Text of press release (10.27.01)

Five men active in the service of man will meet on the weekend of December 8 and 9, 1973, to seek a common idiom with which to explore, communicate, and celebrate human reality.

Gathering at the Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas, will be John Calhoun, Helder Pessao Camara, Joel Elkes, Giorgio La Pira and Jonas Salk. They will welcome exchanges with all who care to come and search with them.

Dom Helder Camara, Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church at Olinda and Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil, suggested this gathering when visiting the Rothko Chapel in March, 1973. He voiced the need that it be held in all humility and in the spirit of brotherhood on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Dom Helder has said, "If each of you, freely and true to yourself, expresses your conception of what man is; if each of you listens to the other, there will without any doube emerge a vision of what is essential in man, not in the name of principles but in the name of who man is. The world today refrains from telling man who he is precisely because it would then be forced to respect him and to refashion its structure according to a human identity."

Dr. Jonas Salk, developer of the polio vaccine, founder and director of the Salk Institute for Biologial Studies in La Jolla, California, says, "I am convinced that, although we cannot predict the future, with understanding Man can, to a considerable degree, influence the course of coming events in his favor."

Joel Elkes, who was the first president of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, was active in the introduction of drugs into the treatment of mental disorders in the early 1950's. He will review critically the abuse of misconception about drugs in society and will point to alternative areas of research, particularly in relationship to the dangers of the present cultural trends, and the degeneration of values in society. Dr. Elkes is the Henry Phipps professor of psychiatry and director of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland.

From Italy will come Dr. Giorgio La Pira, former Mayor of Florence, and a renowned champion of encounters between people of all nations and backgrounds. Dr. La Pira teaches Roman Law and Institutions at the University of Florence.

Zoologist, ecologiest, and psychologist, Dr. John Calhoun of the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland, is well known for his studies on population and his "Promotion of Man", published by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

The meetings will begin at 10am on Saturday, December 8, at the Rothko Chapel corner of Yupon and Sul Ross Streets, Houston. Admission is free. If a larger crowd than expected appears, a new location will be posted on the bulletin board.

Dom Helder Camara's statement, titled "The Rights of Man -- Three Vital Points Among Many Others" was also introduced into the Senate Congressional Record S901 January 31 1974. A text is available in 10.27.02. The three emphasized points: * Development, yes; but not at an inhuman price * Security, yes; but without resurrecting the inquisition * Effort for placing moral force over the armed force