On November 16, 1989, uniformed men attacked the Jesuit residence at the University of Central America in San Salvador, El Salvador, brutally killing six Jesuits, their cook, and her daughter. Jon Sobrino, S.J., an internationally known liberation theologian, had been a member of that Jesuit community for more than 15 years when this article appeared. He was out of the country the week of the assassinations; he surely would have been killed had he been in El Salvador.
On December 1, 1989, Sobrino spoke in San Francisco at an interfaith prayer service marking the ninth anniversary of the deaths of the four U.S. churchwomen in El Salvador and the recent martyrs. The following is excerpted from the remarks he made that evening. -- The Editors
I am a member of the Jesuit community which has now disappeared in El Salvador because my six brothers were assassinated. I also knew very well the four North American churchwomen who were assassinated nine years ago. In fact, in those days in 1980, I was in hiding with some others at the convent where the two Maryknoll sisters lived.
There is nothing more ecumenical than blood and love. The Jesuits, the Maryknoll sisters, and the other churchwomen were all persecuted equally. Catholics, Lutherans, Baptists, Episcopalians, and Mennonites are all being persecuted today in El Salvador.
Women and men have shed their blood -- people from El Salvador, from Spain, and from the United States. People from different confessions, from different faiths, from different places, are united in their soul, as we all are by the tragedy in El Salvador and also by the hope and the commitment of the martyrs.
We all know why these people ended in the cross, why they were killed. They dared "touch the idols of death," as we say in Latin America.
Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador defined idols as the accumulation of wealth and the doctrine of national security. Those who dare touch these idols get killed. Wealth and power cannot exist if other people do not die, if people do not suffer in powerlessness and poverty and without dignity.
My brother Jesuits touched the idols by telling the truth and unmasking the lies. We say there that the First World, the wealthy countries, cover up the greatest scandal in this world, which is the world itself. The existence of two-thirds of humankind dying in poverty is covered up. To tell the truth about the world, to unmask the lies about the world, is to touch the idols of the world.
WHEN WE TOUCH THE IDOLS of death, what happens? Speaking within the Christian and biblical traditions, we become like the Servant of God. If you read Isaiah 53, you'll see that mysterious figure of a human being who ends up without a human face, with a disfigured face.
That's the reality of the Salvadoran people. When I look at the pictures of my brothers, I see that they are also disfigured through torture and death. This Servant of God is so disfigured, Isaiah says, that people who pass by turn their heads away.
If we look face to face at the Suffering Servant of Yahweh, at the crucified people of today, we must ask ourselves one question: Are we responsible for that suffering?
The Servant of Yahweh was taken as impious, godless, blasphemous. Similar accusations have been made about my brother Jesuits, the churchwomen, and so many others: They have been called communists, Marxists, atheists.
The Servant of Yahweh was buried among the impious. Even in death, the Servant was deprived of dignity. We know what reality is like in El Salvador and in so many other countries. Mothers, wives, brothers, sisters spend their time looking for the corpses of their loved ones. At times, their corpses appear in clandestine cemeteries; other times, they disappear altogether.
It is said that the Servant of God was killed without pronouncing a word. People like Archbishop Romero, the voice of the voiceless, and others have been able to say a word about the Suffering Servant, a word of truth. But the majority of those who are killed die anonymously. They don't say a word.
It is said of the Servant of Yahweh that nobody came to his defense. There was no lawyer, no attorney general. Today, for most of the poor, there is no defender, no one who speaks up for them.
It is said that the Servant of God (for us Christians, Jesus of Nazareth) was innocent. What have the suffering servants of today done to deserve such suffering? So many thousands of poor peasants, women and men, have been tortured and killed -- what is their crime? Simply, their crime is that they are poor and they want to survive.
It is the abundance, the opulence, the unlimited power, the cravings for more and more and more in the First World which they are taking upon their shoulders. Since the resources of the earth are not unlimited, a small few accumulate possessions, while the majority do not have anything. It is our sins, not their sins, which they have taken upon themselves.
In the biblical faith of Isaiah and in our Christian faith, it is said that this Servant of Yahweh -- and today the crucified people of El Salvador and Guatemala and South Africa and so many other places -- have been placed by God as lights to the nations. This is a paradox.
We receive the light and see a bit more of the truth about the world and about ourselves. That light reveals that there is not just ignorance in this world -- people not knowing what is really going on in El Salvador -- but there is lying.
IT IS SAID THAT THE SERVANT OF YAHWEH brings salvation. It is scandalous to pronounce this word. Very often in El Salvador at the Masses for martyrs, I have experienced that we have joy; salvation was there. This time for me personally has been a little more difficult because I knew the men so well, but it is true that these people bring salvation.
If we are really human beings; if we are really Christians and believers in God; if we take seriously that salvation is possible for us; if we take seriously that we should bring salvation to others; and if we take seriously that the meaning of our lives depends on whether we bring salvation to others or not -- we can be convinced of this simple thing: that the Servant of God, the crucified people of today, the martyrs of the faith, the four churchwomen, and my brother Jesuits bring us salvation.
Why? Because what moved them was a great love. What made them stay in El Salvador, what enabled them to take so many risks, was mercy and compassion toward the crucified people.
Wherever there is love -- real love -- there is hope for the survivors. If we accept that amid the tragedy and sin of El Salvador, there are many, many people who have a great love, this is a message of salvation for us. It is good news. It helps us to keep on going. It means the resurrection is happening.
Archbishop Romero once said in one of his homilies, "I am very happy that priests are being murdered in El Salvador." He went on to say that it would be a very sad thing if, in a country where so many people are being assassinated, priests were not among them. If there are priests assassinated in El Salvador, it is because the church, our Christian faith, our faith in God, have become truly Salvadoran. When this happens -- when the identification of Christians and believers in God is so deep with the people that they suffer the same destiny of the people, in Christian words, when there has been a real incarnation -- then there has been a great love.
I end by saying, Do what you are doing, and do more. We have to do more. If you in this country keep working in whatever ways you can for the crucified peoples of the Earth -- in the United States, in El Salvador, wherever -- your lives will have more meaning; your faith will be more Christian; your hope will be stronger.
Give whatever you can to the Salvadoran people, the crucified people, and you will receive from them the gifts of faith, commitment, hope, and love.
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