Liberation Theologies | Bibliography | Latin America Pt. 4
Chapter 7: Latin America, Theory and Praxis, Part 4
Individual Witness
Dom Helder Camara and Brazil
594. Camara, Helder. Church and Colonialism. The Betrayal of the Third World. William McSweeney, trans. London: Sheed & Ward; Denville, NJ: Dimension Books, 1969.
Camara’s discourses on a Christian view of development, the problems of the development model, and proposals for development that directly benefits the people, a middle way between communism and capitalism, the importance of nonviolent direct action, the rise of a new humanism, education for change, and the role of the church in Latin American development.
595. —. The Conversions of a Bishop: An Interview with José de Broucker. Hilary Davies, trans. London and Cleveland, OH: Collins, 1979.
A biography of the bishop through a series of interviews in 1975 and 1976. Camara is quite outspoken here about many of the personalities in his life. He offers his thoughts on the struggle of a united people toward liberation, not by guerrilla war or violent revolution but through nonviolence, or “the violence of pacifists,” as he prefers to call it. He sharply distinguishes this from “passivism."
596. —. The Desert Is Fertile. Dinah Livingstone, trans. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1982.
Active nonviolence is a force as strong as nuclear energy. It is the power of love and justice. Camara discusses his half-failure, his six-year attempt to make his Action for Justice and Peace succeed as an organized pressure group. He eventually realized, however, that institutions as such are incapable of bringing about change.
Camara condemns the U.S., U.S.S.R., and E.E.C. for their exploitation and their continued arms race. He rests his hopes on the “Abrahamic minorities” who work in the darkness against all hope to create change.
597. —. Hoping Against All Hope. Matthew J. O’Connell, trans. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1984.
Camara goes beyond a disgust with poverty, the arms race, waste, materialism, and overspecialization to see hope that this disgust among people will be turned to positive energy to change. All these troubles in the world are “signs of God.”
This is a theological approach and underpinning to his activist life. It is based heavily on Vatican II, Medellin, and Teilhard de Chardin’s teleological approach. Abraham’s “hope against all hope” is a model for groups practicing “active nonviolence.” These are the “Abrahamic minorities.”
598. —. Into Your Hands, Lord. Robert R. Barr, trans. Oak Park, IL: Meyer Stone, 1987.
A collection of poems and interpretations of the Gospels.
599. —. Questions for Living. José de Broucker, ed. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1987.
The journal of a trip to France set as a series of answers to questioners. Addresses such issues as capitalism and communism, materialism, the spirit, prayer and hope. An ad hoc spirituality of liberation.
600. —. Race Against Time. Della Couling, trans. London: Sheed & Ward, 1971.
Camara’s profound Christianity is the root of his concern for economic and social justice in Brazil. Examines the injustice and oppression of Brazilian society, discusses the need for change, the role of the institutional church, of capitalism and neocolonialism, of the U.S. Camara calls for a revolution, among the universities and intellectuals especially, and he declares his hopes despite the dehumanizing trends in science and technology. Teilhard de Chardin is an inspiration.
601. —. Revolution Through Peace. Ruth Nanada Anshen, ed.; Amparo McLean, trans. New York: Harper & Row, 1971.
The then retired archbishop of Recifé, Brazil, Camara lays out the basic tenets of his revolution: neither capitalism nor communism will work in the Third World to cure the violence of poverty or exploitation, for which the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. are largely responsible both through their own economic exploitation and through the vast amounts they spend on arms while millions starve. Both nations, in fact, put the world in danger of extermination, while the U.S.’s emphasis on communism as the supreme evil of the world ignores the real evils suffered by the poor every day.
What, then, are the solutions to the Third World’s problems? Development as practiced by the North American and European technocrats certainly is not. This is change imposed from above for the benefit of oligarchs. Instead, Camara urges a gradual process, first of conscientization among the people, and then once the people have taken their lives into their own hands, a movement for true peace, which is based on justice, truth, charity, and dialog. While violent revolutionaries have attempted to redress the violence of poverty and repression by armed struggle, Camara refuses to condemn their sacrifices, but he insists that “only love can build. Hate and violence only destroy.”
602. —. Spiral of Violence. London: Sheed & Ward, 1969.
A description and analysis of violence, repression and counterviolence. Is there a solution? Camara describes his Action for Peace and Justice, its objectives, problems, modes of action, audience, and appeal.
603. —. A Thousand Reasons for Living. José de Broucker, ed.; Alan Neame, trans. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981.
Meditations and poems that illustrate Camara’s great love of all of creation and underlies his devotion to the struggle for human justice.
604. —. Through the Gospel with Dom Helder Camara. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1986.
Journalists aim biblical texts rather than questions at the archbishop, whose answers, really a series of meditations, make up the subject of this book.
605. De Broucker, José. Dom Helder Camara. The Violence of a Peacemaker. Herma Briffault, trans. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1970.
Traces Camara’s personality and his daily routine, reviews the poverty and injustice of northeastern Brazil, the church’s role in the struggle for justice, and the state’s response in repression. Then goes on to analyze Camara’s own nonviolence and his emerging reputation as the Voice of the Third World. Concludes with a portrait of Camara’s life as a bishop in the Catholic church in Latin America.
606. Hall, Mary. The Impossible Dream. The Spirituality of Dom Helder Camara. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1980.
A spiritual biography based on interviews and the author’s observation of his daily life. Discusses his work, the difficulties, and constant reminders of the brutal government repression.
607. Hope and Young. Struggle. See 190, pp. 109-44.
Reviews Camara’s life and early rise through the hierarchy in alliance with Brazil’s political and economic establishment, his subsequent conversion following Vatican II, and his embrace of the cause, and life, of the poor and the oppressed. Camara was subsequently removed from power and influence, banned from appearing in the media, and subjected to constant denunciation, harassment, and violent attack on his staff and friends.
Camara rejects both capitalist development and communism, both of which empower the elite even further and ignore the real needs of individual development and liberation. Change must begin with the people themselves, through conscientization and basic Christian communities. Its impact on society must be nonviolent, aimed at converting both the oppressed and oppressor.
Yet “nonviolence” is too weak a word. Camara refuses to condemn the sacrifices of a Che Guevera or a Camilo Torres, but he argues that such violence, while altruistic, only pits the oppressed against the oppressed. Still, one cannot condemn the violence of terrorism without first condemning the violence of injustice.
608. Moosbrugger, Bernard. A Voice of the Third World. Dom Helder Camara. New York: Paulist Press, 1972.
Often in the bishop’s own words, this discusses his road to the bishopric, the poverty, hunger, ignorance and unemployment, the “silent fatalism” of the North. Reviews Camara’s appeals for justice and peace in Latin America, the U.S., and Europe, and his hope that international big business can still be made responsible. He retains faith that human institutions – religious, political, economic – can solve problems. His greatest hope rests on youth.
*
609. Casaldáliga, Pedro. Fire and Ashes to the Wind. Spiritual Anthology. Quezon City, Philippines: Claretian Publications, 1988.
This is an anthology of poems by the Brazilian bishop that combines themes of social activism and prophesy, traditional Christian devotion and a mystic transcendence into a unity that is truly one of liberation.
610. —. I Believe in Justice and Hope. Notre Dame, IN: Fides/Claretian, 1978.
A spiritual manifesto as a kind of autobiography from a life of relative privilege in Spain to the jungle of Brazil, his bishopric, the continuous work on behalf of the poor farmers of the jungle against the latifundios, large development companies and government bureaucracies, the military, and against conservatives in his own church. Casaldáliga’s faith is held up both by the people around him and by his wide readings of contemporary authors and of scripture. He remains to the heart and root a cleric, and his culture is that of the clergy, for which he asks understanding.
611. —. In Pursuit of the Kingdom. Writings 1968-1988 Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1990.
A collection of writings on the option for the poor, the church’s essential role in defending the rights of native peoples, the connection between inner spirituality and an activist life in the world. Contains the bishop’s frank response to the pope on his criticisms of Casaládiga’s pastoral methods and his embrace of liberation theology.
612. —. Mystic of Liberation. A Portrait of Pedro Casaldáliga. Téofilo Cabestrero, ed. Donald D. Walsh, trans. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1981.
A series of dialogs with Casaldáliga on the bishop’s work among the poor and Indians of the Araguaia region of Brazil, the attempts of the military to silence or destroy his work and that of his pastoral team, the concept of a church emerging from the people and the role of conscientization and the formation of community.
Adolfo Perez Esquivel and the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo
613. “Adolfo Perez Esquivel,” Current Biography Yearbook. New York: H.H. Wilson, 1981, pp. 321-24.
A good introduction to his life, written after he won the Nobel Peace Prize for 1980, for which he had been nominated by Irish Peace People Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams. A good supplement to Esquivel’s own writing.
614. Agosin, Marjorie. The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. Trenton, NJ: Red Sea Press, 1990.
Traces the continuing efforts of the Mothers to bring justice out of the Dirty War through the life of one of these women.
615. Esquivel, Adolfo Perez. Christ in a Poncho. Charles Antoine ed.; Robert R. Barr, trans. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1983, pp. 117-34.
A collection of essays on various aspects of Esquivel’s life and work for nonviolent change in Latin America. Traces his life, organizing efforts, and the events of Argentine history in the 1970s that led to his arrest, imprisonment, and torture under the generals. Esquivel notes that his major influences have included John the Baptist, Gandhi, Thomas Merton, Francis of Assisi, Ernesto Cardenal, Helder Camara, Lanza del Vasto, the Medellin Conference’s declarations on liberation theology, among others. While he is committed to nonviolent change, he rejects “do-gooder” social work aimed at patching the current system and seeks to build a new community from the grass roots up, through such forms as the base Christian communities.
“Nonviolence” is a bad word in Latin America, since for so many it connotes passivity; yet no better word has yet been found. While liberation theology has not yet evolved a complete critique of violence, and liberation reached through armed struggle is not to be condemned, such victory is not efficacious: one cannot cure evil by using it. Instead, one merely replaces one oppressor with another. Nonviolence, instead, must be built on a broad and popular base, it must be the result of people acting in trust and solidarity, whose own nonviolence renders the violence of the oppressor useless. Not even Nicaragua’s revolution succeeded through violence, but by the long nonviolent campaign that pushed the Sandinistas into power.
Esquivel rejects both communism and capitalism, and he sees the arms race as linked essentially to the materialism of both the U.S. and U.S.S.R. Therefore the work of the peacemaker must also be to awaken the consciences of those who make, profit from, or remain comfortable with, an arms race that starves the rest of the world.
The collection then goes on to examine several examples of active nonviolence at work in Latin America: the victory of nonviolent strikers and the efforts of Bishop Leonidas Proaño in Peru; the Latin American Charter of nonviolence; and the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo.
The Mothers are the sisters, daughters, cousins, wives, and mothers of the up to 30,000 men, women, and children who “disappeared” during the “dirty war” waged by Argentina’s generals in the years between their coup in 1976 and the restoration of democracy in 1983. They first began in isolation, seeking information about their relatives, but they soon organized to hold weekly protest vigils in Buenos Aires’ main square, not only demanding to know what the military had done to the disappeared but demanding justice for all of Argentina’s poor and oppressed.
Their original inspiration was nourished by Esquivel’s Peace and Justice office. They reject all forms of violence in favor of a gospel form of peacemaking. The Mothers have been willing to suffer accusations of being subversives and communists; they have even been willing to face martyrdom for their witness to the truth that the Argentine generals’ defense of “Western Christian Civilization” was a sham. They continue to declare that only through the broad-based, nonviolent methods of the people – boycotts, strikes, noncooperation, civil disobedience, hunger strikes, etc. – can the field be taken from the enemy and his own tools of elitism and violence overthrown.
616. Simpson, John, and Jana Bennett. The Disappeared and the Mothers of the Plaza: The Story of the 11,000 Argentinians Who Vanished. New York: St. Martin’s, 1985.
This book gives ample credit and fine documentation to the Mothers. It stresses the internal dynamic and initiative of the Mothers themselves. The story of the disappeared, which the authors call the closest thing to Nazi Germany after 1933, is based on hundreds of interviews. The Mothers organized under constant threat, attack, even murder and kidnapping. Their demonstrations were harassed and broken up violently throughout 1978. By 1979 they had almost stopped completely. Finally they decided they had nothing to lose. Their act of courage broke the entire well-laid plan of the generals to commit mass murder via secret means. By 1980 they had turned the tide and had once again begun demonstrating in public.
The authors note the almost total silence of the Argentine hierarchy to the atrocity, except in cases where clergy were the targets. Surprisingly, the role of Esquivel in this drama is ignored almost completely, except for the authors to remark that he also was imprisoned and that he may have invented his story of torture (pp. 281-82).
Bishop Leonidas Proaño
617. Esquivel. Christ in a Poncho. See 615, pp. 71-91.
Recounts the bishop’s alliance with the Indians of Toctezinin in Chimborazo province of Ecuador. Together they fight against the corruption of government officials in league with wealthy landowners who seek to end land reform and take the small farmers’ lands from them. The small farmers and the diocese’s pastoral teams aiding them have faced smear campaigns, accusations of being communist subversives, threats and physical violence from the landlords’ thugs, police, and army; but they have rejected all forms of violence as wrong and counterproductive. In a newspaper interview Proaño has called on the inspiration of Bartolomé de Las Casas (See 65–81), the Medellin Conference, and Helder Camara and has declared, “there are only two invincible forces in the twentieth century – the atom bomb, and nonviolence.”
Central America
618. Berrigan. Daniel. Steadfastness of the Saints. A Journal of Peace and War in Central and North America. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1985.
An account of Berrigan’s journey from the U.S. via the Plowshares trials and the madness of North American fixation on mass destruction to Central America. In El Salvador he encounters on-going, internal church politics, the refugee camps, the death squads, the Mothers of the Disappeared (yes, even here), theologians and pastors like Jon Sobrino and Medardos Gómez, and all over the base Christian communities, the reservoirs of martyrdom and of hope. A tour through the desolate ruins of the State University, destroyed by the military in a crackdown on student protestors, reveals the spirit of Oscar Romero still alive.
Nicaragua is like day to El Salvador’s night. Here Witness for Peace members from North America are welcomed in a country threatened by their own government. Yet here are also signs that the rigors of revolution and of defense are taking their toll: the government’s hesitation to grant conscientious objector status, the offensive prevarications of government spokesmen like Ernesto Cardenal, an old friend in whom Berrigan does not hide his disappointment. Yet here too is a thriving Christianity among base Christian communities and the very real threat of the contras. Berrigan is also troubled by the conflict between the Nicaraguan state and church and by the dilemma of the priests within the government.
This journal also ranges over his rejection of violence, even that called just by revolution, on this previous exile to Latin America in 1965, on Thomas Merton, and on the strength and joy his companionship in the Jesuits gives him.
619. Berryman, Phillip. Inside Central America. The Essential Facts Past and Present on El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and Costa Rica. New York: Pantheon, 1986.
A short paperback highlighting the main issues involved in Central America today and providing information on the origins of the conflicts there, the U.S. attempt to confront revolution, U.S. policy and the terms of debate, the actual results of U.S. policy in the region, and the regionalization of the conflict. Also examines the outlook for accommodation and negotiation in the context of U.S. ignorance of the situation there and the wide gap and stalemate between North Americans working for human rights and those obsessed with U.S. national security considerations.
620. —. The Religious Roots of Rebellion. Christians in Central American Revolutions. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1984.
This is a huge, and very important, work chronicling Christians’ activities, violent and nonviolent throughout the region. Essential introduction.
621. Bonpane, Blase. Guerrillas of Peace. Liberation Theology and the Central American Revolution. Boston: South End Press, 1985.
This is a personal account, based largely on his diaries, of the radically changing church in Central America from its Constantinian alliance with power to a prophetic force for social justice and change. It broadly surveys the origins of liberation theology, characterizing it as a people’s popular movement that is revolutionary. It then traces Bonpane’s decision in 1967 to go underground as a priest for the revolution, his eventual dismissal from the Maryknoll order for his commitment, his reflections “within the belly of the beast” in the U.S. The author concludes by dismissing what he considers the vain exercises of traditional theology in favor of a life of committed action.
While Bonpane’s motives and actions may be commendable for their revolutionary fervor, this is a book that extolls the personal, the romantic, and the “active” life at the expense of the real theology for the poor being carried out by liberation theologians.
622. Esquivel, Julia. Threatened with Resurrection. Elgin, IL: Brethren Press, 1982.
The subtitle reads. Prayers and Poems from an Exiled Guatemalan.
623. Kita, Bernice. What Prize Awaits Us. Letters from Guatemala. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1988.
This is a portrait of the Guatemalan people told through the letters of this Maryknoll missionary, who lived in an Indian village there from 1977 to 1983, during the period of intense persecution of the church and its local communities among the campesinos. One letter of December 1980 sums up the role of various North Americans in the persecution:
“I recently read an article in which an important American business executive said something about liberation theology that sent a chill through me. He said that it was really a Communist tool to lead the people of the Catholic Church in Latin America away from our ‘traditional values based on the free enterprise system,’ and that the Church needs to be guided back unto the right road.”
624. MacEoin, Gary, Central America’s Options. Death or Life. Kansas City, MO: Sheed & Ward, 1988.
Discusses the historical background of oppression in Central America from colonialism to the present, the civil wars now raging, the role of the U.S. as both armer and ultimate beneficiary of the ruling oligarchies, the role of the Santa Fe Document ridiculing emerging liberation theology and equating it with Marxism, the changing church and the gradual progress of a theology and social ethic of peace and community in the region.
625. McLean, George F., Raul Molina, and Timothy Ready, eds. Culture, Human Rights and Peace in Central America. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1989.
A collection of essays that includes discussions of the politics, culture, economy, and religious movements of the region. Mario A. Rojas presents “Three Central American Writers of Liberation;” while Eulalio Baltazar writes on “Liberation Philosophy and Theology and Peace in Latin America;” and Brian Johnstone on “Human Rights, Justice and Theology.”
626. Richard, Pablo. The Church Born by the Force of God in Central America. New York: Circus, 1985.
This is an examination of the Church of the Poor, or the Popular Church then emerging in Central America. Richard contrasts this model of the church from that of Christendom, one born out of alliances with the powers that be. Richard focuses on the base ecclesial communities and gives background to the historical roots, the theological foundations, and the historical point achieved in Central America. A brief bibliography, mostly in Spanish.
El Salvador
627. El Salvador: Background to the Crisis. Cambridge, MA: Central America Information Office, 1982.
A good, general introduction. Covers the history, the military, the Indians, land and its poverty, urbanization and industrialization, women, the international economy, the Catholic church, human rights, the death squads, agrarian reform, U.S. military and economic aid. The book also provides a chronology, glossaries, and bibliography.
628. Gettleman, Marvin E., Patrick Lacefield, Louis Manache, David Marmelstein, and Ronald Radosh, eds. El Salvador. Central America in the New Cold War. New York: Grove Press, 1982.
A collection of essays that provides an excellent introduction to the contemporary political, economic, social, and religious situation in the region.
629. Montgomery, Tommie Sue. Revolution in El Salvador. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1982.
An excellent introduction to the economic, social, political, and religious roots of rebellion, and to the progress of that process. The book’s purpose is to demonstrate that the problems of El Salvador and of Central America are native-grown and not the product of East-West superpower conflicts.
630. Sobrino, Jon, Ignacio Ellacuría, and others. Companions of Jesus. The Jesuit Martyrs of El Salvador. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1990.
Sobrino was a member of the Jesuit community of San Salvador that Salvadoran soldiers massacred, along with their housekeeper and her daughter, in November 1989. Sobrino escaped only because he was out of the country. Among those martyred were noted liberation theologian Ignacio Ellacuría (see 462), who was also rector of the University of El Salvador. Their crime was to attempt to minister to the needs of the poor and dispossessed in the barrios of El Salvador, to tell them that God had not abandoned them, and to preach to them a gospel of liberation that confirms their dignity as human beings. For this they were branded as communist agitators by the oligarchy and slain at their order.
Sobrino’s essay places the martyrs in their context of liberating the oppressed of Latin America, in the context of the martyrdoms of Oscar Romero and the four American churchwomen, and within the context of Christian martyrdom through the ages. The book also includes essays by all six of the slain priests. These writings call on Catholics to examine their role as educated, affluent Christians in a world of growing deprivation.
Oscar Romero
631. Brockman, James R. The Church Is All of You. Thoughts of Archbishop Oscar Romero. Minneapolis, MN: Winston Press, 1984.
A collection of short sayings from 1977 to 1980.
632. —. Romero. A Life. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1990.
This is an expanded and revised version of Brockman’s 1983 work. See 633.
633. —. The Word Remains. A Life of Oscar Romero. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1983.
Oscar Romero was the archbishop of San Salvador in El Salvador. On March 23, 1980 he called on the army of El Salvador to lay down their arms, to stop the brutal repression of their fellow citizens, and to embrace the peace and justice of their religion. The next day he was slain while saying mass by a gunman set on him by the ruling oligarchy. Oscar Romero’s life symbolizes the progress of the church in Latin America today.
Raised in the conventional spirituality of the early twentieth century, with its emphasis on internal piety and obedience to authority in alliance with the secular state, Romero rose quickly through his church’s hierarchy and became a staunch defender of orthodoxy and political order as the rebellion in El Salvador spread. Soon after his election as archbishop of San Salvador, however, he began to turn away from the government’s harsh repression of dissent, its corruption, constant attacks on campesinos and those who would help them, its death squads, tortures, disappearances.
As he saw friends assassinated and unarmed farmers slaughtered, he quickly turned against his former friends in the oligarchy, condemning the violence of repression as well as that of rebellion. He began to forge a new image of the church as the sacrament of salvation that must save both the body and the soul, and embracing the new liberation theology. In the course of this journey Romero gained the support of Pope John Paul II, of Catholic hierarchy and laity around the world, and a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize for his call for nonviolent revolution against the forces of tyranny.
This is the best account of this martyr to Catholic peacemaking. Brockman bases his account on Romero’s own papers, numerous interviews with witnesses to the events described, newspaper accounts, and church documents. He also gives a great deal of attention to Salvadoran church politics, which are as important today to the progress of liberation as the doctrines and actions of the clergy and laity actively making peace in the region.
634. —. The Violence of Love. The Pastoral Wisdom of Archbishop Oscar Romero. San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row, 1988.
Sermons, homilies, and writings from March 1977 to March 1980.
635. Erdozaín, Placido. Archbishop Romero. Martyr of Salvador. John McFadden and Ruth Warner, trans. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1985.
A narrative of events between February 1977 and Romero’s assassination in March 1980.
636. Keogh, Dermot. Romero. El Salvador’s Martyr. Dublin: Dominican Publications, 1981.
Not seen.
637. Lacefield, Patrick. “Oscar Romero: Archbishop of the Poor.” See 628, pp. 198-203.
An interview with the archbishop first published in Fellowship in November 1979.
638. Romero, Oscar. The Church, Political Organization and Violence. The Third Pastoral Letter. London: CIIR, CAFOD, and Trocaire, 1980.
The text of the letter with introduction.
639. —. Romero, Martyr for Liberation. The Last Two Homilies of Archbishop Romero of San Salvador. London: CIIR, 1982.
The texts of his last two homilies with an essay by Sobrino on Romero’s martyrdom.
640. —. Voice of the Voiceless. The Four Pastoral Letters and Other Statements. I. Martín-Baró and R. Cardenal, eds.; Michael J. Walsh, trans. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1985.
Includes his pastoral message to the National Council of Churches, addresses at Georgetown University and at Louvain, and his letter to President Carter on the injustice of conditions in El Salvador. Demonstrates clearly the conversion of this high prelate to the struggle of the poor for their own liberation.
641. Sobrino, Jon, S.J. Archbishop Romero. Memories and Reflections. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1990.
Since Archbishop Romero was killed more than 50,000 have also been assassinated, most by the government; 5,000 have disappeared, and 15,000 have been killed and wounded in battle. This, as the U.S. and Salvadoran governments boast a return to democracy and peace. More than a half-million have fled the country as kidnapings and murders on both sides, but mostly the government’s, continue. Almost 50% of the government budget is for war, wages have not risen since 1980, while prices have risen constantly. Unemployment is 50%. Yet aid from the U.S. totals more than $1 million a day.
This book is both a personal recollection of his friendship with the martyred archbishop and a reflection upon the significance Romero’s death has for the individual Christian, and on the influence the man himself has had on the religious and political life of Latin America.
The Woman Martyrs of El Salvador
642. Brett, Donna Whitson, and Edward T. Brett. Murdered in Central America. The Stories of Eleven U.S. Missionaries. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1988.
The lives and deaths of the martyrs; their representations in art, as in the rotunda of Santo Stefano in Rome, most often shocks North Americans into discomfort and disbelief that anyone would want to dwell on stories of victims. Yet, as comfortable beneficiaries of the victimization of the less powerful and secure, we fail to understand that the tradition of the martyrs is not a glorification of suffering and death but of the commitments to life and truth that these martyrs demonstrate. It is the testimony to a theology that grows from reality: death as well as life, defeat as well as victory, the fate of the poor over and above that of the wealthy.
This is a modern martyrology that includes Michael Cypher and James Carney in Honduras; William Woods, Stanley Rother, John David Troyer, James Miller and Frank Xavier Holdenried in Guatemala; Dorothy Kazel and Jean Donovan; Ita Ford and Maura Clarke in El Salvador. Based on new reports, interviews, letters, diaries and other sources.
643. Carrigan, Ana. Salvador Witness. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984; Ballantine-Epiphany, 1986.
A biography of Jean Donovan, one of the American Catholic missionary workers raped and murdered by the Salvadoran military on the outskirts of San Salvador in December 1980. The other three were Ita Ford and Maura Clarke, Maryknoll missionary sisters; and Dorothy Kazel, an Ursuline missionary. The biography traces Donovan’s conversion from the daughter of North American affluence, to business executive, lay missionary, and martyr for peace and social justice in Central America during the last days of Archbishop Oscar Romero. Called subversives by the government in El Salvador for their protest against repression and genocide and for their aid to the poor and dispossessed, the missionaries were brutally slain precisely because of their Christian witness and work. Their murders were largely ignored by the Reagan administration in the United States until public outrage, the pressure of the Catholic church, the victims’ families, and the courageous witness of former U.S. ambassador to El Salvador, Robert White, forced an investigation.
This account is told in a crisp, journalistic style. It is based on extensive interviews with friends, family and acquaintances from all phases of Donovan’s life, as well frequent quotations from Donovan’s diary and letters.
644. Chapon, Dorothy, Alleluia Woman. Sister Dorothy Kazel, OSU. Cleveland, OH: Chapel Publications, 1987.
Not seen.
645. Dear, John, S.J. Jean Donovan. The Call to Discipleship. Erie, PA: Pax Christi, 1986.
Dear moves from a brief introduction on El Salvador (5 million citizens, 500,000 refugees within the country, 600,000 abroad, 60,000 killed since 1979, $1. 5 million a day spent by the U.S. on military equipment used against the people by their own government), to the monuments to Oscar Romero and to the four American women martyrs on a road outside the capital where they were raped, murdered and hastily buried by the army.
Jean Donovan’s story is one of conversion, retracing the choice of the rich young man and deciding to give up all her riches and connections in the U.S. for the path of Christ and martyrdom. This little booklet traces her life with drawings and photographs, first-hand accounts of family and friends both in the U.S. and in El Salvador as a Maryknoll lay missionary. There her life became closely tied to the mission and fate of Archbishop Oscar Romero and all the church workers dedicated to bringing the Gospel to the poor and oppressed. Despite the dangers, and the increasing death threats for her work with poor refugees, or simply for burying the bodies of the dead and mutilated left by the army, Donovan continued to stress her sense of mission and to refuse friends’ offers and advice to leave the country.
Jean Donovan and her coworkers – Ita Ford, Maura Clarke, and Dorothy Kazel – are martyrs of our time who accepted God’s call. She and her companions have followed Jesus’ call to follow him; and their life and death invites others to follow in their steps. Her inner tranquility and outer commitment is the true meaning of peace.
646. Jacobsen, Patricia. “God Came to El Salvador.” In Martin Lange and Reinhold Iblacker, eds. Witnesses of Hope. William E. Jerman, trans. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1981, pp. 141-53.
Sparse, impressionistic, reflective, prayer-like biographies of the slain women missionaries that read like eulogies and that wrench the emotions in the same way.
647. Noone, Judith M., M.M. The Same Fate As the Poor. Maryknoll, NY: Maryknoll Sisters Publications, 1985.
This account begins with the grim details of the four church-women’s kidnap, rape, and murder by El Salvador’s army. It then recounts the story of their lives – professional, solidly middle class and very mainstream – yet touched by a compassion for the worst of the world. Ita Ford’s reaction to Oscar Romero’s assassination, that “his death will bear fruit,” reminds us of the early martyrs. And so it should, for in this book we realize that those of us, mainstream, middle class, comfortable North Americans, who reach out to “share the same fate as the poor,” may share it in its truest, most Christ-like sense.
Nicaragua
648. Belli, Humberto. Breaking Faith. The Sandinista Revolution and its Impact on Freedom and Christian Faith in Nicaragua. Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, for the Puebla Institute, 1985.
Human rights in the context of oppression, lack of pluralism, free expression, Sandinista lies about their achievements, and an apology for the pope’s visit in 1983. Belli contends that the Sandinistas broke the essential link of faith that brought all classes, and Christians and Marxists, together in the revolution.
649. Borge, Tomás. Christianity and Revolution. Tomás Borge’s Theology of Life. Andrew Reding, ed. & trans. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1987.
A collection of the speeches and writings of Borge, who has been outspoken for the need to fuse Marxist and Christian elements. While not always savory or “orthodox” to theologians or proponents of nonviolence, Borge is a thoughtful man involved in changing his country and society, whose essays here are indicative of the entire process and variety of religious thought and its application to liberation.
650. Cabestrero, Téofilo. Blood of the Innocent. Victims of the Contras’ War in Nicaragua. Robert R. Barr, trans. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1985.
This is a powerful collection of first-hand testimony on the death threats, murders, rapes, beatings, kidnapings, tortures, massacres, destruction of property of individuals and cooperatives carried out by President Reagan’s “freedom fighters.” Victims include Nicaraguans, North Americans, Europeans, men, women, and children. Cabestrero prints his accounts exactly as they were reported to him.
651. —. Ministers of God, Ministers of the People. Robert R. Barr, trans. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1983.
Detailed, first-person accounts of the Christian’s response to the Nicaraguan revolution by some of its best-known leaders, including Ernesto Cardenal, the priest, poet, friend of Thomas Merton and Daniel Berrigan, founder of Solintiname, and Nicaragua’s then minister of culture; Fernando Cardenal, S.J., his brother, former Jesuit priest and coordinator of Nicaragua’s successful literacy program; and Miguel d’Escoto, Maryknoll priest and then Nicaragua’s foreign minister.
All three men have much in common, most especially their support of the “just revolution” against the Somoza government; their belief that as priests they had something unique to add to Nicaragua’s revolutionary government; their subsequent conflict with Pope John Paul II and his command to them to choose either service to the church or service to the government. These are all highly articulate, sensitive, and intelligent people, deeply committed to their Christianity and to the Nicaraguan revolution. While they accept the role of violence in that revolution, they also hope that their presence in it and the influence of many like them will Christianize the revolution. They hope not that the church might rule in alliance with power once again, but that the influence of Christians might truly make the revolution one for the people, imbued with human and religious ideals of the highest order.
652. —. Revolutionaries for the Gospel. Philip Berryman, trans. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1986.
The subtitle reads, “Testimony of Fifteen Christians in the Nicaraguan Government.” This is an important, eye-opening collection that will cause even the most skeptical to wonder. Those interviewed were in high- and middle-level positions in the government: the president of the Supreme Court, comptroller general, minister of education, general secretary of housing, managers of the ports, energy, libraries and archives, judges, and social planners. They are well educated, with more or less solid Christian educations, many at Catholic universities in Central and North America. They are deeply committed to the ideals of Vatican II and its gospel of justice, yet they have almost all accepted the necessity of the revolution, if not of the revolution’s violence.
These Christians are aware of the conflict between Christianity and the state on one level, and are careful not to compromise their Christianity for the sake of the revolution. They are also people who believe in civil government, not military dictatorship. They stress that their conflict is not with doctrine, or with the hierarchical church, but with certain bishops and priests.
These are also practicing Roman Catholics, some with a traditional orthodoxy, many with a profound spirituality. Biblical citations flow naturally in their conversation, and sections of the Gospels are conscious models for policy. They assert, however, that if Marxist goals are not incompatible with Christian goals and means, they will cooperate fully in the revolution.
653. Cardenal, Ernesto. The Gospel in Solintiname. Donald D. Walsh, trans. 4 vols. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1982.
These are are series of commentaries on biblical readings by the peasants of Solintiname, a small archipelago of islands in the Lake of Nicaragua, compiled by Cardenal during his stay in the days before the Nicaraguan revolution made him minister of culture. Cardenal explains that rather than delivering sermons, he would lead his parishioners to readings and discussions in a hall opposite the church after Sunday mass. The insights and interpretations are thus those of the people themselves, forming their own theology based on the Gospels.
The volumes are arranged according to the liturgical calendar of readings. Volume 1 begins with John the Baptist’s mission, continues through the infancy narratives, the temptations in the wilderness, the early miracles, parables and sermons, including the beatitudes. Volumes 2 and 3 continue with the parables and further miracles; while volume 4 concentrates mostly on the Last Supper, Passion and Resurrection. A wonderful collection, and probably the best example of theology from the poor.
654. —. The Psalms of Struggle and Liberation. Emile G. McAnany, trans. New York: Herder & Herder, 1971.
Not seen.
655. Casaldáliga, Pedro. Prophets in Combat, The Nicaraguan Journal of Bishop Pedro Casaldáliga. Phillip Berryman, trans. Oak Park, IL: Meyer-Stone, 1988.
In the words of Leonardo Boff, Casaldáliga “is a sharp observer because he is a mystic.” Bishop of a border diocese on the edge of Brazil’s rain forest, the author travelled to the borders of Nicaragua to literally be with the marginalized and to observe this border war. This is the record of his “ministry of the border,” his mission to Nicaragua on behalf of two dozen Brazilian bishops in an effort to express their solidarity with the people of Nicaragua.
While not formal theology, this record of a people’s struggle for dignity and freedom is a theology in-the-making, for it combines the deeply religious awareness of God’s role in history with a prophetic style that calls attention to the oppressed and the oppressor. Casaldáliga pulls no punches in laying the blame for the contra war and the suffering of innocent Nicaraguans squarely with Ronald Reagan and his administration.
656. Ezcurra, Ana Maria. Ideological Aggression Against the Sandinista Revolution. The Political Opposition Church in Nicaragua. Linda Unger and David J. Kalke, eds.; Elice Higginbotham and Bayard Faithful, trans. New York: Circus, 1984.
A prophetic work. Includes chapters in the alignment of the Nicaraguan hierarchy against the Sandinista revolution, the anti-revolutionary work of La Prensa and the Institute on Religion and Democracy, the church’s social teachings used against the revolution, John Paul II’s visit; U.S. policy against Nicaragua, and a chronology of events in church-state relations between December 1983 and July 1984. Appendixes include key documents, messages of John Paul II during his 1983 visit, and analysis.
657. Foroohar, Manzar. The Catholic Church and Social Change in Nicaragua. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1989.
SUNY Press at Albany has published several highly professional works on the role of the church in Latin America and the political and social theories of liberation theology. This volume traces the history of the church in the region from colonialism to liberalism, including the Sandino movement; the socio-economic structures in which the church operates; the response of Latin American Catholics to these structures and dynamics, including liberation theology.
The discussion then examines the implementation of liberation theology in Nicaragua, and events leading up to the revolution, the relations between the FSLN and the progressive church, with examples drawn from specific parishes and conflicts. A final chapter discusses the events of the revolution and the hierarchy’s attempt to stop it, in league with the U.S. and Nicaraguan bourgeoisie. Well documented. Extensive bibliography.
658. Heyward, Carter, and Anne Gilson, eds. Revolutionary Forgiveness. Feminist Reflections on Nicaragua. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1987.
This is a work by the Amenecida Collective, of thirteen authors. It is a book of liberation theology by North Americans learning from the radical acts of forgiveness of the Nicaraguan people toward their former oppressors and torturers; and it is an attempt to create a theology of life out of one of death. The book deals with the history of U.S.-Nicaraguan relations, the revolution, problems remaining in revolutionary society: including sexism, racism, homophobia, violence and ecclesiatical tensions. Yet these can be overcome by the type of radical forgiveness the authors discuss. Its foundations include a praxis of community, conscientization, the rehabilitation of memory, confessing past faults, repentance, conversion, and solidarity with former victims and victimizers.
659. MacEoin, Gary. Nicaragua. What They Say...What We Saw. Kansas City, MO: Sheed & Ward, 1980.
Not seen.
660. Randall, Margaret. Christians in the Nicaraguan Revolution. Vancouver: New Star, 1983.
The people whom Randall interviews here, intellectual elite, middle class, poor and semi-literate, are for the most part Christians deeply committed to the revolution in Nicaragua. They all embrace what can be loosely described as the “just-revolution” theory, an outgrowth of the just-war theory; and they still maintain that this revolution must be defended by the gun if their work as Christians is to be maintained. Their language is that of the Crusades, of dying “like Christ, to end the injustices that we have in Nicaragua.” They maintain that it is the Gospel that has told them to kill for Christ and the revolution. They emphasize the split between a true church of revolutionaries, who have read and understood the Gospels correctly, and a reactionary hierarchy that continues to distort the words of the Gospel in favor of oligarchs and reactionaries in Nicaragua and in North America.
A true synthesis of Marxism and Christianity can be achieved, they contend. If it cannot, the Nicaraguans interviewed here seem to favor a Christianity that is colored by Marx for the ends of the revolution. Some, in fact, favor a gradual discarding of formal Christianity once either Christian “values” have infused the revolution or once these values prove to be incompatible with it. In the end these Nicaraguans feel that the revolution can only be led by a small committed elite, that most “peasants” are too passive to lead their own revolution, and that it is up to this enlightened elite to pick who will fight, who will kill, and who will die in defense of the revolution. Nonviolence, in the end, is passivity. “Christ was a guerilla fighter.”
661. Scharper, Philip, and Sally Scharper, eds. The Gospel in Art by the Peasants of Solintiname. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1984.
A visual explanation of the meaning and agents of liberation theology. This series of paintings of Gospel scenes, by members of the base community at Solintiname, gives flesh and blood to the words of the theologians and is the concrete manifestation of the theology that the people themselves have created.
