The Greatest Love

On November 16, 1989, six Jesuits, their cook, and her daughter were murdered in their residence at the University of Central America in San Salvador, El Salvador. Renowned liberation theologian Jon Sobrino, S.J., whose absence when the attack came surely saved his life, had been a member of that community for more than 15 years.

Sobrino's theology grows out of the experience of the people. His life is a testimony to the words of liberation theologian Gustavo Gutierrez: "One act of solidarity or love means more than a thousand books of theology." He was interviewed at Sojourners by Jim Wallis three weeks after the killings. -- The Editors

Sojourners: This is a difficult place to begin, but I'd like to ask you to reflect on the meaning of the sacrifice of your brothers, the martyred Jesuits.

Jon Sobrino: Well, I could say so many things, but I will start by saying this: The killings of the six Jesuits -- and of so many other people -- is a revelation of something which is usually hidden. What they reveal is the truth of El Salvador, of the Third World, and of the whole world.

In general, the First World -- and all those who have power -- try very consciously to hide the truth. But as we all know, the killings of six Jesuits makes news. The assassinations of 75,000 people in El Salvador unfortunately doesn't make news. And the 30 million people around the world who die yearly due to hunger or diseases related to hunger make absolutely no news.

What is the truth of our world? The truth is that God's creation is in very poor shape. Lots of human beings do not live with the minimum of life and dignity that God wants for them. Poverty in our country, and in the Third World -- maybe in the place where you live -- means that people are closer to death. Poverty is not just lacking opportunity; it is much more than that. Poverty means that maybe 60, 70, 80 percent of the population has survival as their daily task.

The main reason why so many people have been assassinated in El Salvador is because, in the last 12 years, they have wanted to organize themselves to exercise their right to survival. And when other people who are not poor -- like the Jesuits who were killed, or myself, or the four North American sisters -- try to help the poor so that they can live, they also get killed.

We live in a world of death which goes beyond Western or Eastern, Marxist or democratic categories. This world wants to cover up death.

In the biblical writings of John, the Evil One is described as both assassin and as liar. Sin has a tendency to hide itself; whenever there is a scandal, automatically it's covered up. This world which gives death to so many millions of people also lies about it. It tries to ignore death very consciously; even worse, its uses euphemisms to cover death up.

For example, we hear El Salvador referred to as a country on its way to development. That's a euphemism. We have to analyze whether El Salvador is really on the way to development or to more underdevelopment. Another euphemism is the word "democracy." I favor democracy, you understand. But you have to realize what is meant by democracy. President Reagan said he was so happy now that in the Americas "almost all countries are democratic countries." Well, that was a euphemism used to cover up basic poverty and repression. Compared to this gigantic cover-up about the world, the cover-ups of Watergate and even Irangate were minimal.

In theological terms, what this shows is that in this world of ours there are idols. I am disappointed that so much of Western theology in the 20th century focuses only on the question of God's existence or nonexistence. You know the term -- faith and unbelief.

Idolatry goes beyond that. Idolatry means that there are historical realities which present themselves as divinities with the characteristics of true divinities. They are something ultimate. They don't need to justify themselves. They are untouchable. They offer salvation to their worshipers although in fact they dehumanize them. Worst of all, in order for these idols to survive, they need victims.

So I think we live in a world of idols. Idols are not trees or images which so-called primitive people worship. Idols are existing realities which every human being, no matter how well-developed or scientific he or she is, worships.

In El Salvador, as Archbishop Romero used to say, there are two main idols: the accumulation of wealth, and the doctrine of national security. Our national interest becomes ultimate, something untouchable. This has happened in El Salvador; national security now means that anybody who disagrees with the official policy, especially that of the army, will be persecuted and killed. When you touch an idol, you get burned, and you get killed.

Now these Jesuits -- and so many others -- simply told the truth about the country. They unmasked the lies -- the efforts to cover up the scandal of the country -- and they touched the idols. The same thing happened to them as to Jesus of Nazareth, to Martin Luther King Jr., and to Archbishop Romero: They were killed. So El Salvador is not just a terrible anecdote in present history, it's one case among many that show the kind of world we live in.

The killings also show what we normally understand to be true: Sin is central to an understanding of Christian faith. Without sin, conversion makes no sense. And without conversion, there is certainly no Christianity.

In the First World, sin is dealt with usually more from an individual point of view, which raises many questions. I think that in the First World, many theologians don't know what to do with sin.

There are many reasons why people don't take the world's sin seriously, but I think we should. We see so many human beings around the world dying like Jesus Christ on the cross. We say that Jesus died for our sins; but if we instead rephrase it and say that Jesus died because of our sins, because of the sin of the world, then it becomes obvious that there is indeed sin in the world. And if sin is what gave death to Jesus Christ, and so many people are still dying like Jesus Christ, sin is still very present.

But in spite of so much sin, so much death, so much suffering, there is something in our history which gives us hope. I ask myself so often, How is it possible that there is hope? Why haven't these people of El Salvador and Guatemala committed collective suicide? After so many centuries of being oppressed and repressed -- new governments, new superpowers -- why haven't they said, "History makes no sense?" Because they have hope.

Hope for what? Just to live. These people don't take life for granted. For those of us who take life for granted, life cannot be an object of hope. That's why so many Christians in the First World, when they think of hope they think, "Well, maybe there is another life." For the poor of El Salvador, living on this earth is a matter of hope.

I think, for me, this is one of the ways in which this ultimate mystery which we call God is revealed. In the presence of death, life itself makes sense. It is good to live. There is something positive in history. In order to have life, many people work for it.

These Jesuits, among others, reacted with compassion and mercy toward those who are deprived of life. Compassion and mercy are not just psychological responses; they are the reaction toward people who suffer, by the very fact that they suffer. El Salvador is a whole country in suffering; therefore, the appropriate name for compassion and mercy is justice. Justice is mercy -- and compassion for the majority.

At times this mercy and compassion become heroic. They become love. They become the greatest love in people who die innocently -- like the poor in El Salvador who are killed because of the very fact they are poor -- or in others who give up their own lives in a very conscious way. They are ready to give everything. And there you have the greatest love.

Sojourners: Would you say that it has always been true that the role of the martyrs is to unmask the world's cover-up, to bring to light the idolatries that exist and by doing so, make conversion possible?

Sobrino: In Latin America in the last 20 years there have indeed been martyrs. But there have been martyrs since the first centuries of Christianity. I am convinced that the type of martyrdom we have now is the type of martyrdom Jesus went through. Christians today are killed, historically speaking, for the same reasons Jesus was killed. They want justice, they unmask lies, and in this way they show they believe in God -- but a God of life, a God of the poor.

In other centuries it might have been different; the Archbishop of Canterbury was killed to defend the church's rights. But Romero was not killed, or these Jesuits, or the North American church women, defending the church's rights. They were killed for defending the rights of the poor. To find a parallel to this you have to go back to the beginning, to Jesus of Nazareth.

Sojourners: The scriptures often speak of the cross of Christ as a moral clash with the principalities and powers of this world, with the ruling idolatries. You speak of the cross so often in your writings. The centrality of the cross has been very much clarified these past months, it seems to me.

Sobrino: At times even my friends in Latin America have told me, "You stress the cross too much, you should speak more about the Resurrection." I think that for me the cross is central. Our risen Lord is not just a corpse who came back to life, but somebody who was assassinated.

Peter describes the Resurrection of Jesus in the first chapters of the Acts of the Apostles as a drama in two parts. First he says, "You people of Israel, you know Jesus of Nazareth, and you know human beings killed him." That's the first act of the drama. In this Jesus was innocent; history is such that it produces innocent victims.

And then the second part of the drama: "This Jesus, this man whom you killed, God has raised from the dead." The Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is not primarily a promise of an afterlife. The Resurrection of Jesus is primarily a symbol of hope for the victims of this world. At least in one case, a crucified victim triumphed over his executioners. But if you don't have the cross, Resurrection makes no sense; Christian faith makes absolutely no sense.

Now what I want to add is that when I make the cross central in faith and theology, it's not because I am a masochist. It is because I don't see how you can show love in this world of sin without being in solidarity with the victims of this world. And if you are in solidarity with the victims of this world, I don't see how you can avoid the cross. The theology of the cross is the theology of love in our real world.

Sojourners: The Salvadoran government and military, with its U.S. sponsors, have declared war on the church. Many of us are now reflecting, What does it mean that more church workers have been killed in El Salvador in the last 10 years than in any other country in the world? And yet that question is rarely put forward in the United States as a reality.

Sobrino: You know that in the '60s some bishops and theologians in Latin America went through a process of conversion, and it ended up in Medellin in 1968. Medellin is symbolic of a new type of church. And you might remember that right after Medellin then-Vice President Rockefeller said that if what the Catholic bishops have said in Medellin is put into practice, the interests of the United States are in danger. The powerful of this world know very clearly that a Christian faith which is faithful to Jesus of Nazareth and faithful to reality is dangerous.

In the '70s, many priests and sisters were captured, tortured, expelled from their countries, and assassinated in Latin America. The advisers of Ronald Reagan in 1980 wrote what is called the Santa Fe Document, again saying in different words that they should be careful about liberation theology, Christian base communities, and the church of the poor. Persecution against this type of people is a necessary reaction by a sinful world.

El Salvador is probably the most tragic case of church persecution, but it's not the only case. Within Latin America, El Salvador is the smallest country, the most densely populated. In other words, it's a country where poverty is more appalling. And of course, it is a Christian country. So the ideas and the hopes of Medellin were present in El Salvador.

So by the late '60s and the beginning of the '70s the Catholic Church -- and later almost all churches -- began to be Christian, maybe for the first time in many years. And then from 1977 to 1980 there was the first wave of church persecution. The archbishop, priests, sisters, and hundreds of peasants were killed to stop this type of Christian faith.

Did they achieve that? Well, I would say yes and no. Yes, in the sense that this type of church was largely dismantled. The survivors were frightened, and from 1981 to 1984 this type of faith in El Salvador was relatively quiet; mainly the Jesuits and some others tried to keep it alive.

What has happened now? This type of church has grown again. The so-called internationalists -- many people from other countries -- have contributed to this growth. So now, what they are attempting is a second wave of church persecution, and the purpose is again to dismantle it.

Sojourners: What has been the response from the church around the world and from Rome to the recent persecution of the church in El Salvador?

Sobrino: Let me first make this statement. I say it in peace, without anger, but firmly. If the things which have happened in El Salvador had happened in Hungary or Poland, can you imagine the uproar in the U.S. Congress, in the church conferences in the United States and Europe, at the Vatican? I'm not bitter about that. But the reaction in general has not been up to the tragedy.

I have seen and read many, many statements, most of them very good, by some bishops, religious superiors, base communities, groups around the United States and in Europe. So what we call the church of the poor or its equivalent around the world has reacted very, very well. What I don't see yet -- maybe this will take more time -- is a strong reaction of the leaders of the church as such.

Sojourners: You are often described as a liberation theologian. What do you think is the essence of liberation theology now? Is it the same as it was two decades ago? What are the challenges and what is at stake now?

Sobrino: Although it has reacted, the strongest accusation against liberation theology has not come from the Vatican. The strongest accusation has come from the Rockefeller Report, the Santa Fe Document, the multinationals, those who really want to accumulate wealth.

Some well-trained theologians who read Gustavo Gutierrez's books years ago say that while liberation theology is interesting and was inspiring at first, now it's out of fashion, passe. The notion that liberation theology, as such, is passe is absolutely false.

Let's remember the origin of liberation theology. If there is no oppression, the word "liberation" makes no sense. The reason liberation theology arose is because theologians and other Christians saw that there was oppression in Latin America and in other parts of the world. So the question is, Is there oppression today in the world? Unfortunately, the world is getting worse, from the point of view of the poor.

I recently read in Time magazine -- ironically it was in a section called "Business" -- that up to 60 to 80 percent of the Latin American population -- that means perhaps 300 million people -- is on the path to becoming another Bangladesh, which in today's world is the symbol of utter poverty. Time magazine is saying that poverty is going to get worse -- much worse.

That article also said that the wealthy people in Latin America have invested $326 billion in the United States alone. The gap between the very poor and the very rich is getting wider. This is just one way of saying that there is still oppression in the world. If this is so, I cannot conceive of any theology which is Christian, which believes in a God who created human beings, which believes in Jesus of Nazareth, which doesn't take this fact as central for its faith today.

I am very much aware that liberation theology has many limitations. We don't have much time to think; we don't have libraries. Our own library in El Salvador was partially destroyed. But we've seen one thing very clearly: You cannot be a believer in God today in this world if you do not take oppression seriously.

What is at stake here is not theology. It is not whether you go from existentialist theology to liberation theology or to process theology. What is at stake here is faith and humanity.

This problem is not only for Christians but for any human being. I don't know how you can be a human being on this planet today if this growing oppression and poverty is not your central issue. I don't know how we can avoid being ashamed of our being human beings if we don't take this as the central problem of our human family.

Sojourners: Your critics say that liberation theologians are tying your theology to a political agenda which will not be liberating but is in fact oppressive. They say that it's been proven that Marxist, socialist regimes have not liberated the poor; that the only thing that liberates the poor is a free market economy.

Sobrino: The assumption that liberation theology is tied to Marxism is false. Of course liberation theologians usually know Marx's writings, and they see in Marx -- I say Marx, not necessarily Lenin -- useful tools to understand why poor countries are in bad shape. I also think Marx's idea of looking at reality from below is important. But that doesn't mean that they are Marxist and that their ideal for a future society is a communist society.

Now, it has certainly not been proven that capitalism is the solution for the poor. I don't like capitalistic solutions because they are very dehumanizing. I am not saying that other possible solutions aren't dehumanizing; that's the human condition. But I don't like development in a country which ends up in individualism, consumerism and drugs -- a society in which you might have something to eat, but life loses its meaning. In Latin America we have capitalism from Mexico to Argentina and economists say that the situation is getting worse for the poor.

That of course brings us to the very difficult problem of looking for a solution. Ignacio Ellacuria, one of the Jesuits who was killed, was very creative and also knew much more about economics than I do. He never said that either capitalism or Marxism was the answer. The point, he said, is to be creative, to find new models. That's what our university tried to do.

Ellacuria used to say that what we need is not a civilization of capital, but a civilization of work. That is very difficult because capitalism rewards efficiency and selfishness. It's based on those values. And of course all of us have that behavior within us; that's why capitalism is to some degree successful. But capitalism has not found solutions for the majority. In order for a small percentage of the world's population -- maybe 20 percent -- to have more than enough -- abundance -- as well as freedom and human rights, the majority of humankind has to starve, has to be deprived of human rights, deprived of dignity.

Sojourners: So liberation theology is more than simply saying the church should use a different economic analysis. You believe that much of the theology of the First World has been part of the cover-up of the sins of the world, and that we need to understand theology in a more biblical way, with the incarnation as the center.

Sobrino: Well I think that, objectively, this is the case. That doesn't mean, of course, that people -- theologians, Christians, bishops -- wanted the cover-up. But I think this is what has happened, and not only in the First World.

The gospel, by definition, is "good news." The most important thing that the people in the church can do is not so much to be an expert in economical or political analysis -- though that, of course, is important -- but to have the conviction that the gospel of Jesus is good for humankind. As simple as that sounds, having this conviction is very challenging. The temptation is to go from the gospel of Jesus to a doctrine. I can understand that we have to have doctrines. But when you go from one to another, you can lose the essentials.

To be a Christian today in our world is to look a little bit like Jesus. The task is not simply to imitate him; we can't do that for many reasons. It is to take seriously the reality of creation, to make this so-called option for the poor, to be really compassionate and merciful and to make something ultimate out of that mercy and compassion.

If the churches are not built around this central message of the life and presence of Jesus of Nazareth, then they are simply religious institutions with doctrines and ideologies. Archbishop Romero changed Salvadoran society not because he was an analyst, but because he was convinced that there is a God and that we have to please God. He believed that it is good that there is a God of love, of tenderness, of mercy for the poor, and that this is good news for this world of ours. If you have that conviction, then you act in a different way. The poor find hope; they find meaning.

I also used to say that long before the church made an option for the poor, the poor in Latin America made an option for the church. The poor have so much against them: Governments are against the poor; armies are against the poor; the wealthy are by definition against the poor; and many universities, churches, and cultures are against the poor. Why do the poor make an option for the church? They have found, perhaps subconsciously, that a church which keeps Jesus of Nazareth alive will be for them. That is good news for them.

Sojourners: You've been reflecting on the fascination in this country with events in Eastern Europe. It seems a mistake for the political leaders here to see a vindication in the events in the East instead of a prophecy of how history will overtake us as well.

Sobrino: Personally, I'm really happy about the recent events in Eastern Europe, not because socialism has been proven wrong and capitalism has been proven right. I think what has happened in Eastern Europe is that this type of socialist country came to be against history, anachronistic. Once you have reached a minimum level of survival, then it becomes obvious that we human beings want to be free.

The poverty we have in the Third World, which is also not free, is even more anachronistic. But I think it's much more difficult to make the world understand this. It will take more time, more work, and more commitment to transform a poor world.

What I hope won't happen -- now that East and West are coming closer together -- is that both blocs will find it very helpful for them to work together among themselves economically, and that it will lead to ignoring the Third World even more.

Sojourners: Isn't what's happening in the church of the poor the only future the church really has? Isn't our only future always to go back to Jesus?

Sobrino: I am convinced of that. Throughout the centuries there have always been movements which could be called the church of the poor. All great saints, especially in crisis times -- whether Francis of Assisi or Ignatius -- have the same insight: Let's go back to Jesus and to his poverty. Wealth, abundance, power, and privilege are not the places for Christian faith. That's what history shows.

The miracle is that 20 centuries after Jesus, in this case in Latin America, this has been rediscovered. That means that the gospel has a power of its own.

The powerful of this world, including the churches, so often have tried to suffocate the basic message of the gospel. But as long as there are groups -- even small ones -- who again preach the beatitudes and the parable of the final judgment, then there is hope.

Sojourners: In the world, authority comes from wealth or a position of power; but from the gospel point of view, authority comes from suffering in some way. There's a paradox in the fact that a tiny country that has suffered so much, named "the Savior," is somehow being offered almost sacramentally for the salvation of the world.

Sobrino: The sacramental aspect of El Salvador is clear. I have often compared the Salvadoran people to the Suffering Servant of Yahweh.

The most obvious connection is death on the cross. But second, El Salvador sacramentalizes the responsibility of the world because, as in the case of the servant, the poor people in El Salvador are innocent. Their basic sin is that they are poor.

The third connection is faith. It is said that the servant was put by God as a light for the nations. Is it possible that light can come into the world from El Salvador? I am absolutely convinced that it is. As these Jesuits so often said, we see more from below than from the top.

As it is said of the servant, the poor of El Salvador offer salvation. Within the text of Isaiah we have a theoretical model of how the Suffering Servant can be salvation and expiation. And when we have approached this servant of God -- the Salvadoran people -- when we have tried to be with them, salvation has come upon us.

What does salvation mean? That our lives and our faith make sense. Deep sense. The Salvadoran people convey grace to us. As in the case of sin, I don't know what theologians in the First World do with grace. Grace is something we receive unexpectedly and undeservedly. And in general, the anthropologies of the First World are based on the opposite: Salvation is what you achieve. And this notion of grace, at least historically speaking, is difficult to grasp.

But that's what you experience in El Salvador. These people are grace for us in a very specific way: They forgive us, not by absolving us of sin, but by accepting us.

I'll always remember something I read a long time ago: Only he or she who has experienced himself or herself as forgiven can understand himself or herself as a sinner. In El Salvador you really experience that you belong to this sinful world but are simultaneously forgiven. And that is the experience of grace and salvation.

Sojourners: My friend, you are very vulnerable. Your brothers were killed in the house where you were living while you were gone. What does your vulnerability mean for your future as a theologian, as a Christian, and as a human being?

Sobrino: When I heard the news of the killings, obviously it came to my mind how vulnerable I am. But that thought soon disappeared. For me, what is more important is the question of where to get the strength to go on.

I see the Salvadoran people striving for so many years and being crushed so often. And now it seems we must start all over again.

How to really go on? These days a quote from the book of Micah has often come to mind. In a very solemn moment, the prophet says, "It has been declared to you what is good and right, what God expects from you: that you do justice and love kindness and that you walk humbly with God."

The first part is absolutely clear. No matter what has happened to these Jesuits, no matter what could happen to us, it is absolutely clear we have to work for justice; otherwise we cease to be human.

The second part is more obscure. How do we interpret walking humbly with God in history? I remember the great love shown by these Jesuits and so many others, or I look at the faces of poor people, and then walking in history makes sense. Faith means trying to do justice in the world -- which we do by walking with God in history, and walking towards God.

So my main question has not been my vulnerability, but rather how to go on. Where do I get the strength to go on working in a world which is so tragic and so absurd? There is an answer for that: Remember Jesus of Nazareth and remember these people. Look at the poor, and you feel carried by them.

A World According to the Heart of God

FOLLOWING IS AN EXCERPT from a letter written by Jon Sobrino to the Sisters of Saint Agnes. Maureen Courtney, a member of their community, was slain in Nicaragua in an ambush on New Year's Day, along with Teresa de Jesus Rosales, a Nicaraguan sister.

As you perhaps know, I am a Jesuit who lived in the same community as the six Jesuits who were assassinated in El Salvador on November 16. I was in Thailand, and for that reason I am alive today. I'm telling you this because I understand your feelings now. I suppose they are a mix of pain, indignation, gratitude, and love. That is what I experienced.

But, little by little, as time passes, that which remains is a large sense of gratitude for all those who have given their lives for our brothers and sisters, the poor. Now that includes Maureen Courtney and Teresa de Jesus Rosales. It is tragic, but beautiful, to live and to die like Jesus, and like the poor of our Central American countries.

Although you cry now, I hope that you will feel the joy of the beatitude: "Blessed are you when they persecute you for the reign of God." I pray that you continue working for the poor of this world. And I hope that you remain hopeful. For me, personally, it wasn't easy in the beginning, but later this thought gave me a firm sense of conviction: "Where there is great love, there hope lives and grows."

The love that your sisters have demonstrated has been great, and for that reason I pray that your hope will be great also. Women religious -- North Americans and Nicaraguans -- have changed in the face of your love and your courage; perhaps more than through anything men have ever done.

To all of your congregation, I wish to say that it is important that the blood of North Americans and Central Americans has been mixed: It is a sign of the universality of love, which is the best that we Christians and followers of Jesus can offer this cruel world. And to the North American sisters in particular, I wish to say that these martyrs are the best gift of your church and your country to us.

From your country, some send arms and destruction; we know that. But others send their solidarity, their time, their work, and their life; everyone knows how many men and women from the United States have been expelled from El Salvador in these days for their work with the poor. And others send us the best, their greatest love, which is the gift of their lives.

I am happy that the United States is forming a tradition of Christian martyrs -- from Martin Luther King Jr., the four missionaries of 1980, and now Maureen Courtney. In this also lies the future of your own church, and the solidarity between all the churches and all the countries of the world, to create a world more human, a world according to the heart of God.

If you have occasion to speak with the families of Maureen and Teresa, give them, please, my words of consolation and gratitude, and tell them that even within their pain they will feel the joy of having martyrs in the family, witnesses of God's faithful love in this cruel world -- witnesses, especially, to the mercy and tenderness of God toward the poor and humble. I believe that what I have said I can say in the name of many people, certainly in the name of the poor of Nicaragua whom you serve like brothers and sisters. And also in the name of the Jesuits of El Salvador, Central America, and all the world, who have experienced these same events.

Accept our prayers and our love. Do not fear. May God bless you and always accompany you in your lives.