Word: prossers
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...life at St. Augustine's is quickly changing, for the worse. Says Father Prosser: "Until recently we were genuinely a haven of peace. But after Elim, I was approached by a number of our senior African teachers who said they had certain knowledge that St. Augustine's would be next." The rector replaced his last five white teachers with blacks. Reluctantly, he began to spend his nights at the home of a friend in the nearby town of Umtali...
...Father Prosser has never hidden his personal opposition to white minority rule. Despite his feelings about Prime Minister Ian Smith, however, his goal is to protect St. Augustine's by removing it from politics and lately from the spreading war. "It was always our hope to keep the mission as a no man's land," he explained last week, "because if you bring in one group, you bring in the other. Any mission is distrusted by everybody. The whites think that we are Communists. The blacks think we're fascists...
...years ago Rhodesian army officers appeared, seeking permission to address the student body. Father Prosser refused, explaining that it would invite trouble for the students. The officers then asked to be allowed to bring the body of a dead terrorist to the school so the students would draw an obvious lesson. Yes, said Father Prosser, they might do so if the mission could give the guerrilla a Christian burial. At that, the army left and did not return...
...committed pacifist, Father Prosser has tried to persuade his students not to join the wokamana (boys) in the Patriotic Front forces training across the border in Mozambique. "I pleaded with them not to go, to think for God's sake of their parents. But in every single case it had no effect whatsoever." Not only did a fifth of the 450 boys in the upper school leave, but, he says, those who did go "were the best intellectually, the best morally...
There are two fresh graves at St. Augustine's; they contain the bodies of victims of an army-guerrilla Shootout at the edge of the mission. Many neighboring white farmers have abruptly abandoned their properties. Nonetheless, Father Prosser is not only keeping St. Augustine's open but is even expanding with a $200,000 program designed to double pre-university enrollment. The need is there, he explains: "No matter what happens in the future, school buildings are going to be very necessary for whatever government comes." He admits that he does not know how much longer St. Augustine...