By Scott Wright
Pax Christi USA Ambassador of Peace
Ignatian Volunteer Corps
Advent in El Salvador is a season that evokes many memories for me, and specific times and communities over the years dating back to the years of the war and continuing to last week with fellow pilgrims from the SHARE Foundation and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) to commemorate the 45th anniversary of the martyrdom of the four churchwomen.
We journeyed first to Chalatenango, where the bishop joined us at the site where Maryknoll sisters Maura Clarke and Ita Ford are buried (along with Sr. Carla Piette, who died in a drowning accident in August 1980), and then in La Libertad where Dorothy Kazel, Jean Donovan, Maura, and Ita were killed on December 2, 1980 by the Salvadoran military. (Dorothy and Jean are both buried in the US.)
In many ways these four women are the thread, tinged with red, that weaves itself through our journey here and invite us to return to this land of prophets and martyrs.
Their blood cries out today against the cruel repression that has imprisoned 85,000 in the largest maximum security prison in Latin America, more than half of whom, according to Tutela Legal and other human rights organizations, are innocent.
At the site where the four women were murdered and where we celebrated an anniversary Mass, Maryknoll Fr John Spain, who was there the day their bodies were discovered, recalled that the beautiful conacaste trees that towered above us and provided shade with their branches have deep roots that were nourished by the blood of these four martyred women.
It is a reminder of how the beauty of the Gospel is nourished by the life, passion, and death of Christ who was so cruelly crucified, only to give new life to those who continue to this day to bear witness so that the fullness of justice and peace we await in this Advent season may flourish.
I think of the community of Santa Marta whom we met on our journey, and their journey these past 45 years, and remember when they fled as a community across the Lempa River into Honduras, under artillery and helicopter fire of the Salvadoran military. It was a baptism by fire for them, and for those of us who encountered them in those days.
Now, nearly 45 years later, they are at the center of the struggle of rural communities in El Salvador to oppose metallic mining, and like the four churchwomen, and like their fellow water defenders in Honduras Berta Caceres and Juan Lopez, they too have paid a price with the murder of members of their community.
As we heard the testimony of the water defenders from Santa Marta, we could not help but admire the deep communal roots of their struggle to defend the sacred lands and sacred waters of their homes in Cabañas, and imagine the Lenca roots that cross national boundaries. We recalled as well how these indigenous territories have given birth to some of the most emblematic nonviolent social movements to protect their lands and waters against the immense power of global extractive industries and corrupt governments.
During this season of Advent, our journey in El Salvador has made very present the dream of the prophet Isaiah, who spoke words of hope to a similar people in exile and declared:
“You shall beat swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they train for war anymore.”
On the final day of our pilgrimage, we visited El Mozote, the site of the largest massacre of civilians by the Salvadoran military during the civil war, a war that killed 75,000 people before the peace accords were signed in 1992.
During these weeks of Advent, nearly 45 years ago, on December 11-13, 1981, 1,000 people in El Mozote and surrounding villages – half of them children – were murdered and the women raped by the Atlacatl Batallion, a Salvadoran military unit trained by the US Army School of the Americas which received, along with other units, millions of dollars of US military aid during the 12 years of the war.
As I interpreted for the family members of the victims of the massacre in El Mozote, and looked over the site of the garden where the children were killed, and the hill where the young women were raped and murdered, I could not help but be moved by the determination and courage of a new generation of Salvadorans who carry on the struggle for justice and for the fullness of life passed on to them by their forebears.
This year, as in past years, people will gather from communities in Morazan and neighboring areas to commemorate the anniversary of the massacre. In doing so, they keep alive both the historic memory as well as the prophetic hope of the Salvadoran people who by their daily courage and joy offer to a world weary of oppression and war a witness of nonviolent resistance, defiant hope, and costly solidarity.
And like the Gospel witness of the four churchwomen – Maura, Ita, Dorothy, and Jean – the people and communities we met with during this season of Advent in this beautiful land of El Salvador provide a scattering of seeds, with deep roots of struggle for justice, that yearn to flourish, just like those conacaste trees where the four churchwomen were killed, bearing witness to a Gospel peace where all are welcome at the table of creation, and nations shall not train for war anymore.