A Look back at El Salvador: the Jesuit martyrs
The Jesuit Martyrs of El Salvador
Preface
In November 1990, in the midst of war and with the pain of loss still fresh, we celebrated the first anniversary of the UCA martyrs. Still, the anniversary was a time not simply to share loss but to share faith and hope as well. For if these eight, like so many thousands, could give their lives for the truth, for the poor, for God, then we all had more reason to go on living and struggling for life. We had more reason for not allowing hatred and death to have the last word.
The days following the commemoration at the university led many of us into the countryside for further remembrance. At a vigil near Jayaque, where Nacho Martin-Baró had spent a lot of time, Teresa Pérez, an elderly catechist and community leader, took the floor after the Gospel reading. Standing erect in her simple cotton dress and white apron, eyes flashing from her dark brown face, Teresa reminded people how, following Padre Nacho's death, a large number had left the parish. (In fact, the army had tumed the chapel where we were celebrating into a barracks for six weeks.) Teresa had a different outlook. Well, I say," she continued, "if death finds us here serving the church, then let's welcome it!"
Teresa exemplifies the type of faith which has justly made El Salvador a symbol of what the church can and should be in our time. If the world has been shocked by the torture and murder of Salvadoran civilians, it has also been caught up short, inspired, by the faith of the people. They remember the famous martyrs, Archbishop Romero and the Jesuits, most of all. Still, neither Archbishop Romero nor the Jesuits fell from the sky. They fed on the faith of the Salvadoran poor with whom they mixed their blood. That faith continues to take one's breath away. It is a faith worth sharing, as this book admirably shares it.
Five years after the UCA murders, a constant stream of visitors from all over continues to pass through the Pastoral Center at the university and the rose garden where the martyrs fell. Even atheists come as pilgrims. They have broken with the familiar to come to poor countries where many have given their lives for others. They're looking for reasons to hope in a violent and cynical world.
The visitors de-plane a bit anxious; they vaguely dread what awaits hem in El Salvador. Aware that the people are very poor, that they have suffered torture, massacres and bombings, the visitors harbor a vague fear that the people might lunge for their first-world wallets, or that they will suffer a massive guilt attack when they visit their first poor community. Or the fear half-consciously that the visit will force them to rush back home and sell their VCR’s. Well, as it happens with most fears, it doesn’t turn out that way. It’s not that the suffering isn’t there. It’s just that the Salvadoran poor are genuinely glad they’ve come and receive them without questions and with open arms. Of course, if the pilgrims had the courage to listen to the stories of weeks of flight from the army, of death squads, and the terror, of the bombings and the hunger, of the premature death, the people will break their hearts.
That, after all, is the main reason the pilgrims have come: to have these people break their hearts. Part of them would resist. After all, the people have the capacity to blow your world apart. My God, babies die from preventable disease. The powerful steal from the poor Will. There is no justice. And then, what has my government been doing here in my name?
The Jesuit Martyrs of El Salvador by Joseph E Mulligan, S.J.