First published in The Age on July 23, 1984
Gore comes home to a hero’s welcome, warns of civil war
PERTH. Father Brian Gore returned home to a hero’s welcome yesterday and looking forward to his mother’s roast lamb, a brief rest and more crusading against injustice.
After an emotional reunion with his parents and family at Perth airport early yesterday, Father Gore told reporters he owed his freedom to their help.
Father Brian Gore mixing with a local church congregation in Sydney after his return from the PhilippinesCredit:Julian Kevin Zakaras
Publicity about his imprisonment in the Philippines brought him letters and messages of support from all over the world, he said, sustaining him in his long and finally victorious campaign for release on his terms.
Father Gore, 39, said he feared that the Philippines was on the brink of civil war. “Maybe I’ll create a little wind here in Australia,” he said, revealing that he had already had some approaches for help, “everything from peace marchers, land rights and anti-nuclear people”. He said: “There seems to be a supermarket of injustice here. There are a lot of issues I must examine.”
After 15 years in the Philippines, he said he was out of touch with Australia.
Father Gore admitted his experiences as a Columban missionary priest had politicised him. “It has made me more determined to campaign against injustices and inequalities,” he said.
Just what he will be doing in Australia is still undecided but Father Gore believes his order will let him pick his own job. The Columbans are a missionary group.
He said he was keen to see a shake-up in Australian foreign aid to the Philippines, now largely concentrated on big scale capital works.
Father Gore meeting premier Brian Burke in hospitalCredit:The Age Archives
In particular, Father Gore said he would be interested in learning just how much military aid Australia was giving to the Marcos regime which he said was now facing a shaky future.
“The situation is escalating towards civil war, Filipino killing Filipino,” he said. “The economy is beginning to crumble, students are on the streets, strikes everywhere; there is going to be a tremendous amount of suffering. It makes me very sad.”
The Philippines desperately needed more foreign aid now, the people-to-people kind, he said. Simple projects like windmills were the kind of things needed by ordinary Filipinos. Father Gore said he had a re-entry permit allowing him to return to the Philippines at any time, but he believes his effectiveness there as a missionary priest had ended for the moment.
He said he left only after he was convinced that his former co-workers were safe, and under the protection of the Philippines courts, civil authorities and the church.
Later yesterday. Father Gore visited the West Australian Premier, Mr Burke, (who is in hospital with a back injury) before returning home to a family reunion and dinner complete with the roast lamb and mint sauce he’d requested.
He is now staying with his family in Perth. “We’ve made up a bedroom for you just like a cell – so you’ll feel at home …,” said his brother Darryl.
Father Gore was confronted by Philippines authorities accusing him of subversion only six hours after he returned from a brief home leave in Perth two years ago. The charges were later increased to include allegations of murder which the priest described as a “frame up”.
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