News 6 -- August 5, 1988

“For many years in the oppressed countries of the world, the Church has aligned itself to the powers that be. It has depended on the wealthy to build its churches, feed and clothe and house its clergy. It has done all this at the expense of the poor.”

[In some of his letters Larry used the word womyn as his way of expressing the equality of women and men.
campo = farm field or farm region. Campesino(a) = peasant farmer]

Newsletter #6

August 5, 1988
USA

Dear Friends:

I returned from El Salvador a month ago and am spending time with my mom and also visiting as many friends as time allows. I apologize to many of you whom it was impossible to see within the few weeks I was back.

Well, El Salvador is in a mess. It is questionable whether things will go better in the near future. On the day I was boarding the bus in downtown San Salvador to return to the U.S., the headlines read: SECRETARY [GEORGE P.] SHULTZ SAYS: "THE MILITARY MUST BRING THE WAR TO AN END NOW -This is the only way peace can be had in El Salvador" (...Words of Secretary Shultz to the military Chiefs of Staff of El Salvador).

At the same time Secretary Shultz was speaking to the military, Archbishop Rivera y Damas was calling for dialogue among all sectors of the Salvadoran society. In hopes, that is, of resolving by peaceful means the eight-year-old civil war.

Need I say more about these two contradictory statements? They merely emphasize the present dilemma existing today in El Salvador.

José, his wife Maria, along with Marta, Juan, and their five children (of whom I've spoken in previous newsletters) are, along with the entire campesino population, caught up in the intensity of the sowing season.

In August of last year, the second planting of the year was completed. However, as quickly as the rains had come to initiate the season, they abruptly ended. There was to be no more rain for the next nine months. The entire crops of corn, rice, beans and soy were lost.

This year, the first of May appeared and the drought continued. It is considered normal and good when the Spring rains arrive in mid-April or by the end of April. When the first of May passed as well as the second and third weeks without rain, the air grew tense.

A Sunday Mass for rain was scheduled. Sombreros, machetes, cumas (the campesino's principal tool of the Campo), small sacks of seed and jars of water are placed before the altar to be blessed. The water would later be taken to the field and sprinkled over the small section of land the campesino family had leased for the season.

It is difficult to feel in my gut the anxiety of anticipation as the rains are awaited. In our area, recently, two families went at it one night, leaving two family members dead and four others hospitalized. Yet, it is not the nature of the campesino to settle their problems by means of violence.

But when the lives of one's children are at stake and there is nothing to be done but wait patiently for the rains to come, it is rather fortunate if an explosion of some kind does not erupt.

The Mass for rain was offered. The sacks of grain were carried great distances on the heads of women or on the shoulders of the man.

A procession of men, women, and children began the celebration. The music was alive and hope-filled. The petitions were spontaneous and drawn from their own reality. On this day, it was as if all prayed in unison as each petition was proclaimed.

The gifts were brought forward by young and old alike and by children accompanied by the family dog. Then, each person took their place around the altar. The words, "take this bread and eat, for this is my body...take and drink, this is my blood,” stirred in our hearts.

When the time arrived to sing the Our Father, all in the church joined hands. At this moment, those present knew that the rains were in the making...that our prayers had been heard.

It is said that rains need vegetation and are attracted to areas well populated with trees. Where we are located, there are very few trees left. They are cut daily for fire wood and new seedlings are not planted to replace the fallen trees.

Because the campesino does not own the land, the incentive to replace the trees has not been there. So without forests, the chance of rain in our area is slim. Yet the people's faith defies this natural phenomenon as they vigorously prepare the land for the rains they sense are near.

And the rains did come - just two days after our Mass for rain on Sunday. It poured for two days. Seeds were sown and a short time later the first green shoots of corn manifested themselves across the vast countryside.

When the campesino is in the field, it is as if the hillside radiates with music. The atmosphere changes when the fingernails are crusted with the soil and sweat fills the brow.

Yet, not all was good. No sooner had the first tips of green corn appeared than the greedy, fearless creature of the campo made its appearance. The Guzano. This small earth worm (that has lain in wait to devour the fresh, sweet stems of new corn) struck its deadly curse. It is one thing to hear of this tragedy from friends - that the "Guzano" is destroying everything in sight - but another thing altogether when I went myself to work in the campo, only to see the devastating work these creatures had done.

I thought to myself, “Maybe guerrilla warfare is as effective as it is because like the Guzano, it defies all the hi-tech devices of our modern age. The person who takes to the mountains to defend him or herself knows the hillside like the Guzano knows the earth...and when one's people is at stake, one is 'indestructible'.

At the time I left El Salvador, the problem of the Guzano was under control. All were praying that the rains would continue to fall and produce an abundant harvest.

For many years in the oppressed countries of the world, the Church has aligned itself to the powers that be. It has depended on the wealthy to build its churches, feed and clothe and house its clergy. It has done all this at the expense of the poor.

We see glimpses of this in El Salvador. When feast days are celebrated it is usually the wealthier families who step forth to put new clothing on the statues of the saints. Everyone comes out to celebrate the feast of the patron saint and the crucifixion and burial of Jesus on Good Friday.

The churches are full on these occasions. Processions are animated and no one absents themselves from these celebrations. In our diocese today, a new cathedral is under construction as well as an elegant chapel on the grounds of the bishop's residence. Monsignor Oscar Romero, as you may recall, discontinued all work on the construction of the new Cathedral while the war was in process.

The celebration of the patron saint and Good Friday are in themselves most important, but until we take the 'Franciscan Robe' off Maximilian Kolbe and robe him in the prison rags that he starved to death in, the world will never know or remember him as the man he was. As the man who saved his small smitherings of food for those in worse shape than himself; the man who offered secret Eucharists with his fellow prisoners and finally volunteered himself in the place of a fellow prisoner and father of nine to be confined in a cell with those considered 'dead' - where food was withheld altogether.

And Mary - who is she if presented to Latin Americans with blond hair, white skin and painted lips? What a difference it would make if Mary were reflected for who she was: A refugee, a peasant, an advocate for the oppressed, the mother of a condemned prisoner, a third world woman, a liberator.

Dom Helder Camara always saw feast days and processions as grand opportunities to help raise the consciousness of his people. Not to omit these days of celebration from the calendar, but to restore them to new life and meaning.

And then , we as volunteers from the first world need to be educated by our Salvadoran sisters and brothers. Efficient programs in alfabetization do exist that conscienticize while at the same time capacitate people to read and write. Base Communities exist that have not lost their direction as being the voice for the voiceless. We must allow ourselves to be taught by those who have suffered torture, disappearances and even death to themselves and loved ones.

As the state of affairs grows worse in El Salvador (and Nicaragua) we do what we can to keep in touch with grass- root organizations outside the country and share with our people the news and events and processes toward liberation that do not appear in the daily news media of El Salvador.

Thanks for listening. Let's keep close. My thanks to the many of you who shared so much with me during these few short weeks I was here in the States. Until later.

Adios, Amigos and Amigas

Lorenzo