Nun abandons neutrality, supports U.S. citizenship for Elian

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Florida nun selected by Attorney Gen. Janet Reno as a neutral party in the custody battle over Elian<br>Gonzalez sought unsuccessfully on Friday to persuade Reno to change her mind

Friday, January 28th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Florida nun selected by Attorney Gen. Janet Reno as a neutral party in the custody battle over Elian
Gonzalez sought unsuccessfully on Friday to persuade Reno to change her mind about returning the 6-year-old to Cuba. Sister Jeanne
O'Laughlin also backed legislation to make Elian an American citizen.

Conceding "I am no longer neutral," O'Laughlin told reporters she has come to believe that separating Elian now from his Florida relatives would be "another traumatic loss for him" after the death of his mother at sea in November.

Her abandonment of impartiality was denounced by those seeking Elian's return to his father.

"I am bewildered," said Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif. "Never in my wildest imagination would I think that a nun who was supposed
to be a neutral party would undermine that neutrality."

O'Laughlin, the Barry University president whose Miami Beach home was used earlier in the week for a meeting between Elian and
his Cuban grandmothers, said she now thinks it is in the boy's best interest to stay in this country, at least temporarily.

But Reno, a longtime friend, did not back away from her support of the Immigration and Naturalization Service's ruling that the boy
be returned to his father.

"She would only change her mind, I believe, if she could find legal reasons to change her mind and have adequate evidence that that would be necessary," O'Laughlin said outside the Justice Department.

Reno, after escorting O'Laughlin to the department door, said in a written statement that she had "listened to all she had to say.
She told me about her feelings, observations and conclusions."

"However," Reno said, "I continue to believe, based on all the information available to me, including the information that Sister Jeanne shared with me, that the person who speaks for this child is his one surviving parent -- his father."

Despite the stark difference of opinion, the two women remained friendly at the end of their meeting, O'Laughlin said: "I left my meeting with Janet Reno with a gigantic hug, and a promise that we will both keep pursuing the truth as we see it."

The INS ruling has not been carried out because the federal government agreed to postpone action until the family had an
opportunity to challenge it in court, which Elian's Florida relatives have done, filing a lawsuit in Miami.

At a hearing Friday in Miami, U.S. District Judge William Hoeveler said he would hear arguments on Feb. 22 on whether the
lawsuit should be dismissed. On Thursday, the judge had set a hearing date of March 6.

Reno said she hoped the case would be "resolved as quickly as possible."

Before meeting with Reno, O'Laughlin visited Sen. Connie Mack, R-Fla., chief sponsor of the citizenship bill, and announced her support for it.

"The child has been in the torment of the seas and now he's been in the torment of political agendas. Somehow we must find for him calm seas, at least for a while," she said. If it takes a
congressional act to keep him here, so be it, she said.

Her support for the legislation came just as it appeared to be losing ground in Congress. Elian's grandmothers made the rounds of
Capitol Hill this week urging the boy's return to Cuba.

Mack conceded that the grandmothers' visits had "affected some of my colleagues," costing potential support for his legislation, but denied that O'Laughlin's support for it would undermine her credibility or was intended on his part to counter the grandmothers' visits.

"We don't care about politics, we care about our grandson," said Mariela Quintana, the paternal grandmother.

The grandmothers might return to Cuba this weekend, said the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell of the National Council of Churches, which
has facilitated their travel and supports the boy's return to Cuba.

In a statement Friday, the council said it was "surprised" that O'Laughlin "chose to step out of her assigned role of neutrality."

"We regret that Sister Jeanne, in choosing to state her opinion after exercising the role of neutral host so admirably, has in her action further fueled the fire of controversy and eliminated herself as a neutral facilitator in any future discussions on this matter," the council said.

The meeting in Reno's office ran more than an hour and a half, twice the scheduled length. Also present were INS Commissioner Doris Meissner and Peg Albert, a child psychologist and colleague of Sister Jeanne. The INS is part of the Justice Department.

Elian has been the center of an international tug of war since he was found clinging to an inner tube Nov. 25 off the Florida coast. His mother and others traveling with him from Cuba had drowned.