XX El Salvador An Advent Comedia

El Salvador – An Advent “Comedia”

Advent. Anticipation. Waiting. Silence. My Advent? Apprehension. I was drawn to make a journey, not to Bethlehem, but to El Salvador. Not to a particular place but, reluctantly, into the deep, dark recesses within me. In the manner of Dante. “Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,…” [When I had journeyed half of our life’s way, I found myself within a shadowed forest…] With such thoughts Dante began his comedia. Such journeys are anxiety-laden as this one was for me. An unfamiliar and oppressed people. Rising authoritarianism. A culture with which I was unacquainted. A language unknown. [Allen Mandelbaum, Inferno, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1980.]

What will I be shown? À la Dickens’ Scrooge, a Past? …a Present? …a possible Future? What will be required of me? What will I be asked to relinquish? What taken away from me? Anxious questions. Not readily answered.

1

El Salvador. A land of volcanoes. A land of contrasts. A land of martyrs. A land whose people cry out for justice as volcanoes have burst with torrents of lava-laced tears. Marked mountainsides with deep gullies like those on a mother’s face. She who has cried night and day over her children who are dead. Disappeared with no trace or shadow. The cone-shaped mountains stand silent across the flat landscape like a father’s stoic face against the heated emotions society has taught him to suppress.

El Salvador. A country and people named after The Saviour. And like the Saviour have been and continue to be crucified. The crucifix looms large in their churches. No hint of resurrection. The Saviour with his own suffering is present in the midst of the suffering of his sisters and brothers. Suspended in an eternal Good Friday. A Sabbath of waiting.

El Salvador. Why was I considering going to such a place? With having just entered an unexpected and unprepared-for retirement from active priestly ministry, what was I doing? Advice offered. Make no major commitments. Wait. Your future will come to you.

Was El Salvador to be a part of my future? Was the Spirit to be my companion as in the afterlife the Roman poet Virgil was for Dante?

It was the forty-fifth anniversary of the murders of Maryknoll missioners Sr. Ita Ford, MM and Sr. Maura Clarke, MM; of Maryknoll lay missioner Jean Donovan; and Ursaline Sister, Dorothy Kazel, OSU. Archbishop Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez had been murdered earlier that same year, 1980.

I would not be alone. I was going with a group sponsored by SHARE Foundation El Salvador and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious [LCWR]. Like cardinals gathering from around the world for a papal conclave, we would gather in San Salvador from across our country. I had never been to Central or South America. I checked the State Department website. El Salvador is not safe. SHARE had never had an incident involving any of their delegations, but…?

Prayer confirmed I should go. Prayer though does not calm our fears and anxieties. It invites us to discern the Spirit in the midst of our anxieties and fears. We want to be sure. I do. Uneasiness.

I decided to go.

2

As I walked off the plane, I saw an airport truck with the sign: FOLLOW ME. In John’s Gospel, those are the last words of Jesus to Peter. Why wasn’t it a construction truck? They post: DO NOT FOLLOW.

Traveling from the El Salvador International Airport Saint Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez to the Casa Antigua, it immediately struck me. How could it not? Walled, gated properties side by side. Residences. Shanties. Stores. Garages. Churches. Some newly-built. Most ramshackle. And all topped off with barbed, razor wire. Each property butted up against the next so that I felt I was being driven down a walled passage. The only place I’d seen barbed wire in our country was on the walls of county and state jails. It was as if every property were its own prison. It gave a new meaning to “gated community.” I live in a “gated community.” An apartment within a 100-year-old factory building that is surrounded by an iron fence and gates which at night need to be opened from within. Walls keep people in. Walls keep people out. Walls engender fear.

Whom are we afraid of? Whom am I afraid of?

Massive signs shouting at us. The sound was deafening. Pizza Hut. Burger King. Wendy’s. McDonald’s. KFC. Papa Johns!!! American consumerism hawked liked vendors in an outdoor market. Why? These US staples of fast food came fast and furious on every route. The American litany continued in the mini-marts. Doritos. Gatorade. Cheez-Its. Pepsi. Lay’s Potato Chips. Monster. The ubiquitous Coca Cola, that engulfs the planet. Dollar City. Sherwin-Willliams. Texaco. Valvoline. Shell. Black Frid… No! Black Week!

What are these corporations doing in this land where sixty percent of the people live at or below the poverty line? What are we exporting? Who is profiting from all this consumerism?

Wrap all this in Christmas. And what do you have? A bizarre merry-go-round spinning in my head. San Salvador decked in the green and red of a New England, Dickens, North Pole Christmas. Santa Claus. Snowmen. Reindeer. Evergreen trees. Sleighs. All artificial. All deceptive. All looking worn. Like the decorations shopping malls, businesses and people put up devoid of any meaning. It’s the “holidays!” Why in El Salvador is Christmas not enculturated; reinterpreted with a Latin flair?

Poverty. Consumerism. Fast Food. A “White Christmas.” All colliding in an outlandish nightmare.

What was this place to which I had journeyed? Why was I here?

3

“Roses in Winter.” A movie about lay missioner Jean Donovan.

Archbishop Romero. His Funeral Mass. Bombs. Machine gun rat-tat-tat-tats. People scattering. A shallow grave. Dragged by ropes. The four women missioner’s bodies. Congressional hearings. Difficult to watch.

What a way to begin Advent. Violence. Death. Burials. Lies.

At the heart of our Christian Faith is Passion. Cross. Death.

Even the Christmas Feast cannot escape the Cross. Christmas and a day. The Feast of Saint Stephen. Martyred. The Fourth Day of Christmas. The Feast of the Holy Innocents. Massacred. The Fifth Day of Christmas. The Feast of Thomas Becket. Archbishop. Murdered.

At the heart of our Christian Faith is Passion. Cross. Death.

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Seven years ago, proved to be an unusual Advent. Caring for my mother. I am not the care-giver type. She died on the solstice, the longest and darkest night of the year as I waited and listened. This Advent, my El Salvador Advent. I am again Waiting. Watching. Listening.

This First Sunday of Advent began in a cemetery in Chalatenango. A small walled city of the dead. Narrow avenues. Streets lined with tiled house-like sarcophagi. Houses of the Dead. El Salvador’s version of Cimetière du Père-Lachaise in Paris. Each reflecting the bright morning sun. Plastic decorations as for a holiday. Colourful. Bold. Neon green. Hot pink. Cherry reds. Eye-popping blues. Daisy yellows. Wreaths. Crosses. Garlands. Hung. Draped. A very festive place.

They are unlike our manicured green-lawned cemeteries with their low-profile ground-level markers. Nothing to remind the living of the dead or our own impending deaths.

We gathered at the entrance of this walled city where the living are strangers. Oswaldo Estéfano Escobar Aguilar, the Bishop of Chalatenango, our group and others. Led in with guitar and lively song to the graves of Maryknoll Sisters Ita Ford, Maura Clarke and Carla Piette. The three under one canvas of stone. Songs. Prayers. A Blessing.

I paused at Carla’s grave. I met Sr. Carla Piette through the monthly publication Give Us This Day. Her entry under the section entitled Blessed Among Us was the answer to my query as to whether I should go on this pilgrimage. Carla. Maryknoll Sister. Companion of Ita Ford. Driving near a rising and flooding river bank. Saved Ita. Others. She saved life as hers was taken from her. Drowned.

The Salvadorans speak not of four women missioners but of five, including Carla in their memory. Carla, why did you enter my life? Were you to exchange places with Virgil and be my Beatrice on this inner sojourn? What lessons are to be taught?

I found and read, prior to El Salvador, a brief biography of Carla, Vessel of Clay. Her lessons? From her letters.

• The Lord of the Way leads each day with no map and no clear weather but rather fog and total trust.

• [Try] to keep walking down this dark road without becoming as dark as the situation.

• I’m sure God hears our prayers – however, the waiting is getting to me a bit.

• There’s nothing stable to hold onto when one is forever moving.

• I hope I can be faithful to all I receive.

• It’s a marvelous thing to be on a journey, not knowing where you are going, especially if you trust the cabbie!

• I suggest change for anyone slipping into complacency!

• When you hold onto things that make you happy, they have the tendency to fade and crumble.

• The great Circus Master directs the show.

• The most necessary and difficult lesson to learn is how to receive affection or support – or simply friendship.

Carla was in El Salvador five months.

5

Advent I. Cathedral of Chalatenango. A simple, homey liturgy. Divine Mercy, the Virgin of Guadalupe, and the Crucified tower over the assembly. Life sized, coiffed, clothed images mark the sacred space. Joseph and Mary traveling toward Bethlehem. In a glass coffin, a dead, entombed Jesus. Advent, Christmas, Good Friday, all present. A couple marks 25 years of marriage. A new-born is presented for a blessing. Four concelebrating priests speak of Romero, the Civil War, the four women missioners. Stories. Memory. Past. Present. Lively music and song. Part family gathering, wake, picnic, fair, circus. I didn’t know what to make of it all. Carla’s Circus Master is directing the show.

How sterile our American culture and Church are. Calvinist. Prudish. Consumerist. Divided.

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Music was everywhere. At Saint Francis School, we were greeted for breakfast by a group of nuns with guitar and song. Song and guitar led us into the cemetery at Chalatenango to pray for the dead. At the site of the El Mozote massacre a lone troubadour accompanied himself as he sang for us. Vibrant song accompanied the liturgies. A common language. A common cultural experience. A common musical tradition.

Our culture is diverse. We have no common cultural language or song with which to express ourselves as a people. We stand silent when our national anthem is sung by a pop singer. “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound…?”

7

On 2 December 2025, the anniversary of the death of the four women missioners, we traveled to the area where they were taken, tortured, raped, murdered and buried. It sounds like the Apostles’ Creed, does it not? I believe in Jesus Christ who “suffered, was crucified, died and was buried…” We were baptized into Jesus’ dying and rising. Not past actions. Present realities. They must be present in our lives if we are to call ourselves Christian. The Creed states beliefs. It doesn’t express the fear and terror that Jesus and these women must have felt as they were taken by soldiers to an out of the way place. We honour martyrs. Then drain them of their humanity. Humanity in its frailty that cries: “Take this cup away from me!” “Why have you abandoned me?”

What did Dorothy, Ita, Jean, and Maura cry out?

Processing, we approached the site from a mile away. Processions are messy affairs. They are not neat. In that, they annoy me. Some people walk slower, while others are faster. Though we were being led in prayer and song, people got into conversations about mundane things. With our ubiquitous phone cameras, there are always people stepping outside of the event taking pictures for… for whom? For what purpose? Some people stop to take a rest and later catch up; while other people never join in. They watch from the sidelines looking up from hanging laundry, running errands, working construction sites, driving by gawking from traffic passing on the open lane. Processions are disorderly because life is chaotic.

The energy and purpose of a procession is found in living and walking together. Walking in the same direction. Walking for the same purpose. We all eventually arrived at the site of martyrdom and its small chapel. Martyrdom. Procession. Eucharist. Body and Blood. Dying and rising.

Today, in many societies and in the Church herself, we are not walking in the same direction, nor toward the same goal. In fact, we are purposefully walking in differing, if not opposing, directions.

While processions may be messy, they include everyone. In contrast, for all their bluster, our political rallies, podcasts, influencers, and talking media heads, are divisive, lonely and self-defeating affairs.

8

Much of my pilgrimage in El Salvador was a visitation to places of death. The hospital chapel of Divine Providence where Romero was murdered. The shallow grave off a side road where the women missioners were murdered. The university rectory and garden where Jesuit priests and their housekeeper and daughter were murdered. All murdered by Salvadoran security forces. All with American arms and bullets.

I wonder what Salvadorans think of the America which supported and caused so much of the death they have endured?

In contrast, what I noticed about each site was life. The hospital chapel is filled with light. Walls of clear glass open onto lush green vegetation. Trees have grown to shade the site of the murder of the missioners. Roses grow in the garden outside of the university rectory where once bodies lay dead.

There is a tradition associated with our belief in the Assumption of the Virgin Mary about Thomas the twin. Thomas, as on that first day of the week, was again absent. This time when Mary had “fallen asleep.” The Apostles took Thomas to the place of her “sleeping”. To everyone’s surprise. Roses. Life where life is impossible. In the midst of this saga of death, El Salvador is a country filled with flowering vegetation. A feast for the eyes. Deep. Rich. Bold colours.

We were brought to the graves of these martyrs. Oscar is now hidden down in the Cathedral crypt under an intriguing sculptural image. A round red stone in the center of his bronze chest represents his heart, his love for the people of El Salvador and the bodily place where the bullet struck. It is quite ostentatious for a bishop who lived a simple life and stood with the poor. I cannot imagine he would approve of it. I was reminded of the opening lines of the play, Becket, by Jean Anouilh. Naked. Henry II, King of England, kneels in penitence before the sculptured sarcophagus of Thomas Becket. “Well, Thomas Becket, are you satisfied? What an end to our story. Don’t you think we’d have done better to understand each other?”

“Well, Oscar, are you satisfied?” I think not. There is no acknowledgement. No regret. No penitence. No justice. No peace. Only silence and denial. Governments never acknowledge their complicity in evil or atrocities. Governments never apologize or right their wrongs. The United States poured one million dollars a day into El Salvador during the civil war. Archbishop Romero wrote to President Carter to stop the US assistance that was being used to kill his people. Carter refused. Romero was murdered. The civil war began. US arms and bullets were used to kill and massacre whole towns of innocent civilians, women, men and children. The El Salvadoran military were trained at the School of the Americas.

Why does the US government, in our name, supply armaments to other countries? Why have we supported dictatorships and trained military that are then used against their own people?

In our own nation we are killing each other. Guns. Weekly mass shootings. Often children. Most do not make the news cycle.

What is there about the American psyche that has caused us to have such a fetish for guns? Guns. Power. Death. An unholy trinity. We would rather endure the death of children than reconsider our impotence before this piece of death-dealing metal. Guns have anesthetized us to the self-destruction and violence we are inflicting on each other.

And so, we export it?

9

American fast-food franchises are countered by small family stands. Everywhere. City streets. Country roads. From early morn into the evening. Freshly cooked. Tortillas. Pupusas. Fruit. Mangos. Is it possible to make even a meagre living this way? I seldom saw anyone making purchases.

Our meals were basic and good. Chicken. Rice. Mixed vegetables. Fruit juices.

In our culture, we are Obese. Unhealthy. Wasteful. We are obsessed with Exercise. Training. Fitbit. Expensive fashion-conscious sportwear. We measure. Cholesterol. Drugs. Weight loss. Why do we eat? What do we eat? What amounts do we eat?  Do we ever reflect on what our eating habits say about us?

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Archbishop Oscar Romero. Bookworm. Quiet. Unassuming. He lived in a small apartment just a short distance from the hospital chapel. A couple of rooms. A bed. A desk. A typewriter. A phone. A picture of Pope Paul VI. A bathroom. A closet. On the day of his death, he was doing what priests do every day. Presiding over the Eucharist. It was 6:00pm. The eve of the Annunciation of the Lord. The Universal Prayers had just been completed. A shot rang out. A car sped away.

Holiness is not extraordinary. It is rather quite mundane. It is doing ordinary activities faithfully. A priest presiding over a daily Mass is pretty ordinary.

There are times when we are not faithful to the holiness of the ordinary. I recall a parable. Matthew 21. Two sons. The one responding “No” to his father’s request to work in the vineyard. Eventually he changes his mind and goes. I believe that each of us can identify with characters in the parables. This parable. This son. Is me. I spend much time regretting my selfish, arrogant, knee-jerk reactions. I go. Eventually. Fidelity and holiness can be lived out despite our resistance.

I was deeply saddened to learn that only one Salvadoran bishop attended Romero’s Funeral Mass. The Episcopal Conference of El Salvador stood in opposition to his vision and decisions. Romero continues to be hope for his people but a thorn in the side of the hierarchical Church. Not all the bishops and priests embrace him even after forty-five years. Because Romero is a ‘giant’ he is reluctantly accepted. His image is everywhere. He cannot be denied. Priests are labeled as pro- or anti-Romero. Some are blacklisted from presiding over the Eucharist at his tomb. In death, as in life, Romero is divisive. “Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but a sword. For I have come to set a person against… [Matthew 10:34ff].” Hard and difficult words of Jesus to understand.

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“Be a patriot, kill a Priest.” And so they did. Ignacio Ellacuría Beascoechea, SJ, rector of the university. Ignacio Martín-Baró, SJ, vice-rector of the university. Segundo Montes, SJ. Juan Ramón Moreno, SJ. Joaquín López y López, SJ. Amando López, SJ.

The Jesuit priests are buried in the Chapel of Archbishop Romero, on the campus of the University of Central America, near where they were murdered. Artwork honouring Romero, the priests and their housekeeper and daughter, Elba and Celina Ramos, cover the walls. The most remarkable and unsettling of the works are the drawings by artist, Roberto Huezo. His Via Crucis [Way of the Cross] does not depict the passion and crucifixion of Jesus but of the Salvadoran people. Fourteen images of tortured, mutilated, naked bodies. Such bodies were left alongside roads. Notes attached. A warning to those who might consider burying them. A similar fate awaited.

Heuzo’s images do not directly depict the passion and crucifixion of Jesus but, in reality, they do. The passion and death of Jesus are the ongoing activity of the Redeemer who comes among us to save us. Jesus begins with identifying himself in all things human, but particularly in our suffering. It’s safe to look on images of Jesus’ passion and crucifixion in the Stations of the Cross. We have nothing to relate to. Public humiliation. Torture. Execution. They remain distant.

Have you watched an execution? Would you, if you had the opportunity?

Though differentiated, how often have many people repeatedly watched the assassination attempt of Charles Kirk, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, people jumping from the collapsing Word Trade Center Towers. Our culture thrives on violent images. Why?

Is there a difference between what we watch in the media and what was considered sport in the Roman Colosseum?

Black people were lynched in our country as late as 21 March 1981.Yes! 1981. Michael Donald, 19 years old. Mobile, Alabama. Forty-four years ago. Michael Donald. Remember his name along with Rodney King, George Floyd, and Trayvon Martin. An ugly history. The mockery of life heightened at lynchings by the festive atmosphere of picnic, circus and fair.

It was therefore disconcerting for me to read that the Archdiocese of Boston challenged St. Susanna’s Parish, Denham, MA, regarding their outdoor Nativity scene. The angels questioned rather than sang: PEACE ON EARTH? The Holy Family removed. Replaced with a sign: ICE WAS HERE.

Roberto Heuza defies the status quo. So do the people of Saint Susanna. Great art. Literature. Drama. Music. Architecture. Poetry. Invite. Seduce. Challenge us. See the world differently!

Its converse is kitsch. Story devoid of truth. Words that soothe rather than arouse.

When our liturgies and devotions are removed from our human experiences, they are impotent. How can they speak to anyone?

12

The Monument of Truth and Memory. In the heart of San Salvador, a sculptural wall portrays the oppression of Salvadoran history. Indigenous peoples. Spanish conquistadors. The Catholic Church. Indigo. Coffee. The Civil War. Throughout it all the poor are crushed under cultural, religious, economic and political power. An image of Romero is missing at the core of the sculpture. The artwork is not conserved. Nor are other memorials I encountered. They are allowed purposefully to deteriorate. No art. No story. Memory forgotten. You have a blank canvas to paint a sanitized past in the bold colours of oppression, violence and racism. [Robert Bevan, The Destruction of Memory: Architecture at War, Reaktion Books Ltd., London, 2006.]

Our own country is experiencing this purposefully imposed memory loss regarding our original sins against Indigenous peoples and purchased West Africans. The Trump Administration seeks to create a false and incomplete American narrative through recasting curricula at colleges and universities and the presentations at the Smithsonian Museums. The writer Gore Vidal stated: “We are the United States of Amnesia. We learn nothing because we remember nothing.” The Mexican-American artist Vincent Valdez aims to confront America’s uncomfortable truths. Our willingness to conveniently forget is challenged through his multi-paneled work, The Beginning is Near, An American Trilogy. Kent Monkman, a First Nations artist of Cree ancestry is confronting Canadian history. British colonialism. The treatment of First Peoples. The collusion of the Catholic and Anglican Churches. The arts are powerful. And dangerous.

Our American Civil War still divides us. Statues. Flags. Slavery. Economy. Who gets to tell the story? Whose version? The racial divide persists.

What hope will there be for El Salvador? How can the Civil War be remembered when it is relegated to a few lines in social studies courses?

The Monument of Truth and Memory, like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, consists of names upon names upon names. Except these are not names of soldiers but of innocent people who were murdered or disappeared in the Civil War. Out of an estimated 80,000 – 100,000 victims only a third of the dead are listed. For the disappeared, all that is left is a name.

The final list names places of wholesale massacre.

In comparison to the number of national cemeteries, memorials and sculptures to our war dead, how many memorials are raised to those people who stood resisting the violence and worked for peace? Diplomats. Ambassadors. Clergy. Peace Organizations. The People in the streets who pleaded, wrote letters, expressed righteous anger, met with legislators, protested? Why do we not remember the innocent victims of war?

War is complex. Are soldiers victims? The prime of our youth sacrificed to the gods of selfishness, greed and power. Crushed in the mill of humanity’s absolute failure: war. Read and reflect on the poetry of the First World War. Wilfred Owen. Siegfried Sassoon. Ivor Gurney. As antiseptic as war has become, the mill continues to grind on, producing homeless, mentally ill, broken and wounded human beings. [Tim Kendall, Poetry of the First World War: An Anthology, Oxford University Press, 2013.]

13

Assuaging thirst. Showering. Brushing teeth. Washing dishes. Laundry. Lawns. Cars. Pets. Plants. Pools. Cleanliness. Relaxation. Hydrating. Food. What is it like when what you have depended on – water – becomes questionable, even a danger? The water bottle was essential. So much of the water that we use we take for granted, waste and dishonour. A T-shirt was given me by a member of the community of Santa Marta who fight for clean water. El Agua Vale Más Que El Or / Sì al la Vida/ No al la Mineria [Water is worth more than gold / Yes to Life / No to Mining].

As I saw large supply containers of water, now empty, thrown away, I had to wonder. What will be the cost to us and the planet? Why is it always a choice? Potable water – plastic. Life – convenience.

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We listened…  

Human Rights Advocates. Lawyers. Members of the Santa Marta community [A rural community working against mining]. Members of the Association for the Development of El Salvador [CRIPDES]. 

Gregorio Cardinal Rosa Chavez. University students of Casa Universitaria de CRIPDES. The Committee of Displaced People of El Salvador.

We listened. Listened to stories. Stories about displaced people. The disappeared. Persecutions against local communities. Abandonment of democracy. Political detainees. Lack of potable water. Death threats. Open pit mining. Acid drainage. Arsenic in the soil. Disease. Community organizing. Working for justice. Exile. Dignity.

Their stories. I had no reference. I listened.

They were average people. Emboldened. Calm. Straightforward. Soft-spoken. Lacking in anger or revenge. They simply told their stories. But storytellers need listeners. Listeners to receive the story. To share the story. To carry on the story. That’s why we were there.

The most telling speaker was a diminutive woman of the Santa Marta community. Strength was found in her. She is Isaiah’s “[S]ervant…not crying out, not shouting. A bruised reed [she] shall not break, and a smoldering wick [she] shall not quench until [she] establishes justice… [Isaiah 42:3-4].” When speaking truth, you do not need to shout. Spoken truth is itself unruffled and serene. A T-shirt: Buscamos la Paz interior en muestro ser. Y el pensamiento determinante, Pide respuestas. [Ours is s search for inner peace deep within ourselves. And decisive thought demands answers.]

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I thought we would encounter a desolate landscape. A hollowness. A gaping soundless mouth giving voice to the tragedy.  Does any word embrace the event of Mozarán? A small canton of villages. Five hours from San Salvador. 11 December 1981. Two days. One thousand people massacred.

What I encountered in the village of El Mozote was a small town. New police station. Workmen. Trucks. Government municipal construction projects. The only reminder of the massacre, a small memorial wall at the heart of the town. The names of children and their ages carved on the foundation of the church. Half of the victims were children.

A surreal place.

Pharaoh of Egypt is alive! Herod is alive! They walk among us. They command death. They take no responsibility. Others do their deadly work. How do you command the killing of children? How do you murder children? Gathered in one place. Soldiers surrounding. The children. They shot them.

There was a witness to the two-day massacre. Rufina Amaya. She hid in a tree. She saw. She heard. She witnessed. She spoke.

I have always wanted Matthew’s account of the massacred boys of Bethlehem read during one of the Masses of Christmas. The terror of their parents. The heartlessness of imperial soldiers. The immoral command. We are remiss in not proclaiming the dark stories that lurk in the shadows of the Christmas Feast. Theologically they foreshadow Jesus’ death. With Gospel truth, they confront us with our present chaos. The Lectionary’s relegation of passages of envy, murder, flight, and loss to Christmas weekdays causes the feast to be sanitized.

Presented to the Human Rights Court in the 90’s, the El Mozote case was closed with amnesty in 2016. Though reopened the same year, the present government has stopped the case from continuing forward.

We have become numb to the numerous holocausts of our century. The bloody Aztec gods and the Canaanite Moloch of the past have risen in human hearts to again demand the sacrifice of children. And we readily oblige. Is there no one to cry out as the Angel of the Lord did to Abraham: STOP!?

How fitting is Wildred Owen’s poem, The Parable of the Old Man and the Young. A riff on the Genesis story in light of the experience of the First World War. The poem concludes:

Then Abram…stretched forth the knife to slay his son. When lo! an angel called him out of heaven, Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad, Neither do anything to him. Behold, A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns; Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.

But the old man would not so, but slew his son, And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

I recall the first time I heard the poem. The story so familiar. The ending anticipated. All will be well. And then…? God does not intervene. The son, Isaac, is murdered! At his father’s hand!

The poetry of Owen dialogues with the text of the Latin Requiem Mass in Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem. I have been seduced by the war poetry of Wilfred Owen. Its brutal, unrelenting honesty. In the Requiem, it becomes intolerable as “half the seed of Europe, one by one. One by one. One by…” is sung over and over and over. Fragmented.  Overlapping. Disjointed.

We still sing the lives of the women, men and children, into oblivion.

“half the seed of Il Mozote…”  

“half the seed of Sandy Hook…”  

“half the seed of Europe’s Jewry…”  

“half the seed of Black slaves…”     

“half the seed of Israeli kibbutzim communities …” 

“half the seed of Armenia…”    

“half the seed of indigenous peoples…”  

 “half the seed of Rwanda……”  

 “half the seed of the Gaza Strip……”   

         “One by one.” 

                “One by one.”  

                       “One by one.”

                               “One by…”

What a cruel, unrelenting litany of the human family.

Britten rescues us. The chorus interrupts. The liturgy continues. “Hostias et preces tibi…” At El Mozote, there is no chorus to rescue us. We are left in silence. A silence that I encountered at Dachau. Auschwitz. Birkenau. Gaza Strip.

Why is it that children suffer the most at the hands of powerful, threatened men? Would such events occur if women were in leadership roles? How does any person kill a child? Do they not see their own children in the faces of the child victims? Why do soldiers follow such heinous, cruel and immoral orders?

Such murders secure the future, I was told. “To kill a child is to kill a future guerilla”. Salvadoran political leaders are not the first to consider children a threat. Euripides. The Trojan Women. A child, Astyanax. Condemned to death by the Greeks. Lest he grow up and avenge his father, Hector. The futility of it all.

Wilfrid Owen, 25 years old, was killed in action 4 November 1918. The Armistice went into effect 11 November 1918. The futility of war.

These murdered children, parents, grandparents, neighbors were called ‘communists,’ ‘fascists,’ and ‘guerillas.’ Governments, dictators, the prejudiced and bigoted still use these words for the Other. It is easier to disregard or kill a person when you have removed their dignity. That is why we use epithets to describe people we are afraid of, when we need someone to blame, or with whom we disagree. Kike. Nigger. Fag. Garbage. Vermin. Enemy of the State. It is the modus operandi of our current society and mass media culture. Attack. Degrade. Silence. Win. Move On.

That is why names are important. My name, your name, symbolize a person, a life. That is why memorials are filed with lists of names: Vietnam, 9/11, El Mozote, The Monument of Truth and Memory.

Though how inconsistent it is to me that in our society, in hospitals, grocery stores, cashiers, nurses, on phone messages, even in introducing ourselves to others, we consciously do not use our full names. Why are we afraid of being known?

16

La ferreteria. A hardware store. The bus passes. I double take. Why are white, North American looking men used in the advertising images?

17

President Bukele believes and professes that God speaks to him. The Catholic Church has always been wary of people who make such claims. Bernadette Soubirous. Joan of Arc. Juan Diego. All received push back. How much more a political leader? Politicians, monarchs, and dictators can, and often do, use religion, and religion foolishly obliges. President Bukele has been told that there is gold in the hills which will solve all of El Salvador’s problems and make for a ‘Golden Age.’ Geologists report otherwise. I recall the story of the Golden Calf in the desert. [See Exodus 32] Gold, like the fruit in the Garden, is pleasing to the eye. Yet as we reach for it, we never consider the cost.

Religion gives us the metaphors, symbols and rituals to worship God and connect to the divine, not to support political structures and policies. As President Trump surrounds himself with Evangelical Christian leaders, can you imagine Joe Biden surrounding himself with Catholic Bishops? When the altar is too close to the throne [pace, Constantine.], it will always be comfortable and easy for the altar to betray its spiritual foundations. Consider the relationship between the Russian Orthodox Patriarch, Kirill, and Vladimir Putin.

The words of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.”

Religion is powerful. That is why politicians use it. Religion is dangerous. That is why dictators suppress it. Christianity is dangerous.

18

The Chapultepec Peace Accords. Signed 16 January 1992. The Civil War ended.

The words of Pope Paul VI twenty years previous. 1 January 1972. “If you want peace, work for justice.” Thirty years hence, advocates for human rights tell us peace accords may have been signed, but there is no justice. Therefore, there is no peace. The injustice remains. Mining. Water. Education. Health. Dignity.

19

The University of Central America. The Rector spoke. History. Present realities.

How is El Salvador doing?

1970s. Dictatorship. Repression. Election fraud. 1977. The first assassination of a priest. Fr. Rutilio Grande Garcia, SJ. Archbishop Romero murdered. The Civil War. Hybrid democracy. 2019 President Bukele comes to power. He is not constitutionally elected. 2021. State of Exception [Martial Law] invoked. Delays due process. Legal cases arising out of the Civil War, including El Mozote and the assassination of Archbishop Romero, are only now coming to trial. Movement toward authoritarianism. A free press suppressed. Advocates targeted for presenting facts. Eroding of the Constitution. Funding closed to non-profits. Only approved journalists allowed.

How is El Salvador doing?

Use of social media. Propaganda structure. All history begins with Bukele. Journalists and lawyers fleeing to Guatemala. Rounding up of people from poor areas. No basic necessities in detention centers. Free speech suppressed. Weaponizing of fear. The Justice System is not functional. Fight for transparency. 89,000 people detained. 15,000 are used in construction. A form of slavery. The daughter of a former guerilla gang would be freed if her father stopped working for human rights. Physical violence and rape in detention centers. Five hundred have died under the State of Exception.

How is El Salvador doing?

Poverty has increased. 23% of the Salvadoran people have formal employment. Education and Health are not a priority. Government is displacing the homeless. Open pit mining. Poisoned water. Disease. Movement against multi-corporations. 2025 prohibition on mining revoked. The Judicial System favours the military. The military supports the government. The government supports the military.

How is El Salvador doing?

20

Energy. Where there is Energy, there is Hope. We arrived at the Casa Universitaria / University House. A house privately built through the SHARE Foundation El Salvador for seventeen college students. Shy. Self-conscious about their English. Aspirations. Dreams. I wish we had more time with these young people. “Are they aware of their nation’s history,” I asked, “so they can make a difference for the future?” They believe they are. I hope they are correct.

Calvary is not a steep hill. Nor is the via crucis a long road. The suffering and hardship ensue from carrying the burden of history. If El Salvador is to change course, these students must bear the weight of their history. Colonialism. Violence. Greed. Militarism. Power. The Civil War. Authoritarianism. Corruption. They must bear history and memory in their hearts. Only then will they be able to redeem El Salvador’s history for the future in hope. Then, fulfilled will be the words of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero spoken just weeks before he was murdered at the altar. “As a Christian I do not believe in death without resurrection. If they kill me, I will be resurrected in the Salvadoran people.”

21

The Gospel of John records Pilate asking the most enigmatic question of the Gospels, “What is truth?” Who would have thought his mocking retort to Jesus would have such significance for us today? What is truth in this age of social media? An age of deliberate disinformation, of methodical manipulation of images, of purposefully crafted lies? In war, the first victim is Truth. How does a person discern the truth amidst so many competing voices?

A Roman procurator’s query spans 2000 years raising crucial existential questions for us. Questions fraught with unforeseen consequences.

22

Advent. 6 December. The Feast of Nicholas. Bishop. Patron and protector of children and the helpless. Nicholas, where were you at El Mozote? Why did you not act to protect the children? Why does no one ever act to protect the children?

Advent. 6 December. It is Midnight. The fierce cold of winter bites as I walk off the plane. I am home. I am not alone. With me are Carla. Ita. Oscar. Maura. Dorothy. Jean. Joaquin. Celina. Ignacio. Elba. Rutilio. Segundo. Juan. Ignacio. Amando. The Santa Marta Community. University students. Rufina…

Into what dark forest had the Spirit and Carla / my Virgil and Beatrice led me? What was their purpose taking me through this El Salvadoran Inferno and Purgatorio? What am I to do with this experience?

I am home. But am I any more secure here than in El Salvador?

Very Rev’d David Wm. Mickiewicz

Albany, New York, January 2026

Copyright © 2026 David Wm. Mickiewicz. All rights reserved.

Suggested Books

Salvador by Joan Didion, Vintage International, Vintage Books, New York, 1983.

Vessel of Clay: The Inspirational Journey of Sister Carla by Jacqueline Hansen Maggiore, University of Scarton Press, Scranton and London, 2010.

A Radical Faith: The Assassination of Sister Maura by Eileen Markey, Nation Books, New York, 2016.

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