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Liberation Theology in El Salvador

By Lane Anderson

Along with five other veterans, including two Vietnam era vets, I joined a dozen others in the Center for Interchange and Solidarity (CIS) El Salvador in the marking of the assassination of the clergy in El Salvador.

Yesterday and today we made the pilgrimage to El Paisnal, the home of Father Rutilio Grande, the first of the Catholic priests killed by US trained death squads. Father Rutilio was killed in 1977 and his assassination caused the awakening of his friend Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was in turn assassinated. The liberation theology embraced by Father Rutilio and Archbishop Romero led to further killings and President Carter's suspension of military aid and training for the Salvadoran government and its military. This in turn led to peace negotiations which redistributed some land to the peasants and rebels.

The tendency of the powerful and greedy to anticipate success through violence is their flaw. What if they had not killed the priests? Would the US have withdrawn aid? What if Johnson had not fabricated the USS Maddox story to increase the violence in Vietnam? Would his legacy of the great society have been forgotten in the muck of a tragic war? I participated in an assault on North Vietnam that LBJ thought would scare them into submission but caused the Tet offensive instead...the beginning of the end!

What if George W. had responded to 9/11 with a careful analysis of what had caused the assault and tried to rectify our errant foreign policy instead of rushing to aggressive violence?

We spoke at length with Father Orlando in El Paisnal today. He is a liberation theologist and the priest in this historic town. He said that the theology of liberation is actually the liberation of theology...held hostage for centuries by the powerful and greedy. He has been threatened but persists in building a community of caring and sharing contrary to the precepts of the society here. He said that when he gave his life to God he also gave his death to God. He was very critical of the FMLN politicians in the legislature here, thinking them to be too timid and willing to compromise the ideals they were elected for. It is true that in Latin America in general and El Salvador in particular it is the liberation theologists and their followers who hold the politicians feet to the fire! And it is they who pay the price when greed wins temporarily, but the violence perpetrated on those of faith has led to change and will in the future. We discussed with him the censure of Father Jon Sobrino by Pope Benedict. Father Orlando does not lose faith, but his faith is in the community and the people, not the church leadership.

Liberation theologists are building sustainable communities for the post-corporate world and we should take a lesson! Christian communities in the US are now openly discussing conservation and environmentalism in their meetings and we should be a part of this. Latin America now has many lessons for the US, and one is the need to embrace the religion of the people who inhabit our society. Peace and justice folks and conservationists alike sometimes turn away from religion but as long as it is ceded to the politicians, the community based change that needs to happen will not.