Public Employee Press

CNR holds panel on religion and politics

“Religion and Politics: the Power of Faith” was the topic addressed March 20 by a panel of distinguished faculty as the DC 37 Campus of the College of New Rochelle presented its second roundtable forum at union headquarters.

Participating in the discussion were Professor Swapna Mathias, who teaches sociology at CNR and St. John’s University, and Dr. Segundo Pantoja, who teaches political science at DC 37 and at Borough of Manhattan Community College.

Mathias gave an overview of religion in the Middle East and Pantoja discussed liberation theology, which “evolved in Latin America when brutal military dictatorships ruled the region,” he said.

The other panelist, Professor Luis Barrios, could not attend because he was serving a 60-day sentence in federal prison. The Catholic priest was one of several hundred activists who took part in a nonviolent civil disobedience action in November demanding that the United States close the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation at Fort Benning, Ga. Previously named the School of the Americas, the notorious facility taught torture techniques to secret police and death squads from Latin American dictatorships.