ROMERO AWARD RECIPIENTS SPEAK ON HIS LEGACY: Nun says assassinated
archbishop would want us to do more
Houston Chronicle
April 12, 2008

BARBARA KARKABI
barbara.karkabi@...

The late Houston philanthropist Dominique de Menil established the
Rothko Chapel's Oscar Romero Award in 1986 in response to violence
and civil wars ravaging Latin America. It is named for the Roman
Catholic archbishop who spoke up for human rights and was
assassinated in 1980.

Two former award winners - Lutheran Bishop Medardo Gomez of El
Salvador and Sister Dianna Ortiz - will speak about Romero's legacy
at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the chapel, 1409 Sul Ross.

Sister Ortiz, co-founder and director of Torture Abolition and
Survivors Support Coalition International, is an Ursuline nun from
the United States who went to Guatemala in 1987 as a missionary
teacher to Mayan children. While there, she received death threats
and was abducted and tortured in a Guatemala City prison.

Speaking out against torture and the victims of torture - a promise
she made in prison - "has become the ruling principle of my life,"
she says.

Sister Ortiz answered questions this week from Chronicle reporter
Barbara Karkabi, responding by e-mail because she was recovering from
laryngitis. Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador was assassinated in 1980.
For those who have never heard of him, can you explain who he was and
why we should remember him?

A: I did not know Monsignor Romero personally, but I have read about
him and I have talked with those who did know him. For me, he is a
man who was able to look at the world around him, to see it for what
it was and to change his approach to that world.

It is my understanding that he certainly was not chosen archbishop of
El Salvador because of his tendency to speak loudly about the
importance of justice and human rights. However, he came to see and
understand the situation in his country, especially the danger for
those who did speak for human rights. He added his powerful voice to
theirs, demonstrating courage in the face of hatred showered upon him
by power-ful persons. Monsignor Romero should be remembered for this
and for his willingness to speak the truth regardless of cost.

He remains a disturbing presence for anyone who believes in justice,
for he calls to us to always do more than we are doing. Those of us
who work for justice must face the fact that if you speak truth to
power, power may well retaliate. That certainly was true for
Monsignor Romero, as he knew it might be. He said that if he was
killed he would rise again in the Salvadoran people. I believe he
has, certainly among those Salvadorans I know.

Q: What will you be saying about him on Wednesday?

A: I hope to say that as he accepted a moral responsibility to speak
out against injustice, we must do the same. As Monsignor Romero would
not be bound by fear, neither must we.

I hope to emphasize that in thinking of this man, we must center not
only on what he said in El Salvador at that time, but what he would
say to us today and what he would insist is the role of the church
and its leaders in this time.

Listen to Romero, "When the church hears the cry of the oppressed, it
cannot but denounce the social structures that give rise to and
perpetuate the misery from which the cry arises." What does this mean
to us today? How should we respond? For me, Romero's work is not
simply of historical interest, it is a signpost which should point
the way to our own action. I believe that if he were alive today, he
would ask us: "What has (been) our response to the practice of
torture by our own govern-ment?" He would say, "Don't look to me and
what I did. Look to yourselves and act against this terrible
injustice, this crime against humanity, against God's people."

Q: What does Romero's life and death mean to you personally? Was it
his example that started your work in human rights?

A: No. My work started in response to my own torture in Guatemala and
the torture of so many others, certainly including survivors in El
Salvador. I hope in what I do I reflect at least some of monsignor's
own commitment to justice and human rights.

Q: What effect did the award have on your life?

A: For many of us who are torture survivors, we died in those
clandestine prisons. That may be difficult for others to grasp, but
we did die there and were forced back to life. We have tried to shape
that life in a way so that with our voices we rise among the people
with our message that torture must be abolished - that this crime
against humanity must be wiped from the face of the earth.

I wish you could have seen the faces of survivors when I told them of
the Oscar Romero Award, an award which was given not only to me but
to all who had been tortured. We who are survivors so often feel
alone, so often feel that no one cares. I told them about the award
and the fact that, indeed, there are those who do care.

Q: Tell us about the work you are doing today.

A: We are an organization of torture survivors. We come from
countries around the world. We are women, men, and yes, children -
different colors, different religions, different cultures, different
sexual orientations and different political ideologies. But we share
two things in common: We are united by one terrible fact and one
powerful commitment: We each have been tortured and we are committed
to trying to make certain that what happened to us will not happen to
you, your children or your children's children. In addition, we are
committed to supporting survivors and their families on the road to
healing and we provide for such needs as housing, food, legal, psycho-
logical and medical services.

We advocate for the repeal of the U.S. Military Commissions Act of
2006, which we regard as legalizing torture and giving immunity to
those who ordered it.

Each June, we bring survivors from around the world to Washington for
meetings with government officials. We hold a 24-hour vigil across
from the White House in memory of those who did not survive their
torture and those being tortured in 150 countries around the world.

===

Q&A: BRAZILIAN THEOLOGIAN PAYS HOMAGE TO SALVADORAN MARTYR
Inter Press Service (English)
March 26, 2008

Ra£l Guti rrez

SAN SALVADOR , El Salvador , Mar. 26, 2008 (IPS/GIN) -- Brazilian
theologian Leonardo Boff arrived in El Salvador on Easter Sunday, the
eve of the 28th anniversary of the assassination of Monsignor Oscar
Romero .

Boff participated in events held to commemorate the murder of Romero,
known to Roman Catholics in El Salvador as "the voice of the
voiceless." Romero was killed by a sniper on March 24, 1980, while he
was celebrating mass.

A former Franciscan priest born in 1938, Boff said his visit to San
Salvador was "a debt I owed to Monsignor Romero," who was archbishop
of this diocese.

The U.N.-sponsored Truth Commission concluded in 1993 that the late
Major Roberto d'Aubuisson, the founder of the right-wing Nationalist
Republican Alliance, ordered Romero's killing. The Nationalist
Republican Alliance has governed El Salvador since 1989.

The Vatican has initiated a process of beatification for the late
Salvadoran archbishop.

In 2000, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights blamed the
Salvadoran state for violating Romero's right to life and failing to
investigate his murder.

Last October the government rejected responsibility for the crime and
refused to follow the commission's recommendations.

One of the founders of Liberation Theology and the author of 60
books, Boff summed up his views in "Church: Charisma and Power --
Liberation Theology and the Institutional Church." These views were
frowned on by the Vatican, which exercised disciplinary measures
against him in the 1980s and 1990s.

Joseph Ratzinger, who was then head of the Vatican's Sacred
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and is now Pope Benedict
XVI, imposed several of these sanctions on him, including periods of
enforced silence, during which he could not celebrate mass or speak
publicly about doctrinal questions.

Boff finally left the Franciscan order in 1992 and devoted himself to
teaching and writing.

In his view, Romero has become "an icon, not only for the church, but
for another kind of humanism that seeks dialogue, sides with the most
vulnerable, and involves salvaging the dignity of human beings and
demanding changes to guarantee that dignity," Boff said. "That was
seen as subversive, and therefore he was sacrificed."

Boff spoke to IPS in San Salvador about human rights and religious
affairs in Latin America.

IPS: What do you think is the main obstacle to clearing up the
assassination of Monsignor Romero?

LEONARDO BOFF: Society has to cleanse its memory. That's the only way
that justice can be done. Human relations cannot be based on lies and
impunity.

It is essential for society itself to demand that the perpetrators be
identified and that the law be enforced. Unless that happens, there
will always be an open wound, and people will continue to demand that
the spilt blood be atoned for.

IPS: Those in power say that this would reopen the wounds of the
past.

LB: That's a profoundly selfish view, because those who died continue
to belong to humankind. Human history is made up of the dead, their
dignity and their actions.

The memory of the victims must be preserved, because without it,
society loses the human beings who have gone before. The dead have
another kind of life and presence. They are on the other side of
life.

IPS: Monsignor Romero was a bishop who was appreciated and loved all
over the world. In several European cathedrals, statues have been
erected in his memory. Why is it that here, in El Salvador, those
guilty of his murder cannot be brought to justice?

LB: Oscar Romero is a unique martyr. He died for justice and for his
love of the poor. He is a kind of saint that is uncommon in the
history of the church. He initiated a kind of martyrdom for the sake
of justice, arising from a deeply committed faith. Basically, he
imitated the deeds of Christ. That is why I understand that the
religious powers-that-be have difficulty reading this new sign; they
don't know how to interpret it.

IPS: In decades past, the ties between the Catholic Church and the
people of Latin American were considered to be intense, close and
strong. How do you view them now?

LB: Almost half of the world's Catholics live in Latin America. That,
in itself, is a strength. But the Latin American church's capacity
for recreating a new liturgical face, better adapted to people's
cultures, is also the Catholic Church: a church that cherishes the
memory of the wisdom of indigenous and Afro-descendant cultures. This
church is still in the process of being born.

So far it has been an appendage, a reflection of the European church.
Now it is increasingly a strong church that is consolidating its own
identity.

IPS: Protestant churches have been gaining ground in Latin America,
and the Catholic Church has lost members. What do you think is the
reason?

LB: It's the church's own fault that it's losing members, through
being too authoritarian and centralized. It hasn't got enough priests
because they are not allowed to marry, and this is a growing cause of
permanent internal crisis.

This church is not open to change, as others are. Even Judaism has
opened its doors to women's ministry. If the Catholic Church does not
open itself up, its flock will continue to shrink.

In spite of that, the Catholic Church is illuminated from its base,
from Bible study groups, social pastorates for land, and Afro-
descendants' and indigenous people's organizations, which is where
its vitality lies.

IPS: Is there any connection between the loss of members and the
[weakening of the] Catholic liberation theology movement, which was
very strong three decades ago but lost momentum and saw its leaders
removed?

LB: Studies show that the church is growing where liberation theology
is alive. Where it is absent, charismatic churches and sects gain
ground. This has been statistically demonstrated.

Nor is it true that liberation theology has driven people out of the
Catholic Church. I think there have been attempts to demoralize
adherents of liberation theology and to deny the movement legitimacy,
and therefore many Christians who do not understand how the pope and
the bishops can be on the side of the oppressors and the rich, and
not on the side of the poor, have become discouraged.

IPS: What are the challenges that liberation theology faces in order
to reawaken its dampened spirit?

LB: At the recent World Forum on Theology and Liberation in Nairobi,
which attracted representatives from Asia, Africa, Latin America,
Europe and the United States, we saw its immense vitality and growth.
But it is not as visible, nor as controversial, as it used to be.
Liberation theology is present wherever the churches take poverty and
justice seriously.

The movement began with the experience of listening to marginalized
people: the poor, indigenous people, Afro-descendants and women, and
it is still as relevant as it was decades ago, because the poor are
still crying out to God to hear them. A gospel that does not lead to
liberation is no gospel at all.

I don't care about criticism from the powerful of the world and from
the church. What I care about is that there are Christians who take
the issue of justice seriously.

Liberation theology has not made poor people an object of reflection.
It has walked with them, and shared the same persecutions, slanders,
tortures and murders that they suffer. A theologian has one foot in
extreme poverty and the other foot in reflection, and by walking on
both, arrives at liberation.

And now we must pay attention to the cry of the gang members and
young people who have no place in society, the unwanted ones, who are
neglected by public policies: drug addicts, those caught up in
violence, the wretched of the earth.

But we must also heed the cry of the earth, the water, the forests
and the animals, threatened by an insensitive and merciless culture,
which may bring about a crisis in the web of life and cause hundreds
of species to disappear.