With Jon Sobrino at the SOA protest
Print Friendly Version| On the Road to Peace by John Dear S.J. | Tuesday, November 25, 2008 |
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Vol. 3, No. 12 |
Thousands of us gathered this weekend, Nov. 21-23, for the annual funeral procession at Fort Benning in Columbus, Ga., there to call for the closing of the notorious "School of Assassins," where the United States trains the Latin American death squads that, over the past few decades, have killed thousands. We gather there each year around Nov. 16 -- the anniversary of the massacre of the Jesuits in El Salvador. This year, the sole Jesuit at the University of Central America to have survived the attack, liberation theologian Jon Sobrino, was our guest of honor.
Born and raised in Spain, Jon moved to El Salvador in 1958 and has lived there ever since, teaching theology at the University of Central America in San Salvador, the Jesuit university.
He directs the Oscar Romero Pastoral Center, located on the site where the six Jesuits, their housekeeper and her daughter were assassinated. His many books include Christology at the Crossroads, Companions of Jesus, Jesus the Liberator, Christ the Liberator, Spirituality of Liberation, The True Church and the Poor, and Archbishop Romero . Reprimanded by the Vatican, he carries on, urging us through his books to side with the poor, to defend and advocate for them, and in the process, understand that God places them at the heart of the church.
On Friday night, in the packed ballroom of the Howard Johnson Hotel, Pax Christi gave Sobrino its annual book award for his latest, No Salvation Outside the Poor: Prophetic-Utopian Essays (Orbis Books).
The book speaks poignantly about our Jesuit brother Ignacio Ellacuria, the theologian and university president killed with the others in 1989.
"When Ellacuria 'took hold of the reality' of the Third World, he grasped it in an important way as a 'crucified people' … Ellacuria said that the crucified people are one of the main features of our time, not merely something factual that we may consider, but something central that must be considered, without which we do not have a full grasp of reality," Sobrino wrote.
Sobrino made several addresses in Columbus. Among his statements in those addresses:
"I feel joy being here with you all. We have to say No to the SOA, but that is not my last word. We also have to say Yes to the love of great people -- the six Jesuit martyrs, their co-workers Julia Elba and Celina, the four churchwomen, Archbishop Romero and all the martyrs."
* * * *
"They were always on the side of the oppressed, even when it was dangerous. To have known that great love is to say Yes. Behind the hatred on this planet, there is great love, which makes people work for justice. So the last word is not No but Yes."
* * * *
"There is a way out of this mess, a way which is way beyond elections. There have been thousands of elections but the world is still worse. Let's not look for salvation outside the poor."
* * * *
"What happens to us when we exclude millions of poor people from existence? The most forgotten crisis in the world is the Congo. Four million people have been killed there in the last few years. This is a failure of humanity. Hunger can be eliminated, but we don't want to do it. Every few seconds a child dies. We should say instead, every few seconds a child is assassinated."
* * * *
"We need to remember the martyrs. The martyrs were people of great love and love is a rare commodity in the world. They practiced compassion to the end. We need to thank them, because they are saving us from our total inhumanity."
Hearing his words took me back some 23 years, to 1985, to El Salvador, where I lived one long summer. We were a small group of U.S. Jesuit scholastics, full of ideals, a little wet behind the ears. The day before we were assigned work at refugee camps in war zones, we sat awestruck before Sobrino as he admonished us. "You will be overwhelmed with sorrow," he said, "but you will learn joy, because the poor will teach you how to be human."
He's been saying it all his life, teaching that the poor can redeem our humanity. If only we defend them, walk with them, share our lives with them, become one with them. They will convert us.
Jon survived the attack those many years ago -- he happened on that day to be in Bangkok. In my own book, A Persistent Peace, my autobiography, I relate our welcoming him in San Francisco, just a few days after the others had died.
We organized and got out the word, and the Monday after the massacre, a thousand gathered around San Francisco's Federal Building and there demanded an end to military aid to the death squads of El Salvador. Arrests were made -- 128 all told, including 18 Jesuit priests, a matter to me of some satisfaction.
Similarly, this past Sunday morning, thousands gathered at the gates of Fort Benning. As Fr. Roy Bourgeois, founder of the SOA Watch movement, addressed the crowd, six people walked onto the base, which was trespass in the eyes of officials. The six were arrested.
The courage of the six filled us with hope, their arrests made us grieve, as we grieved all those killed by SOA graduates. It was, alas, a compounded grief. For news had come down from the Vatican that Fr. Roy, after 36 years with Maryknoll, has been threatened with excommunication, a consequence of his support for the ordination of women.
The pain converged -- on one hand, for SOA victims, on the other, for Fr. Roy. But our spirits did not go under. The purpose of our gathering did not fall to the confusion. Said Roy: Keep pushing the government to close the SOA. Do what you can in the months ahead. Shut down the school and next year we can stay home -- or have a party.
(Along the way, I noticed a sign that read, in effect: "The Vatican did not excommunicate Catholics in the death squads who killed Romero, the four churchwomen, the Jesuits and hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans. The Vatican did not excommunicate Catholics who worked in Nazi cremation ovens, or who participated in South African apartheid. The Vatican did not excommunicate pedophile priests, or the Catholics who continue to build nuclear weapons at Los Alamos or work at the Pentagon. But it excommunicates Fr. Roy and several women for praying.")
The weekend over finally, Jon Sobrino took my arm and pulled me aside. The weekend amazed him, he said. He had no idea there were so many North Americans siding with the crucified people of Central and South America. "This is such a good thing!" he said with joy and wonder. "I'm so glad I came."
We're glad he came, too. And we're grateful for his faithful work to lift up the memory of the martyrs, to speak out on behalf of the suffering billions, and to call us again to the conversion of the Gospel.
Thank you, Jon, for showing me what it means to be a Jesuit -- not to mention a Christian and a human being.
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This week, John Dear will speak about his new autobiography, A Persistent Peace, (with a foreword by Martin Sheen, published by Loyola Press, available from www.amazon.com) on Nov. 29 in Arlington, Va., at Our Lady Queen of Peace; on Dec. 1 at the Peace Mural Project on M Street in Georgetown in Washington, D.C., and Dec. 2 in Baltimore at St. Ignatius Church. For information, see: www.johndear.org.
Preach it, Father John! You
Preach it, Father John! You are an inspiration to me.
We should also include the
We should also include the poor in our Catholic Schools.
A “preferential option for the poor" should be maintained in our Catholic Schools. If we find that we cannot afford to keep our schools open to the poor, the schools should be closed and the resources used for something else which can be kept open to the poor. We cannot allow our Church to become a church primarily for the middle-class and rich while throwing a bone to the poor. The priority should be given to the poor even if we have to let the middle-class and rich fend for themselves.
Practically speaking, the Catholic Schools must close and the resources used for “Confraternity of Christian Doctrine” and other programs which can be kept open to the poor. Remember, the Church managed without Catholic Schools for centuries. We can get along without them today. The essential factor is to cultivate enough Faith to act in the Gospel Tradition, namely, THE POOR GET PRIORITY. The rich and middle-class are welcome too. But the poor come first.
William Horan
w.horan@comcast.net
His name was Fabian
His name was Fabian Ventura.
This is a post I put on the SOA blog this weekend. I want to say a heartfelt Thank You to all those who made the effort to remember the sacrifice of those who went before us in exposing and resisting humankind’s inhumanity to humankind. For those who would wish to experience first hand the healing of those wounds, here's an opportunity for you to make a difference at these links:
http://www.seedsoflearning.org/volunteering.php
http://www.seedsoflearning.org/workgroups.php
http://www.seedsoflearning.org/workgroupschedule.php
Submitted by joer (not verified) on Sun, 11/23/2008 - 02:26.
His name was Fabian Ventura.
He was trained at SOA in the late seventies or early eighties. He tortured and murdered hundreds and most likely even thousands of poor Salvadorian peasants because they peacefully asked for subsistence wages from the 27 super-rich families that ruled El Salvador and all the plantations and business there at the time Enjoying the riches they made at the expense of the Salvadoran campesinos. The Jesuits gave them hope of a better future not only after they died of the oppressive suffering imposed on them by the filthy rich but the Jesuits told them that Jesus doesn’t demand and did NOT WILL this suffering of them as the previous priests and community leaders had said.
They told the campesinos that God loved them and wanted the best life possible for them. The rich threaten by this Hope of the Campesinos for a subsistence level life began another war of attrition against their own people. Getting help and SOA training for it’s soldiers under the guise of fighting Communism, they carry out this war of attrition upon their people. And in the Northern part of El Salvador SOA trained Fabian Ventura was the purveyor of untold hundreds and even thousands of these tortures, murders, death squad assassinations upon the villages, villagers livestock and all natural surroundings of the people of this land.
One women I spoke too was 15 years old at the time. Her name was Dina. Originally from the old Copopayo, the one completely destroyed among many other by Fabian Ventura. He came to her house where her mother, sister and she were. He asked where her father and brother were. They didn’t know except that they had fled to the hills because of local persecution by Fabian and his soldiers. He left the house radioed in an air strike and dropped a 500 pound bomb on her house. She heard it falling and hit the floor tugging and screaming at her mother to get down, but her mother didn’t understand. As the bomb exploded she witnessed her mother’s head flying off. All her clothes were blown off her body. As she rose out of the rubble she found her sister dead also. The family cow and all the animals around the house were dead and the house completely destroyed.
She ran off into the hills and headed for Guazapa, the landmark mountain where many refugees gathered and sought to defend themselves. Fabian carry on many atrocities. Many attempts to assassinate him failed because he had infiltrators in the refugee camps. Any attempt was repaid with deadly force. But the refugees has infiltrators in his forces to. And they set Fabian Ventura for an attack that would finally prove fatal to Fabian Ventura. The battle ensued just before dawn at the base of Guazapa. As Fabian’s forces were taking heavy loses while inflicting the same, Fabian shot his own son in the back as he was attempting to surrender to the refugees. His son with his dying breaths told the refugees where Fabian was held up and ask them to avenge his death by killing his Father.
Trapped he played possum and killed several refugees who came to take him prisoner when he claimed to surrender. They reentered and finally killed him. The locals feared Fabian Ventura so much they didn’t believe he was dead and stayed in hiding. The refugees tied his body to a horse and paraded him through the local. They the dumped his body on the courthouse steps and little by little the campesinos came up and cautiously poked at him still not believer he could be dead. So much fear had he instilled in the people that even dead they feared him. The leaders of the refugee fighters left Fabian exposed to Public view for up to 30 days and refused to let people who had been tortured or had their whole families killed by him, disfigure him. They said we will not be like he was.
Eventually Fabian Ventura body was cut down and his head fell off or cut off was kicked around by those he tortured and then it was thrown in a latrine and his body left to decompose of exposure. While many SOA trained soldiers still live, given amnesty for showing International officials where bodies of massacred communities were buried by their units who committed the massacres.
Learning of the death of Fabian Ventura villagers from all over flocked to the refugees camps to join the battle for survival and freedom. In this way Fabian Ventura actually brought about the end of the war because of International Pressure on the government of El Salvador and the growing strength of the people resisting the atrocities visited upon them the peace accords were finally signed in 1992 in Mexico.
And that’s a brief true account of ONE SOA trained officer from El Salvador. Believe it or Not.
Lord heal all those who suffered at the hands of SOA trained individuals and bring that school of death to an end. This I ask in the name of our Loving and peace seeking Lord Jesus Christ and God our Loving Father through the power of the Holy Mother Spirit acting on us in making repentance and retribution for those heinous acts perpetrated by trainees of the School of the Americas. Amen.
Lord bless the 187 people massacred at the village of Copopayo, who were comprised of 176 women and children and 11 aged men. Included in those were the 11 children, wife, mother and sister of Don Cesar Sosa who could only relate the story to me in private and trembling while in tears. Grant Don Cesar continued healing and life Lord for you his faith in you is unshakable. The bless him and the mantra saying of his new family “Dios se lo page.” God will repay you.
In God we are healed. Bless the demonstrators at SOA. Bless Fr. Roy Bourgeois. Protect your servants. Amen
The more we discover how much we are Loved by God, the more we want to do God's Will
The American declaration of
The American declaration of independence states that We believe that all people are created equally and are endowed with the inalienable rights of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Unfortunately in the United States, the cost of a life is approximately $39,000 from birth through college (state college). This is a heavy cost that all people must expend in order to insure healthy children.
World wide over 30,000 children die a day who are under the age of 5 years. This is due in part to lack of funds for food and health costs.
In the United States this can be considered to be genocide by negligence or apathy. In a nation that claims to be pro life, it is more of a motto, like IN GOD WE TRUST (or, in god (pick one) we trust). It is a statement that we can't live up to because we don't have the support of the nation that we need. Instead we are a nation that spends its funds protecting the life of the power brokers.
How many Americans who have more money than they need have used what was excess to make the world a better place for everyone, and not just their own special interest groups?