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While we join together at the Networking for Justice Encounter in Loyola, we will commemorate the 26th anniversary of the assassination (16 November 1989) of the 6 Jesuits and their two companions, Elba and Celina Ramos. They are martyrs of faith and witnesses to a university committed to building a just world. The Central American University (UCA) in El Salvador has been committed for years to justice in the country with studies and research. They collaborated with the archbishop of San Salvador Monsignor Oscar Romero (recently beatified) when he was assassinated on the altar in 1980 by a sniper hired to quiet his prophetic voice which denounced before the nation and the world the war crimes that were being carried against campesinos. In November 1989, when the attacks in the capital by the FMLN guerrilla increased, a precise objective by the head of the military was to assassinate the faculty team at the UCA, which was carried out in the middle of the night.
Jesus taught us that “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”. On the night before he was arrested and assassinated he announced that that they were going to kill him because they rejected God as Love, but he gave his life voluntarily.
In the Society of Jesus, in the 70s, there was a certain danger of division between those who were “social” and those who were “educators”, as if the 4th decree of 32nd General Congregation (1975) applied only to them. Later, a faith that does justice became more developed and in the world of education, we began to recognize the role of education in either maintaining an unjust world or transforming it. We know that the human condition tends to esteem money and power and treat people as instruments. The challenge we face is to put human dignity at the center and convert knowledge, political power and the economy in means to achieve this end. Ellacuría and his team believed in the power of the university and of the educational process to transform the country and overcome exclusion and poverty; but they knew there would be resistance.
Our mission is to create social bridges and carry out studies, research and training of new generations with a vision of justice and dignified life opportunities for all. A poor education for the poor serves to perpetuate poverty and exclusion and this is why we seek advocacy in public education policies that will bring to reality “the right to quality education for all.”
I knew and interacted with the Jesuit martyrs. With Martín Baró I coincided during my time in formation while in Colombia and Germany and with Ellacuría in meetings and during GC 33. One month prior to his assassination we talked together at the airport in Madrid. He expressed his conviction about the impossibility of one side or another winning and the need for dialogue and negotiation in order to end the terrible civil war. He welcomed the invitation by President Cristiani to form part of a dialogue and in a written response told him “I want to support all reasonable efforts so that dialogue/negotiation continue in the most effective manner.” But he also knew that he and the UCA were slandered and accused of being guerrilla leaders, because they denounced government abuses and the unjust and exclusive structures of the country.
Ignacio Ellacuría and his companions had a keen intellect, but no argument was more convincing in favor of the importance of universities inspired by Christian faith and social commitment than the offering of their lives.
Author: Luis Ugalde, SJ, former president of Andrés Bello Catholic University (UCAB). Expert in education policy in Venezuela.
Photo: The Salvadoran Martyrs by Mary Pimmel
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