4 posts tagged “el salvador”
In martyrs' footsteps
El Salvador sites a reminder of humanity's worst -- and best
The pilgrimage destination that remains the most powerful for me, however, is what I call Via Crucis or the Via Dolorosa of San Salvador, El Salvador. The capitol city of this small Central American country of 6.6 million people has at least four stations that pilgrims can visit: Divina Providencia, the city cathedral, the University of Central America and the central park.
Any pilgrim in San Salvador will go to the little hospital, Divina Providencia, where Archbishop Oscar Romero lived and was assassinated while he said Mass on March 24, 1980. In his little house of three rooms, one sees his vestments, stained with his blood, complete with the single hole of the bullet that ripped through his heart.
In 1994, his crozier still rested on his bed. I understood what it meant for medieval pilgrims to touch a relic: Romero's crozier was such a relic for me as I lovingly traced my fingers on the ivory medallion set in the middle of the staff. I always will associate gardenias with Romero's house because the sisters had a bowl of sweet-smelling gardenias in the hallway between the sitting room with the display cases of his belongings and his bedroom.
Pilgrims next go to the Catedral Metropolitana de San Salvador, where Romero's body lies. In 1994, the cathedral was still an unfinished building and closed to the public. At the time, Romero's body was upstairs. But in the late 1990s, when the cathedral was finished and repaired after the 1986 earthquake, his body was transferred to the downstairs crypt where it was laid in a large tomb. This tomb became a place of prayer, not just for foreign pilgrims, but also for Salvadorans.
Every time I have gone to Romero's tomb to pray, I have done so in the company of men, women and children. I have seen weeping people lay their heads on the tomb, children light votives at the foot of the tomb, and others hold hands as they pray out loud. I always found strength by placing my hands on his tomb. Romero's presence still is very alive for Salvadorans -- they already call him "San Romero" as well as simply "Monseñor."
Memorial garden
After visiting the cathedral, pilgrims cross the capitol city to the University of Central America, where on November 16, 1989, six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter were shot to death with AK47s by the elite military corps of the Salvadoran Army, the Atlacatl Battalion. Their bodies were discovered in a garden behind their residence.
To this date, the garden blooms with hundreds of roses on the rose bushes that were planted alongside the memorial plaque with their names. Pilgrims typically pick up a rose petal or two to take home with them as a reminder of that holy place.
More recently, in the large central park of San Salvador, Parque Cuscatlán, a portion of the 75,000 disappeared or murdered war victims is remembered on a granite wall, Nombres para no olvidar (Names not to be forgotten), that is very reminiscent of the Vietnam Memorial. No one name stands out -- they all are etched in the same size font. The Anglican Episcopal Church of El Salvador, with help from members of the Diocese of Vermont, contributed to its construction.
Just as in Washington, D.C., people come to trace their loved one's name, to tape a plastic flower to the wall by the person's name or simply to walk the full length of the mural to take in the country's loss. At present, only 5,000 names are up; there are at least eight blank panels for future additions as the money is raised.
Wherever one travels in El Salvador, one can feel the blood of the martyrs seeping up through the dusty dirt. I always have been reminded of the Hebrew rendering for "bloodshed" [damîm], which is simply the word, "blood" (dam) put into the plural, as though the millions of drops of blood spilled onto the land of El Salvador have multiplied into a cry that one feels by traveling to these sites of remembrance.
My life has been altered by discovering these pilgrimage places. Consequently, as long as I am able to return to El Salvador, I will return to these places, because they remind me of what it means to witness to God. They remind me of the worst of humankind's actions -- the capacity to kill; and the best of humanity's actions -- the capacity to forgive. They remind me of the great communion of saints, "the whole family of God, the living and the dead, those whom we love and those whom we hurt, bound together by Christ and sacrament, prayer and praise" (BCP, Catechism, 862). They are bound to me as I to them.
Editor's note: General Convention meeting in Columbus, Ohio, last year approved for trial use the feast day of Oscar Romero and the martyrs of El Salvador, March 24.
CRISTOSAL in El Salvador
by George Woodward (from Episcopal News)
Salvador Gómez Góchez arrived in in 1980, fleeing with his family as it became clear they were otherwise unlikely to survive the long civil war in . He built a life here, became a citizen, and joined Trinity Episcopal Church, Los Angeles; but ties to remained strong. Today, Mr. Gómez is Director of the Salvadoran American National Association, an organization dedicated to the preservation of Salvadoran cultural heritage and the recognition of the contributions of Salvadoran Americans in the United States. As with the many immigrant waves of previous generations, Salvadorans wish to celebrate their identity even as they participate fully in American life.
The Episcopal Church has provided Salvador Gómez with spiritual integration, guidance and foundation as he has bridged the land of his youth with the country of his adult life. In addition to his commitment to Trinity Church, Los Angeles, he supports the Diocesan World Mission Group efforts in El Salvador, helping to coordinate the Companion Relationship between our two Dioceses, and he serves on the Board of Directors for Cristosal (www.cristosal.org) a Vermont based organization of Canadian Anglicans and American Episcopalians furthering the work of the Anglican Church in El Salvador.
During a meeting of Cristosal this month in San Salvador, the board traveled with the Most Reverend Martín Barahona, Primate of Central America and Bishop of El Salvador, to the recently completed Anglican Village of El Maizal in the province of Usulutan. There Salvador Gómez, head shrouded in a towel against the strong sun, toured through the agricultural projects and the thirty new houses constructed by Episcopal Relief and Development on the one hundred acres of land belonging to the based diocese. The World Mission Group of the Diocese of Los Angeles organized contributions of over $45,000 to the project in 2006, sponsoring eleven of the thirty completed homes with donations coming from many of our missions, parishes and deaneries. The area now offers a medical clinic which the diocesan physician visits every eight days, a kitchen and dormitory area for visiting groups, the nearly complete Anglican Church of Divina Providencia, and a recreational area for youth, including a soccer field and a new swimming pool recently given by Bishop J. Jon Bruno.
That evening a group of thirty or so of the new residents of El Maizal made their way to the patio outside of the dormitory area where the Cristosal delegation was staying. They wanted to make their gratitude known, and to share stories of how the Episcopal Church had brought transformation to their lives. “There was no hope for me or any of my children,” said a woman named . “We lived without electricity or access to water in a shack held together with plastic bags. My children had never been to school. Now, for the first time, we have a future.”
Bishop Martín Barahona leads a diocese of seventeen congregations, thirteen priests, an active group of lay ministers, and about three thousand parishioners. Founded by British Anglicans in the early 1930s and ceded as a missionary district to the Episcopal Church in the 1950s, elected its first full-time Salvadoran bishop in the 1990s. The Diocese faces many financial challenges following the decision of the to move the Diocese of Central American to full independence. Barahona was consecrated Bishop of El Salvador in 1992, and Primate of the Anglican Church of the Region of Central America (IARCA) in 2002. He has overseen dramatic growth in the Anglican Church in and is widely respected for his work on behalf of the Gospel of Christ, the poor and the voiceless, marking the Church in as a community of reconciliation ready to serve wherever there is need. He has marked the larger Church as well, participating in the consecration of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire, and has been aggressive in his support of the American Episcopal Church among the Primates of the Anglican Communion.
The Anglican/Episcopal Church and the in have enjoyed a long history of joint ministry and cooperation reflecting the same spirit which has led to full Communion between the two denominations in the . In a sad expression of that shared ministry, members of CRISTOSAL dedicated one day of their meeting for a journey to distant Jayaque. On November 4th of last year the Reverend Francisco Carrillo and his wife, the Reverend Jesus Calzada de Carrillo, co-pastors of the in Jayaque, were assassinated following an evening service at their parish.
The shooting occurred in Colonia Dos de Mayo as Francisco locked the church and walked to the truck where his wife and two passengers were waiting. Witnesses said three young men on bicycles appeared and shot the couple to death, leaving their passengers unharmed. According to one of the witnesses, the killers were members of the Diez y Ocho gang from the nearby communities of Tsu-chi and Llano Verde. The police did not arrive to make inquiry until more than forty-eight hours after the murders, and there is widespread speculation that the killers were hired in reprisal for the Carrillo’s aggressive human rights work among the people of the communities they served. To date no formal investigation has been launched.
Salvadoran Lutheran Bishop Medardo Gómez joined the representatives from CRISTOSAL, including the Martín Barahona, the Right Reverend Gladstone “Skip” Adams, Episcopal bishop of Central New York, the Right Reverend Thomas Ely, Episcopal bishop of Vermont, and the Very Reverend Richard Bower, Director of CRISTOSAL, in the caravan of vehicles traveling along dirt roads from the capital of San Salvador to the isolated community of Jayaque. Lutheran parishioners greeted the entourage with song and the community gathered for prayer and tribute before the Anglican/Episcopal contingent placed a floral memorial at the base of the crosses marking the site of the assassinations.
The service at Pan de Vida Lutheran Church was a poignant reminder for Salvador Gómez of the assassinations endemic in the years of war in El Salvador, of the ties that bind Los Angeles to this Central American nation, and of the challenges faced by the Church as it strives for the poor and voiceless in a land that has for too long known too little hope. “It has been a hard struggle,” Gómez said, “but thanks be to God, I am seeing progress.”
Those who wish to know more about the Anglican Church in may contact the Diocesan World Mission Group, go to the Spanish language website for the Diocese of at http://elsalvador.anglican.org , or may visit the English language CRISTOSAL website at http://cristosal.org.
(The Reverend George Woodward is Chair of the Diocesan World Mission Group, a member of the Board of Directors for Cristosal, and Rector of St. Edmund’s in San Marino)
The Reverend Amy Denny has served since August 2005 as Rector of San Andres Anglican Church in Soyapango, El Salvador, arriving there on a Fulbright Scholarship with her husband Vince Zuniga immediately upon completing seminary at Yale. Canonically resident in Northern California, she and Vince are official missionaries of the Episcopal Church.
Amy is now involved in expanding her successful school, Colegio Episcopal San Andres Apostol, serving the underprivileged children of the surrounding barrios. The school presently has 120 students spanning kindergarten through Middle School. With the support of the Bishop of El Salvador, she has placed an “earnest” of $5,000 toward the purchase the structure across the street from the parish for school use, and the school is presently using the five additional classrooms provided by this new building.
Full purchase price is $40,000. The World Mission Group of the Diocese of Los Angeles would like to support the Reverend Amy Denney and her parish in this project, and have received a lead gift of $11,000 from the Reverend Greg Frost and his parishioners at and St. Cross Granada Hills.
Gifts in any amount toward the following may be made to CRISTOSAL (San Andres Project) and mailed to the Reverend George Woodward at St. Edmund’s, P.O. Box 80038, San Marino, CA. 91118. Gifts are tax deductible, and receipts will be provided:
Purchase of the Building: $35,000
False ceilings: $1,300
Ceiling Fans: $200
Desks and White Boards: $1,000
Speed bumps, crosswalk and signage: $2,500
HUMAN RIGHTS DIRECTOR
by George Woodward reprinted from Episcopal News
José López, the Director of the Human Rights Office for the Diocese of El Salvador recently visited Trinity Episcopal Church, Los Angeles, and St. Edmund’s, San Marino.
José was born in Zapotal Chalatenango in the North of El Salvador near the Honduran border, an area of fierce fighting during the Civil War of the 1970s and 1980s and the site of the Masacré del Rio Sumpul, the Massacre of the River Sumpul, when Salvadoran government troops massacred over 3,000 peasants. José was six years old, and even then knew himself fortunate not to have lost immediate family members.
His father was a subsistence farmer and a road laborer, and lost his life on a road crew as José was about to enter his teens. After completing seventh grade, José left school to work and help support his family. When his mother lost one of her legs and was prevented from working, José moved her to the capital city of San Salvador, where in 1991 just before the signing of the peace accords, at age nineteen, he found work as a driver and body-guard for the Anglican Bishop of El Salvador. With the bishop’s encouragement, José began studying for his High School Equivalency in 1993, continuing on to University and then on to while working full time for the Diocese.
José became a committed Christian during this time, and was received into the Anglican (or Episcopal) Church. He considered taking Holy Orders but decided to study law, and developed a vision, together with the bishop, of an office of Human Rights advocating for the many that need such advocacy in El Salvador. That office opened three years ago, supported by ongoing gifts from St. Edmund’s, San Marino, St. Mary’s, Kerisdale, Vancouver, and All Saints’, Wolfeboro, New Hampshire.
José works on immigration issues, assisting the 70 to 140 returning Salvadorans deported each week from the United States, and also with refugees from South America, and particularly Columbia, who have fled to
El Salvador . He works on gang and prison issues, in the area of women’s rights and domestic violence, and offers pro-bono legal assistance to Church and non-Church members alike. He is involved in educational efforts to expand understanding of Constitutional Rights and Human Rights, and serves as the Diocesan Lawyer, regularizing the property deeds of our churches, over half of which were in danger of having their land confiscated by the government just a few years ago. He administers the Diocesan scholarship program for young people, and, this year, when the United Nations entered into partnership with the Anglican Church, became the supervisor for the UN Officer for Refugees in . In his spare time, he works with the young people of his parish church, San Juan Evangelista in .
