Pilgrimage and Retreat to El Salvador: Jan. 14-25, 2008

Intermountain Catholic

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The altar at which Archbishop Oscar Romero was assassinated in 1980 is a shrine frequently visited. The inscription on the wall behind the altar reads: ?On this altar Msgr. (Archbishop) Oscar Romero gave his life for his people.?

by Father James E. Flynn

Like Guatemala, El Salvador is also a land soaked with the blood of so many martyrs. One, Archbishop, Oscar Romero, was martyred by the Salvadoran military as he was celebrating Mass on March 24, 1980. We "pilgrims" had the privilege of visiting the chapel where Romero was killed and celebrating Mass. We saw the vestments Romero was wearing at the Mass, stained with his blood.

We also visited the University of Central America where six Spanish Jesuit priest-teachers, their housekeeper, and her daughter were martyred on Nov. 16, 1989. They were dragged out of their rooms in the middle of the night, and slaughtered in the garden outside. They were killed by 24 members of a Salvadoran military squad, 18 of whom had only recently returned from "training" at Ft. Benning, Ga. We saw on exhibit a Bible that belonged to one of the priests, and one Salvadoran soldier riddled it in a straight line of bullets.

Also in El Salvador, on Dec. 2, 1980, four Maryknoll women (three women religious and one lay missioner) were brutally tortured and martyred by four members of the Salvadoran military. We pilgrims had the privilege of visiting the isolated country-place where they were martyred. That place too, is truly holy ground.

Many other Salvadoran priests were also martyred, along with catechists and lay leaders, also martyred for their work with the poor, often just helping people learn to read and write. El Salvador counts more than 75,000 people brutally killed between the late ‘70s the mid-‘90s. More than 2 million Salvadorans fled to Mexico and the U.S. During those years, U.S. governments sent $4 billion mostly in military aid to El Salvador, supposedly to fight "communism."

Our visit to Guatemala and El Salvador was called a "Pilgrimage/Retreat," and for me it was truly that, and so much more. It is so inspiring to visit the places of the martyrs, to hear again the stories of their lives and deaths, and to have the chance to walk the holy ground where they gave their lives. So often we Catholics tend to think of martyrs of long ago ages, and forget that the blood of present-day martyrs continues to be the seed of Christianity – even in countries often designated as "our back yard."

My hope for my own ministry as a priest is that I might be a voice for the thousands of Central American martyrs whose voices have been so brutally silenced.