Let the Fire Fall

Today the Council of Southern Protestant Churches extended full membership to the recently organized Southern branch of the Voice of God Church….

Inauguration ceremonies for the new officers of the Council of Southern Churches (formerly the Council of Southern Protestant Churches), were disrupted when a small group of protestors demonstrated in the aisles, forcing the postponement of the swearing-in of Fred Smiley as the organization’s new president. Mr. Smiley later was sworn in in (I private ceremony in the anteroom of the Voice of God Church on the corners of Hall and Seventh Streets. Mr. Smiley issued a statement following the ceremonies that intimated that his first business as president of the organization would be to rid its ranks of troublemakers.

In the post six months twenty-seven Georgia ministers have resigned their pulpits and churches, and a number estimated to be triple that figure are said to be waiting for the recognition of resignations already tendered.

Four separate communities of central Georgia were hit by renewed terrorist raids during the night. In the town of Americus the small whitewashed Methodist church was burned to the ground, and two men who tried to put out the flames were severely beaten, one of them remaining in critical condition today. They have asked that their names be withheld in fear of retaliation to their families.

In the community of Fitzgerald the Church of Our Lady of Tranquility was fire-bombed and two sisters were burned as they fought to remove sacred objects. In Cedar Hills the Cedar Hills Baptist Church was burned to the ground and masked men prevented the volunteer firemen from entering the area to extinguish the flames. The pastor of the church is missing today. And in Douglas another Baptist church was put to the torch.

No arrests have been mode, and no witnesses hove come forward to identify any of the arsonists Involved. Investigations are under way in each of the communities, and it is hoped that on outraged citizenry will demand that the current investigations be more fruitful than those in the recent past. Such violence aimed at the religious community cannot be tolerated in a free society.

In the trial of the decade, the State of Illinois vs. Monsignor Bellamy, opening testimony was heard today. The State’s first witnesses were self-confessed sadists, arsonists, butchers….

Transcript from the testimony token at today’s session of the State vs. Monsignor Bellamy. Continuing on the stand following his testimony for the State yesterday is Harry Scallopini, under cross-examination by the defense attorney, Timothy Jackson.

Mr. Jackson: Now, Mr. Scallopini, you said yesterday that you personally witnessed several of these, uh, operations, but that you took no actual part in them. Is that right?

Scallopini: Yeah, that’s right.

Mr. Jackson: Mr. Scallopini, have you served time in prison?

Mr. Lloyd: Object.

Mr. Jackson: Retract. Mr. Scallopini, did you know the deceased?

Scallopini: Who?

Mr. Jackson: John Krebs. The dead man.

Scallopini: Oh, him. Yeah. I seen him around.

Mr. Jackson: And what was he doing when you saw him?

Scallopini: Nothin’. Just talkin’ to nuts who’d stop and listen.

Mr. Jackson: Did you stop to listen?

Scallopini: Yeah, sometimes I’d listen to him.

Mr. Jackson: And did you approve of what he hod to say?

Scallopini: Me? Now. I thought he was some kind of nut.

Mr. Jackson: Was he talking about the Voice of God Church?

Lloyd: Object. That’s irrelevant.

Judge Bledsoe: Sustained.

Mr. Jackson: Are you a member of the Voice of God Church?

Scallopini: Yeah….

Through long and arduous cross-examination repeatedly interrupted by the prosecutor, Mr. Jackson today tried to establish that those men charged with the murder of three and the castration of thirteen members of the Voice of God Church had in fact nothing to do with the inception of the crimes, or the execution of them. At no time did Mr. Jackson mention the defendants, but concentrated instead on the character of those who did the actual operations in alleyways and in basements of the lower South Side. In spite of his efforts to shake the story given yesterday by Harry Scallopini, the witness for the State continued to maintain that the idea had been hatched in the basement of the Church of the Sacred Heart, that all of the men who participated were at that time practicing Catholics, and that he became converted to the Voice of God Church only six weeks ago.

Tomorrow the State will present its third star witness, a self-confessed participant in the castrations that resulted in death for three. And so the grisly story continues to unwind.

We interrupt this program to bring you the following special report. Tonight Monsignor Bellamy succumbed to what his doctors call a massive heart failure. Monsignor Bellamy was found by his housekeeper, Mrs. Louella Day, who could make no immediate statement due to what doctors call a condition of deep shock. Mrs. Day has been hospitalized at Sts. Mary’s and Magdalene’s Hospital where she is under sedation….