Pilgrimage to the holy land of El Salvador

Intermountain Catholic

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The tomb of the late Archbishop Oscar Romero is located in a crypt beneath the cathedral of San SalvadorPhotos courtesy of Fr. James E. Flynn

by Rev. James E. Flynn

EL SALVADOR — For one week this past June I went on a pilgrimage to the "holy land" with several other people. This "holy land" south of the border, past Mexico way, is hardly a large spot on any map. Most Catholics would have a hard time finding El Salvador. Interesting that it is called "El Salvador."

To make a pilgrimage to that little country can be transforming. It is a land made holy by the blood of so many martyrs, shed between the later 1970s and the 1990s. As many as 75,000 martyrs, most of them common folk, unknown outside their own Salvadoran families. Most of those people were killed by the Salvadoran military and its death squads, supported by U.S. weapons and misdirected political interests.

Most notable among those martyrs are Archbishop Oscar Romero, six Jesuit priests from Spain, and four Maryknoll women from the U.S. Many of the other martyrs were catechists, labor organizers, doctors, nurses and human rights workers. Not counted among those 75,000 common people who were killed are Salvadoran military or guerrilla forces mortally engaged for over two decades.

A visit to the chapel where Archbishop Romero was killed demands of the pilgrim a time of silence and reflection. There in front of a pilgrim is the altar where Romero was about to celebrate Mass, on a Monday, March 24, 1980.

He had just preached a brief homily to a small group of friends and nuns when from the open doors in the rear of the chapel several shots rang out from a death-squad member. Romero slumped over, and in a few minutes was dead in a pool of his own blood.

The Sunday before he had preached over the radio, widely listened to and beamed to the far reaches of the country. In that sermon, he pleaded with Salvadoran soldiers to stop killing their own brothers and sisters. He belted out his final public words: "In the name of God, I urge you, I plead with you, I order you: stop the killing". The killing didn’t stop. Indeed, he was to be the next martyr.

Near that chapel is a small museum. It was Romero’s simple quarters as the Archbishop. The museum houses the vestments he was wearing that Monday night, stained with his blood.

The Archbishop is now buried in the crypt of the Cathedral, in downtown San Salvador. Other Archbishops are also buried in the wall of the crypt, but Romero’s tomb is in a conspicuous place in front of that wall. A bronze sarcophagus outlines his body, always surrounded by candles and pilgrims to that holy spot. Flowers, lighted candles and prayer mark this sacred tomb.

It is interesting that while Archbishop Romero is perhaps the most famous Salvadoran of modern times, there is no remembrance of him in the Cathedral above the crypt. The crypt is open only at certain hours and on certain days for pilgrims. Meanwhile, images of him are everywhere in the country: in poor neighborhoods, on walls with graffiti, in remote rural areas, in small chapels with paintings, and busts of the Archbishop are everywhere. Archbishop Romero is the saint of the poor and long-suffering people of El Salvador.

Across town at the Central American University of San Carlos another chapel holds the tombs of the six Jesuit priest-teachers who were martyred on Nov. 16, 1989. They had been living in their simple dormitory on the campus, and on the night of Nov. 16, some 24 Salvadoran soldiers broke into their quarters. They dragged two of the priests out into the adjacent garden, and brutally murdered them. The other priests were shot and killed in their rooms.

Two women, a mother and daughter of the gardener for the priests, had fled that night to the quarters of the Jesuits, seeking refuge from the battles that were raging around the city. They too were tortured and killed.

A museum on the campus displays telling pictures and memorabilia of that horrible night. One glass-cased exhibit shows a dictionary of one of the priests: a soldier riddled that dictionary with his weapon. Another put a bullet hole in a picture of Archbishop Romero – already dead for 9 years. One picture displays the bodies of two priests in the garden: one had his brains carved out.

Of the 24 soldiers who entered the dormitory that night, 18 had just recently returned from training at Ft. Benning, Ga. For this reason, almost every year since 1989 thousands of U.S. citizens have gathered at the gates of Ft. Benning to protest the role of the U.S. in these martyrdoms, and to try to obtain information about the "intellectual authors," as they are called, of this atrocity.

Another chapel on the campus where the Jesuits are buried is also a holy place. Pilgrims frequent that chapel, as did we pilgrims this past June. After visiting the nearby dormitory of the Jesuit priests, the chapel requires a time of quiet and reflection.

Each time I’ve been to El Salvador with various groups, the experience is the same: one of astonishment and wonder, if not shame for what we U.S. citizens allowed to happen in our name to a country so small and so close.