November 15, 2004
Dear Sustainers,
This month we are fortunate to share with
you a reflection by Scott Wright, Director of
the Religious Task Force on Central America
and Mexico. For more information on the spirituality
of the martyrs, visit www.rtfcam.org
Remembering the
Jesuit Martyrs of El Salvador 15 Years Later
By Scott Wright
Director of the Religious Task Force on Central
America and Mexico
www.rtfcam.org
Today, I had the opportunity to accompany my six-year-old
daughter, Maura, to her Sunday school class at
our local parish, St. Aloysius in Washington DC.
The topic of today’s lesson was the martyrs
of the University of Central America (UCA) in
San Salvador. Fifteen years ago, when the six
Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter,
were brutally assassinated, the pastor of our
parish joined hundreds of others in a vigil and
action of civil disobedience in front of the White
House.
I agreed on the spot to share something with
the children about the meaning of these martyrs.
I began by asking if they knew what a martyr
was. Several of the older African American children
replied that they did, and they named Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. We established early on that
a martyr is somebody who loves God, stands up
for justice, and is killed for doing so.
I told them that I was at the funeral mass
of the Jesuit martyrs, and that thousands of
people were killed in El Salvador during the
war. I asked the children if the only people
killed were priests, pointing to a picture of
the martyrs, and they said no, there were two
women. I told them the story of Julia Elba and
her daughter Celina, and how Celina’s
father, Obdulio, tended the roses that marked
their graves after they were killed.
We closed on a note of hope, and recalled how
God sends us holy men and women, friends of
God and prophets, to show us the way. And even
though they kill good people and destroy churches
– one African American boy recalled the
church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963
– the church will continue to live on
in the spirit of the saints and martyrs like
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Archbishop Romero,
the four US church women, the six Jesuit priests,
their housekeeper and her daughter.
What do the UCA Martyrs Teach Us
Today?
What do the Jesuit martyrs have to teach us
today, 15 years after their assassination? I
often ask myself, as I am sure many thousands
of people do who had the privilege to travel
to El Salvador during the war and to have their
hearts broken by the people they encountered
there. I especially ask myself this question
after the attacks of September 11, the war on
Afghanistan and Iraq, the torture scandals at
Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo prisons, and the most
recent Presidential election. I am sure they
would not be silent. Each one, in his own way,
leaves us with a gift and with a challenge.
 Ignacio
Ellacuria, SJ, gave us a new language from
which to view the world, with words like “crucified
peoples,” “taking the victims down
from the cross,” “bearing the burden
of reality,” and he invited us to work
for peace “from the perspective of the
orphans and widows, and the tragedy of the assassinated
and the disappeared.” He encouraged us
to keep our eyes “on the God of life,
the God of the poor, and not on the idols or
gods of death that devour everything.”
 Ignacio
Martin-Baro, SJ, gave us a new understanding
of the consequences of war, and the devastating
impact it has on the social fabric of a nation.
He said that war becomes the focal point of
people’s lives, and results in three things:
an increasing polarization in society, so that
people began to look at others as either “enemies”
or “friends”; an increasing institutionalization
of lying by those in power; and an increasing
reliance on violence to resolve conflict.
 Segundo
Montes, SJ, gave us a new perspective on
social conflict and social movements. I remember
shortly before he was assassinated, he came
to Washington DC to share the hope he found
in the capacity of the poor to organize a new
future for themselves - even in the midst of
war – soon after he visited the refugee
camps in Colomoncagua, Honduras. On the very
day he was killed, those same refugees boldly
crossed the border into El Salvador to found
a village they later named Ciudad Segundo Montes
in his honor. When asked why he did not leave
El Salvador for the safety of another country,
he said: “We are also parish priests and
the people need the church to stay with them
…God’s grace does not leave, so
neither can we.”
These three martyrs are the most well-known
throughout the world, especially through their
writings. But the other three Jesuits were equally
loved by the Salvadoran poor on account of their
pastoral work and commitment to justice.
 Amando
Lopez, SJ, was a gentle soul who inquired
about the work of the pastoral teams I accompanied
in war zones like Morazan and Chalatenango.
He had once been the rector of the seminary
in El Salvador, and many of the priests he taught
were assassinated, forced to go underground,
or into exile. Later he became rector of the
Central American University in Managua, Nicaragua,
after the Sandinista triumph. A year before
he was assassinated, he was the pastor of a
marginal parish in Soyapango, San Salvador.
Twenty-five of his friends risked their lives
to cross combat zones to get to his funeral.
 Juan
Ramon Moreno, SJ, was known for his work
of evangelization and justice. He spoke of “globalization”
years before it became a household word. “But,”
he added, “this is a divided world, and
in a divided world the good news must inevitably
be partial. It does not ring the same in everybody’s
ears.” What is good news for the poor
is bad news for the rich and powerful. “The
real enemy of the God of Jesus is not the atheism
that denies God’s existence, but far more
this idolatry that sacrifices millions of human
victims before the altar of power and money.”
 Joaquin
Lopez y Lopez, SJ, for his Fe y Alegria
schools that enabled thousands of Salvadoran
children to go to school, and tens of thousands
more to be treated by their clinics. He alone
was a native of El Salvador.
 Elba
Ramos Elba Ramos and her daughter Celina
were the housekeeper and daughter whose blood
was spilled alongside of the Jesuit priests
they cooked for and cared for. Their deaths
lend dignity to the Jesuit martyrs, because
they are a reminder of both the goodness and
faithfulness of the poor, as well as the 75,000
victims who died during the course of the war,
most of whom, like Elba and Celina, were poor,
good and faithful.
If You Want Peace,
Work for Justice
Is the world any better off today than
it was 15 years ago? Do the poor matter? Do
the martyrs even matter?
The divide between rich and poor in the world
continues to grow wider, even in an age –
or especially in an age – of corporate
globalization. We live in a “civilization
of wealth,” which cannot be sustained
for the entire population of the planet. A very
few are very wealthy because a great many are
very poor. That’s what Ellacuria taught
us. Only a “civilization of poverty”
is sustainable, one in which the fundamental
needs of all human beings on earth are met,
freedom flourishes, and a fundamental option
for the poor is at the heart of our personal
values, diverse social relations, and global
economic structures …
The logic of the current administration seems
to be, “If you want peace, prepare for
war,” a direct affront to the Gospel command:
“If you want peace, work for justice.”
The Hope that
is Ours in This Season of Advent
This week, thousands of people from across
the United States will converge on the military
base in Ft. Benning, Georgia to call for “the
School of the Americas” that has trained
so many assassins and torturers in Latin America
to be closed. It is a fitting way to remember
the legacy of the Jesuit martyrs and the two
women who were martyred with them.
Especially now, during this liturgical season
of Advent, when the shadows and darkness of
the Last Judgment and the End Times precedes
the miracle and light of Christmas, we are called
to be people of hope. Precisely in these times
of darkness, when the cruelty of war - from
Fallujah to Ramallah, and from Sudan to Colombia
- challenges the very foundations of our hope,
precisely in these times of darkness we are
called to bear witness to the light. In El Salvador,
when the change of seasons seem to signal something
auspicious, as the winds stir up the dust and
shower the sky with brilliant sunsets, the peasants
have a saying that speaks of this hope: “The
darker the night, the closer the dawn.”
So let us remember this time with hope, and
let us remember the martyrs. May this time of
approaching Advent be a time of gathering light
in the darkness; of following in the steps of
the martyrs – not only the UCA martyrs,
but the many thousands of good and humble women
and men who bore witness to their faith during
the war and were killed. Let this be a time
of remembering their joy with gratitude, and
offering a reason for our hope through generous
actions for justice and risks for peace.
We have been given a great hope – as
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. used to remind us
– the gift to live precisely in these
times. May the legacy of the Salvadoran martyrs
be one that strengthens our resolve and capacity
to work untiringly for justice and peace, and
to celebrate with hope the task that is ours
of entering the ranks of women and men throughout
history who have “done justice, acted
with compassion, and walked humbly with their
God,” knowing that – again in the
words of Dr. King – “the arc of
the moral universe is long, but it bends toward
justice.”
©
|
Campaign for Peace