A Vocation of Resistance

The fundamental element of this pastoral approach [of accompaniment] has been to be with the people, to eat with them, to sleep under the same stars and storms, to be persecuted like them, to resist like them. That is why, when they burned the communities, I escaped with the people....

The next day, because it was Sunday, we had a Mass with the community that was fleeing through the jungle. We spread the altar cloth upon a tarp on the ground. In speaking of the gospels, we remembered the beatitudes: Blessed are the persecuted for of them is, already is, the kingdom of heaven. If these words are subversive, then blessed be the subversive gospel.

- Ricardo Falla, S.J., from an open letter to the Guatemalan people, published in the Guatemalan newspaper La Hora.

Sojourners: You have spoken about your pastoral work in the context of resistance. What does this mean given the current situation in Guatemala?

Ricardo Falla: Here, the reality is that Ixcan is a war zone, an area where there is war between the army and the URNG [rebel guerrillas], and more concretely with the EGP, which is the name of the guerrillas of that particular area.

But another part of the reality is that there are civilians, communities. So what are these people striving for? They are struggling for survival, struggling for their land, struggling for their own organization, and so on. All this you can call resistance.

The word "resistance" is not a word they originally used. It was first used at the end of 1983. Originally they just said aguantar--"sustaining," or "holding on," which is more of a neutral word. These people are trying to survive. But they are also trying to do this in the context of all of Guatemala. They are not just living there and struggling for their own piece of land; they have a relationship with the change of the whole society.

The way we have tried to understand resistance is that it is a gift. Otherwise, we do not throw the light of faith into the reality of the struggle. It is very important that we see this struggle, this resistance, as the grace of God, as a gift from God, so that nobody is forced to be there [in the CPRs] if they don't want to be. Not only because of political reasons, but because it is a vocation to be there.

Sojourners: Accompaniment is another element of your pastoral work. Would you talk about the biblical case for accompaniment in relation to your walk with the people of the CPRs?

Falla: The concept of accompaniment comes from Monsignor Oscar Romero. The fundamental point in the pastoral work of resistance is accompaniment, or "to be with." To be with the people. Then you can see how you are going to study the Word of God, and you can see how you are going to make your sacraments, and so on. The fundamental point is to be with the people.

Ignatius, in his spiritual exercises, says that we should pray to know, to love, and to follow our Lord who became human for us. These three different elements are tied together. You cannot love if you don't know, you cannot follow if you don't love.

To be with the people is to ask for this grace to know them. Because this is my Jesus, this is my Christ in this moment--these people, these women. To know them means to talk to them, to hear them, to understand their plight, to understand their points of view. To love them.

And then to follow them. That even means physically going with them because when we leave the communities under emergency plans, I am not the one who will lead. I am the one who is behind them, who is going where they go. If I left by myself in the jungle, I would get lost and starve to death.

I also try to follow them all I can in their lives. Of course, this has limitations. I cannot work as they do. I am already 60. I try to go with them to do some agricultural work, but I don't know how to work with the machete. After four hours, I don't have the strength. So I cannot follow them there.

But on the other hand, my mission as a priest, and the mission of the church with the catechists, is to read the Word of God so that they also may know Jesus, may know the Lord, may love and learn to follow him. So I am learning from them, but I am also teaching them. I am learning how to know them, and how to love them and follow them, and I am teaching them how to know Christ, know and love him, and follow him.

The essential point of our teaching and study of God's Word is the life of Christ. So the resistance for us has been a Christocentric resistance. But that is accompaniment. "Come, and you will be with me," Christ says to his apostles.

Sojourners: Does the role of accompaniment also include the international community?

Falla: Of course. International accompaniment is needed right now, more than before. Right now it is very important because it is a great defense, though that should not be the only reason to go there.

If people go there for accompaniment reasons, they have to do something--collaborate, contribute to the work of the people. They will shake and rebuild the structure of that society that has never had so many people from the outside as they do now. So those who go have to be humble, they must have the same ideas and mentality of these people.

Sojourners: How has this whole experience of accompaniment in the resistance affected you? You are a different person now from the Ricardo Falla who went to the CPRs in the early 1980s.

Falla: It has made me more confident of the people and what they think. Sometimes they are talking about doing something. I think to myself, how is this possible? But if they see it, they will find a way to do it. I have been bathed in a baptism, bathed in them. This has renewed me.

Sojourners: What does the future hold for the CPRs? Will the Guatemalan military stop its repression of the CPRs and recognize them as a civilian population?

Falla: The CPRs will come out of the woods. They cannot be there forever. This year or next year--this will happen soon. There is an allegory used there: Noah made an ark. Our ark is the "holy jungle." We went in there. But Noah went there out of faith because he believed that if he didn't get into the ark, the holy jungle, he wouldn't save the lives of his children. He also had faith that he had to get out of there. Otherwise, he would have died.

So we also have faith. Now the dove has flown out, and is bringing in green leaves. You were the green leaf [the delegation that visited the communities]. People who accompany are green leaves, messages of life. The rain is going to stop, the flood will go down. That does not mean that we will become gods and suffer no more. Suffering will keep going on. But the time will come when [the CPRs] will be recognized and this repression will stop.

Then other problems will arise. The problems of not being isolated. The problems of market, of communication, of disillusion. The frontiers of the CPRs will be eroded, integration will occur. What will be left of the CPRs, I do not know. Maybe it will be like the grain of salt. It will dissolve itself, but it will give the water flavor.