blockade of Cuba has caused Castro’s trade debts and dependence on Moscow is to ignore historical facts. The partial embargo was imposed in September of 1960. Yet, in March 1960, Castro signed a pact to sell to Russia 3,200,000 tons of sugar for $97 million. That same amount of sugar would have sold in the world market for $206 million and at the U.S. price for $362 million”.
To discredit Mr. Ring’s assertion that Cuba under Castro is not a police state, Roger listed numerous newspapers and radio stations that Castro forced to close because of their opposition to his regime. Roger quoted the Cuban leader as saying in October of 1960 when he established the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution. “From now on, I will know what is said in every home, behind every wall”.
On several occasions during his teaching career at Los Angeles City College, Roger has been asked by members of various clubs to be their faculty advisor. In the beginning, he participated in the activities of some clubs, but, as time went on, he became more involved in religious and community affairs and had to decline requests to be the faculty sponsor of any club.
In November of 1973, a student with a Spanish surname wrote a letter to the college newspaper ripping to pieces the local student club MECHA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Azatlán). The writer ridiculed MECHA’s activities and decried its members’ lukewarm interest in education as a solution to social problems. The author concluded the accusatory writing with a daring challenge: “…Hombres sinceros (sincere men), instead of “shedding Anglicized upbringing”, how about shedding some childish ideas from your heads and replacing them with some common sense?”
The chairman of MECHA at that time replied with a self-serving letter full of inaccuracies as to the origin and initial name and purpose of the club. MECHA’s chairman concluded his own tirade describing the student critic as a gullible person “that would believe that Chile’s late president, Salvador Allende, died of suicide — that is, by shooting himself 17 times. Oh, stopping only once to reload!”
Having been instrumental in the chartering of that club, Roger jumped into the public debate to set the record straight without taking sides as to the merits of MECHA’s activities. He pointed out that the original name of the club he sponsored in 1968 was not MECHA, but MASA (Mexican American Students Association). The name changed later into UMAS (United Mexican American Students) and eventually into the present name.
Since he was the original faculty advisor of the club, Roger denied the MECHA chairman’s claims that the club had come into existence to demand that “Chicano teachers be hired”, that “Chicano administrators be assigned to those schools where there is a Chicano majority”, that “Chicano studies be taught in the classrooms…” None of those were objectives expressed in the declaration of intent that he signed as sponsor of the organization. In fact, Roger main tains, it was agreed that the club would have no meetings outside the LACC campus, that the time of the meetings would not conflict with his schedule of classes so as to make his own attendance possible and that no outside political activity should have any role in the organization’s functions. “All this changed”, wrote Roger, “when the first chairman of MASA lost control of the club and I was replaced as faculty advisor without my knowledge”.
Moreover, Roger found laughable the sarcastic remark on Salvador Allende’s death. His own recollection of several readings is that Allende had apparently used only the last two bullets remaining after the fighting that took place to depose him. People are free to accept or reject the version of Allende’s death advanced by the military Junta that ousted him. Nonetheless, “it should also be remembered”, writes Roger, “that both General Javier Palacios (anti-Allende) and Dr. Guijón (Allende’s friend and compañero) have mentioned that the machine gun Allende received from Fidel Castro was set for volley (fully automatic); that is, you just press the trigger and it fires 30 times”.
Roger does not limit his involvement to his place of work. Throughout his life he has taken part in various activities of the community where he lives. While he made his residence in Brea, he was very involved in its religious life as a member of St. Angela Merici’s adult choir, a co-founder of ACT (Active Christians Today) and as editor of “The Clarion”, a monthly bulletin of St. Angela’s parish. He was also very active in sports, being at one time president of the Brea Soccer Association, coaching two teams and refereeing weekend games. Moreover, he participated in the political life of the city through written articles that evidenced the courage of his convictions and pursued the logic of his beliefs.
In June, 1978, a member of the Brea City Council resigned to assume a new position as administrator of a county hospital. The mayor of the city appointed one of his close friends to fill the unexpired term of the departing Councilman. This unilateral and undemocratic action threw the city of Brea into political turmoil, dividing it into warring factions and turning friends into enemies. The mayor’s lack of sensitivity to a democratic process prompted Roger to write a letter to the local newspapers including the widely circulated Fullerton “Daily News Tribune” which published it on July 11, 1978. In that letter he decried the mayor’s arrogant attitude “that can only breathe contempt for the citizens and disregard for their views”. Roger deplored the mayor’s public attempt at self-jus tification and condemned it as “a finger-pointing routine that benefits politicians and does little for the public”. Above all, Roger denounced the mayor’s grand theft of the citizen’s right to choose their representatives. He alerted the readers to the fact that “…for a period of almost two years the City Council of Brea will be making decisions under a cloud of suspicion which will perpetuate resentment in the community”. He concluded his letter by lamenting that “…The $1,500 that an election would cost is a small price to pay to spare our city of such an agony and to put real democracy to work”.
Another controversy developed in the Spring of 1979 in Brea concerning the Board of Education of the Brea-Olinda Unified School District. A group of citizens formed the association BREAN (Breans for Responsible Education Administration Now) to force a recall of four members of the Board of Education, two of whom would be up for re-election five months later. Roger was not associated with proponents for or against the recall and had no children attending public schools. He gathered as much information as he could, and after a thorough investigation of the charges, he made the judgment that there was no merit to the charges and decided to take a stand against the recall and to let the community know the reasons for his position.
On Friday, June 1, 1979 the Fullerton “Daily News Tribune” published Roger’s letter under the heading “No advantage to recall”. After refuting each charge one by one, Roger clearly stated his view that the leaders of the recall movement “…are hiding behind a smoke screen of trumped up charges that are erroneous, deceitful and apparently malicious”.
Early Sunday morning before the elections, opponents of the recall went through the various sections of the city distributing Roger’s letter attached to a statement by a very prominent citizen that supported Roger’s position and opposed the recall. Unfortunately, supporters of the recall followed the distributors of the letter with the attached statement to pick them up so that the voters would not have the opportunity to read them. When the opponents to the recall found out what was going on, it was too late. The recall won by a small margin.
Roger’s intensive involvement in community matters in the seventies brought him wide visibility. Local newspapers like “La Habra-Brea Star Progress” and the “Times-News” carried articles on him with his picture. As prominent community leaders sent him con gratulatory notes, the Fullerton “Daily News Tribune” sent a reporter to Roger’s house to interview him in greater depth. The reporter and Roger talked extensively about Spain, Latin America and the United States, particularly the topic that was in everybody’s mind: “Watergate”.
In its edition of April 23, 1973, the Fullerton “Daily News Tribune” published excerpts of the interview with the title “Cuban Exile Sees Watergate As Intelligence Ploy”. The reporter accurately stated Roger’s theory behind the Watergate break-in which he considered “an intelligence maneuver”. Roger was of the opinion, at that time, that the United States administration perhaps “could not tell the whole story because it might affect the security of the country and risk of panic among the citizenry”. Roger speculated that it may have been “a situation where the United States might have had to take a step to protect itself”.
Roger reached this conclusion because of his firm conviction that there were many militants, with possible connections to Cuba, involved in the McGovern campaign. Furthermore, Roger figured, Florida (home of many Cubans in exile) had its skies and shores unprotected. Panama, ruled by a leftist government, was seeking to take full control of the Canal in forthcoming negotiations. Castro in Cuba was trying to secure the return of Guantanamo Bay to Cuban sovereignty. These being the conditions in and around the Caribbean, the possibility existed that a political vacuum could be created in the area, making the Caribbean a Soviet lake. Under such circumstances, it is not hard to imagine that the United States administration may have feared the election of a left-leaning McGovern who might be sympathetic to Castro, and decided to check the motives of those in the Democratic headquarters at the Watergate complex,
On May 25, 1973, the Fullerton “Daily News Tribune” carried the following title in its front page: “Brean Cited Possible Cuban Link Last Month”. The article read in part: “A month ago, Roger Fernández, local resident and professor at Los Angeles City College, said the Watergate break-in may have been a United States intelligence ploy and that a link with Castro might be involved. Yesterday, his testimony to the same effect was presented by convicted conspirator Bernard Barker, who said “Spy Squad” members were actually seeking evidence of financial contributions by Castro’s government in the campaigns of Senator George McGovern and Senator Edward M. Kennedy. However, such financial links were not found, said Barker…”
Contacted by the Fullerton “Daily News Tribune” after Barker’s testimony Roger remained convinced that the Watergate break-in had a national security angle to it, without excluding the possibility of political motives. In the investigation that followed, only the political aspect was examined to exhaustion, while the national security hypothesis was summarily dismissed.
Nonetheless, Watergate remained a source of daily news and topic of conversation for months and years, even after President Nixon’s resignation. The debate raged everywhere, including colleges and universities. On March 22, 1974, “The Collegian” published a student’s letter that blamed everything he found wrong in the country to Mr. Nixon and the “Watergate scandal”. The writer dealt with many well known, but as yet, unproven allegations. Roger wrote a long reply to that letter, disavowing any wish to defend Watergate, but maintaining that “though two wrongs don’t make a right, they cry for equal treatment”. Because of the national importance of the Watergate debate, the college newspaper published Roger’s extensive reply in its entirety, April 19, 1974. Due to its national significance at that time, it is reprinted here as follows:
“…The author writes about Nixon’s “endless array of lies.” Wasn’t it Arthur Sylvester, assistant secretary of defense under Kennedy and Johnson who said: “It is the inherent right of the government to lie to save itself”?
He complains about “milk-price hikes” but fails to point out that the hike authorized by the President was in fact lower than that requested by the Democrats who received more funds from the dairy industry than did the Republicans.
Similarly, he writes about the President’s “non-payment of taxes although Nixon paid $78,000 during the period in question 196972) but overlooks the fact that Johnson, Humphrey, Pat Brown and others also made deductions similar to Nixon’s vice-presidential papers. It was in fact under Nixon that this tax loophole was corrected.
Not immune to this glaring double standard, the Ervin committee (which is to recommend campaign reforms) is finally, though reluctantly, recognizing that there are two pairs of footprints in the snow of the campaign trail. They have co