This year’s Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice in Columbus, Ga., which coincided with the annual commemoration of the victims of the School of the Americas graduates in Ft. Benning, Ga., was especially inspiring. More than 25 Loyola students and staff participated in the Ignatian Solidarity Network program “A Fire that Kindles Other Fires” the weekend of Nov. 21-23.
Jesuit theologian Jon Sobrino came from El Salvador to join thousands from Jesuit institutions across the country to remember his six brother Jesuits, a domestic employee and her teenage daughter, who the graduates murdered on Nov. 16, 1989, at the University of Central America in San Salvador.
In his remarks, Sobrino prophetically denounced the idolatry of the marketplace that results in the exclusion and oppression of the poor. Recently a Loyola professor asserted that the Jesuit order has been “hijacked by a bunch of Marxists and liberation theologians.” It was not Karl Marx, but the liberating message of the gospel of Jesus Christ that Sobrino presented to us.
In his homily at the Eucharistic liturgy that concluded the teach-in, Rev. Doug Marcouiller, recalled the words of Rufina Almaya, the sole survivor of the 1981 El Mozote SOA massacre of 1,000 campesinos, children included. She said that because the Jesuits died in solidarity with us the war finally came to an end.
However, since the Salvadoran government has never seriously investigated the murders at University of Central America, a criminal complaint that names 14 members of the Salvadoran military and a former president has been filed in Spain. It accuses them of planning and covering up the murders. Accountability may help deter such heinous crimes in the future. Slandering the Jesuits will not.
The climax of the weekend to close the School of the Americas was the solemn funeral procession when we placed small crosses, each bearing the name of a victim, at the front gate of Ft. Benning. An elderly man being pushed along on a cart caught my attention. He turned out to be an 88-year-old Jesuit priest named William Brennan who traveled from Wisconsin to give his witness. He told me that he had befriended one of the murdered Jesuits during their studies together.
Since 1990, the Rev. Roy Bourgeois and the School of the Americas Watch team have persevered in focusing national attention on the infamy of the School of the Americas. Prospects for closing the school have improved because many of its congressional supporters were not re-elected.
Nevertheless, letters and phone calls need to be made to our congressional representatives and to President-elect Barack Obama to insist that the School of the Americas be closed. The Ignatian Solidarity Network continues to organize programs that seek to integrate faith with social justice. To get information on upcoming programs, go to http://www.ignatiansolidarity.net/.
The Rev. Peter J. Bernardi, S.J., is an associate professor of religious studies. He can be reached at [email protected].
