Center for American & Jewish Studies

Baylor University recently announced the opening of the Center for American and Jewish Studies, with Mark H. Ellis as director. The mission of the Center is to create a forum for the discussion of religion and public life and to create the leading center for the study of Judaism and Jewish life among Christian-identified institutions of higher learning. According to Rosemary Ruether, the Center "is the first Jewish center that takes Jewish relations to Palestinians as a central ethical challenge."

The Center's Inaugural Conference will take place Nov. 1-3, 2000 at Baylor University. Speakers include Richard Rubenstein, president of the University of Bridgeport; Mahmoud Ayoub, of Temple University; Rosemary Radford Ruether of Garret Evangelical Theological Seminary; Lawrence Carter, Dean of Martin Luther King, Jr. International Chapel, Morehouse College; and Ram Cnaan, University of Pennsylvania.

People's campaign for nonviolence

From July 1 through Aug. 9, 2000, hundreds of peace and justice groups will gather in Washington, D.C. to call for disarmament and justice. The People's Campaign for Nonviolence, sponsored by the Fellowship of Reconciliation, will include 40 days and 40 nights of public vigil and protest, nonviolence training, peace education workshops and gatherings for prayer and reflection. Special events include a July 1 panel discussion featuring Daniel Berrigan, Helen Caldicott, Jim Lawson, John Dear, Marian Wright Edelman, Arun Gandhi, Mairead Corrigan Maguire and Jonathan Schell; a July 29-30 weekend of workshops and worship sponsored by The Episcopal Peace Fellowship; and a protest with Martin Sheen at the White House on Aug. 6, the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and the 10th anniversary of the economic sanctions on Iraq.

San Romero de las Americas

We gathered in the Plaza El Salvador del Mundo on Friday the 24th, for the 20th anniversary of the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, commonly called Monseñor Romero. Little by little the crowd gathered to celebrate the Eucharist outdoors beneath the monument of Christ, the Savior of the World, the patron of the Republic of El Salvador.

By the time of the beginning of the Mass it was dark, and about 5,000 people had gathered for what was to be the beginning of a long night of celebration and story-telling.

The Mass was well organized. Cardinal Roger Mahony, Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the city with the most Salvadorans outside El Salvador, was the celebrant and homilist. Archbishop Fernando Sáenz Lacalle, Archbishop of El Salvador was there too, along with many Salvadoran clergy. Lacalle is a Spaniard, with little previous experience in El Salvador. He was appointed by Rome over a couple of strong Salvadoran candidates, to keep the lid on the progressive, "people movements" in the church.

The celebration lacked the energy and passion that one can find among the Salvadoran people when they are encouraged to celebrate their deepest truths. The official church in El Salvador is ambivalent about Monseñor Romero. He represents the church of the people, of the struggle against poverty, oppression and inhumanity experienced still by the poor of the country, those who represent the vast majority of Salvadorans.

Romero is in the process of canonization, of becoming a saint, officially. But the saint that was celebrated that afternoon in the Plaza El Salvador del Mundo was the saint of miracles and conservative, individualistic piety. This saint had little to do with the saint that was to be remembered and celebrated later on that evening, San Romero de las Americas, St. Romero of the Americas, saint of the people, already canonized in the hearts of the poor.

After the Mass, about 8:30pm, we (my wife, Stephanie and Christina from the L'Arche community in Honduras) began the pilgrimage march from the plaza to the Cathedral, a distance of about four miles. By this time the crowd had grown. Estimates were that at the height of the celebration about ten thousand people were gathered.

We all had candles in the procession. Small trucks playing the music of the "popular" church were interspersed among the pilgrims, traveling along the wide and beautiful Alameda Roosevelt, the main boulevard of San Salvador. We could see far down the boulevard, thousands of candles moving slowly toward the Plaza Civica and the great Cathedral. The energy and passion of the people, important for the celebration that was to continue in front of the old cathedral, began to emerge along the procession. People were singing. Shouts of Que viva Monseñor Romero! Viva! Long live Monsignor Romero! May he live! The saint of the Plaza El Salvador del Mundo was becoming the saint of the people again, the beloved of the poor, the prophet who was assassinated for his boldness and his truth: San Romero de las Americas.

We arrived at the Plaza Civica about 10pm. I was brought to the platform built on the front steps of the Cathedral, to represent the Episcopal Church in the U.S. and the Anglican Church of El Salvador. Originally our bishop, Martín Barahona, was to play a major role in that night's Vigil in the plaza. But he was taken to the hospital in the morning for tests and rest. He was exhausted by the high physical and emotion cost of his work in El Salvador.

On the platform with me, before the great multitudes in the plaza, were Monseñor Ricardo Urioste, well known and loved by the Salvadoran people, and the person in charge of the celebration; Bishop Medardo Gómez, Lutheran Bishop of El Salvador, somewhat of a folk hero in El Salvador for his courage and accompaniment of the people during the war; a couple of other Ecumenical leaders; Bishop Pedro Casaldáliga (Dom Pedro) of the Diocese of Sao Felix, Brazil, famous for his fight to preserve the Amazon Basin and the indigenous people who live there; Bishop Samuél Ruíz, Bishop of the deeply conflicted area of Chiapas, Southern Mexico -- prophets, all of them. It was an honor beyond imagining to sit with these people who for years have been spiritual heroes of mine.

On March 24, 1980, while celebrating Mass in the small chapel on the grounds of a hospital for people with terminal cancer, the place where Romero lived in a small three room house, Romero was killed. His murderers have never been caught or judged. There is a mountain of evidence, enough for a trial, that Roberto D'Aubuson, founder of the ARENA party, the party now in power, was the organizer, in collusion with the military, of the assassination. D'Aubuson has never been put on trial. Ironically he died in the mid-1980s of cancer.

The evening in the plaza continued throughout the night with music, a video of the life of Monseñor Romero, with cultural events, dancing and much celebration. For me, and I'm sure for others, it was hard to imagine a celebration, in peace, in the Plaza Civica, of the life and witness of Oscar Romero. It was in this plaza during the war that people gathered to hear Romero, to voice their challenges, protests and hope before the government and military, and to bury their beloved padrecito Romero. It was in this plaza during almost all these gatherings that the El Salvadoran military threatened and killed countless Salvadoreños. And here we were in peace, together, honoring Romero, San Romero de las Americas.

Mostly unspoken were the thoughts many harbored, that the present reality in El Salvador has changed little since the war. In some sense things are worse. The voice and witness of Romero is still much needed. The few on the top of society are wealthier, the poor at the bottom are poorer. Human rights abuses continue with little redress. Violence in the country is worse than during the time of war. Most young people see little future for them in the country. Corruption and disregard of the rule of law abound.

In El Salvador, just as in many parts of the world, as in Guatemala, Haiti, and East Timor, there are millions of human beings who are slowly dying because of the injustice of poverty, and who die violently because of political and military repression. In a strict sense they are not dying because of their Christian faith, nor for announcing the Reign of God, as did Romero. They die innocently, indefensibly, without the freedom to escape death.

If they kill me, I will rise again in the Salvadoran people. (Msgr. Romero, 1980)l

Richard A. Bower (Bower is Dean, St. Paul's Cathedral in Syracuse, N.Y. and a member of the board of the Episcopal Church Publishing Company, publisher of The Witness.)