Rising Up From the Violence

Those who commit the violence of repression believe they are stopping something.

In reality, they are starting something.

The brutal massacre of six Jesuit priests, their cook, and her 15-year-old daughter in El Salvador has sent a bolt of lightning through the North American churches. "It is our wake-up call," one church leader told me.

Martyrdom always has the capacity to awaken faith and conscience. In this case, the response has been enormous. "It feels like a movement for the first time," said one church worker long involved with El Salvador. Without central organization or direction, countless memorial services, vigils, fasts, demonstrations, and nonviolent civil disobedience have occurred in so many places and with such strong support that no one can keep track of it all.

The Salvadoran military has quite literally declared war on the church of the poor in its country. U.S. denominations have been directly hit as their own church workers have been arrested, attacked, threatened with death, and forced out of the country. Lutherans, Episcopalians, Mennonites, Baptists, Catholics, and others have all been targeted by El Salvador's right-wing military forces, which are in control of the country.

Long-time friend Scott Wright is one of the North American church workers recently forced to leave El Salvador. Upon a visit to Washington, D.C., he shared his own testimony with me.

On November 30, uniformed members of the Salvadoran government's Treasury Police arrested me, three Salvadoran church workers, and a Spanish priest in our parish house in San Salvador. We were driven to Treasury Police headquarters in a police vehicle and an unmarked car with polarized windows and three heavily armed men in civilian dress from the death squads. We were not told why we were being detained.

At Treasury Police headquarters, the priest and I were blindfolded, hand-cuffed, and forced to remain standing all night. I realized this was preferential treatment when I heard the screams of others being beaten and tortured. We were not charged with any crime.

We were then taken to the National Police headquarters and accused of collaborating with the FMLN guerrillas. When I replied, "No, that's not true, I work as a lay missionary with the Archdiocese of San Salvador," they told me, "But we know the bishops are terrorists," and they threatened to take me for a ride in a helicopter and throw me out. After four days in detention, I was forced to leave the country.

What has become clear is that working for the poor in El Salvador can be a capital offense. Gospel compassion and a public commitment to justice are considered subversive and treasonous by the Salvadoran regime, and Christians get killed because of it. Indeed, more church workers have been killed in El Salvador than in any country in the world these last 10 years.

Because this is the same regime that the Bush administration calls a democracy and supplies with 1.5 million dollars' worth of military aid every day, responsibility is being placed where it belongs -- in Washington. The blood of the martyrs leaves a chilling trail from the hands of the death squads to the door of the White House.

Jesuits, returned missionaries from El Salvador, and church workers from every denomination were arrested December 2 while kneeling in prayer on the White House sidewalk, pleading for an end to the killing. The police confiscated the wooden crosses bearing the names of the six slain Jesuits and the two women, along with photographs of their horrible deaths. Even veteran police officers were visibly moved by the pictures of such unspeakable violence. When we were released, the crosses and photos were respectfully returned to us and more than one officer remarked, "You have a good cause."

IT WAS THE SAME STORY around the country. I visited the Salvadorans and North Americans fasting in the Catholic cathedral in St. Paul, Minnesota since Thanksgiving, who also called for an end to U.S. military aid. They were experiencing tremendous support from the local community, and the issue of El Salvador had become front-page news.

House Speaker Tom Foley had called the fasters to promise a fight against military aid in the next session of Congress beginning in January, and Minnesota Gov. Rudy Perpich visited late one night. After listening to the Salvadoran testimonies, Perpich pledged to express his opposition to military aid to El Salvador and to write the other 49 governors asking them to join him.

On December 10, 3,000 people joined the fasters for a vigil in the cathedral. The water-only fast was ended the next day. "We have seen a serious response from political and religious leaders, along with a tremendous outpouring of support from Minnesotans and others throughout the country," the fasters' statement said.

Brian Jaudon from Sojourners attended a Hartford, Connecticut church service in support of Jennifer Casolo, accused by the Salvadoran government of hiding arms for the rebels and held in a notorious San Salvador prison for 18 days. The huge cathedral was packed to overflowing with more than 5,000 people from Jennifer's home state who believed the charges against her were a lie. Three days later Jennifer was released and forced to leave El Salvador. Here, too, the issue of El Salvador is a daily news story.

More fasts are being planned for other churches and cathedrals. The air is full of talk of new initiatives, actions, and responses, both in the churches and in the political arena. The reconvening of Congress in January is sure to be a focal point. The churches have been aroused, and political leaders in Washington and San Salvador have just begun to feel what such an awakening could mean.

In so many of the services and vigils for El Salvador, the words of slain Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero were invoked. "I don't believe in death without resurrection. If they kill me, I will rise again in the Salvadoran people," he said. That prophecy has been fulfilled in El Salvador. With the deaths of the most recent martyrs and the 70,000 mostly poor people murdered in El Salvador in the last decade, the prophet's words appear to be rising up right here in the United States.

El Salvador means "the Savior." The Savior is being crucified. The U.S. government is supplying the crosses and the nails. We pray for a resurrection, not only in El Salvador, but here. The lives of those who have fallen will not be in vain.

Jim Wallis is editor-in-chief of Sojourners.