The Crosses of Father Rutilio Grande

By Sandro F. Piedrahita

A story about Father Rutilio Grande, the first priest to be murdered during the political and military turmoil that enveloped El Salvador from 1977 to 1992

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“[M]y nervous system
is always weak. It is my Cross…
In the novitiate I asked for
a strong and heavy Cross, and
I never imagined that this
would be my Cross.”
Father Rutilio Grande, S.J.
 
“It is necessary that our congregation
(the Jesuits) be truly conscious that the justice
of the Gospel should be preached through
the Cross and on the Cross. If we intend
seriously to work for justice, the Cross
will immediately appear…”
Father Pedro Arrupe, S.J.
 
I know that my cousin Horacio thinks that I am falling into my nervous condition again, that I am relapsing somehow, when I tell him my life is in danger, that powerful figures in San Salvador would like to see me killed. But it is no divagation. I know my sermons are considered subversive by the oligarchy, know also that they have paramilitary death squads at their command. Haven’t they “disappeared” hundreds of students, union organizers, and rebellious peasants in the last six months? Wasn’t there a massacre in the capital just three weeks ago, where hundreds were killed because they protested against manifest electoral fraud? What difference could it make that I am a priest? It is the priests they fear. Haven’t the staunch defenders of the status quo scrawled their messages on walls all over the country? Be a patriot. Kill a priest.

I ask Horacio if I should begin to travel with a bodyguard, and he laughs.

“Now you’re really rambling,” he says. “It’s all a product of your imagination. Nobody wants to assassinate a simple rural priest. Remember you suffer from unruly anxieties, that sometimes irrational fears control your mind.”

“No,” I respond to my cousin. “It’s virtually impossible to be authentically Catholic in this martyred nation. I should be traveling with a bodyguard.”

“As far as I know, no priests have been killed in this country. Not one, Tilo. It’s just your anxiety speaking. You’ve always taught me to combat worry with trust in God’s love and mercy.”

“You’re forgetting how they tortured Juan Jose Ramirez three weeks ago because he was a former Jesuit involved in the cause of the campesinos. And I myself was handcuffed – don’t forget that – merely because I had the temerity to continue to preach in Aguilares after the military took over. No, these aren’t the ramblings of a schizophrenic. The Cains have declared war on the Abels in El Salvador. And the saddest thing is, those Cains vigorously claim to be Catholics.”

“Well, if you think like that, maybe it’s best just to lie low for a while,” says my cousin. “Don’t keep calling the coffee barons ‘Cains’ in your sermons. Focus more on what the Gospel says. Talk about how Jesus healed the lepers and things like that. Avoid political subjects.”

“Don’t you see that’s what I’ve been doing – focusing on the message of Jesus? Social injustice is an affront to the gospel. And that’s why I’m in mortal danger. But I refuse to be silenced.”   

“Well, your homily in Apopa last week was pretty strident. Again, I think it’s a question of your nerves. You’re calling a whole class of people monsters, and I think you might be exaggerating. All they did was expel a Colombian priest, and you made it sound like they were Judas in the flesh. Father Mario wasn’t tortured or killed. And yet I remember your words: ‘Woe to you hypocrites who pay lip service to Catholicism but inside are disgustingly evil.’ If you weren’t allowing your nervous condition to take over, you wouldn’t have said the deportation of a single priest is somehow a sign that those in power detest Catholicism and are irrevocably doomed to hell.”

“It wasn’t just about the deportation of Father Mario. Next they’ll start to kill our priests and nuns. Mark my words, Horacio. Don’t forget the murder of Father Betancourt and Father Cypher in Honduras, the killing of Father Gallego in Panama, the assassination of a Jesuit priest in Brazil. Why do you think it will be different in our country?”

“No priest has ever been murdered in El Salvador. It may have happened in other nations, Tilo, but never here. Your examples about what may have happened in Brazil, for example, are completely beside the point.”

“The Cains are trying to say all the Jesuit priests in El Salvador are hardcore Marxists, an excuse they’ll use to justify their violence. They even have some bishops on their side. Bishop Barrera accuses us of fomenting class hatred and undermining Christianity. When all we’re demanding is a fair wage for an honest day’s labor. And agrarian reform is not a form of Communism.”

“I understand that, Tilo, but you have to realize the rich people think taking away their property is a form of theft. You can’t preach to them from the pulpit that their haciendas should be turned over to the campesinos and not expect a reaction. We’re in El Salvador, after all. The Church has always sided with the landholders.”

“The peasants should be able to own the land where they toil and sweat. Everything shouldn’t be owned by a few wealthy families. I told those Cains they’re not fulfilling their Christian duties merely because they donate a statue of the Virgin Mary to a church during the Christmas season. I told them they are guilty of institutional sin. And for saying that, I might be shot.”

“I don’t think so, Tilo. We’re not in the 1930s, the time of la matanza when thousands of peasants were butchered. Take a vacation to calm your nerves. When you come back, everything will be back to normal.”

“That’s exactly what I don’t want, Horacio – for everything to get back to normal. Normal isn’t good enough. We must seek God’s Kingdom right here in Central America, right here in El Salvador. We must incarnate the Kingdom in our national reality. And don’t worry about my nerves. I’m not afraid of the inexistent boogeyman. It’s the armed agents of the oligarchy I fear – and they very much exist.”

* * *

At the time, I thought it was an undeserved Cross, a terrible punishment, but now I realize every Cross has a salvific purpose. My mental illness was a good reason for me to develop humility and acceptance of the will of God. And yet when my schizophrenia first appeared, I said with Jesus: “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Yet not as I will, but as You will.”

The truth is I would have preferred any other Cross – cancer, blindness, the amputation of one of my limbs – and not a malady that assaulted my very mind, my capacity to reason. Like Saint Paul, I prayed that the Lord would rid me completely of the Cross He had given me, but as with the saint, God refused to withdraw my Cross but gave me the strength and fortitude to manage it. The Lord made manifest that His power is perfected in weakness and that His grace is sufficient to me. So I thank Him, after so many years of challenge, for despite my persistent anxieties I have been able to carry on as a pastor to my beleaguered people.

Perhaps without my Cross I would have become proud, after studying philosophy and theology all over Europe and Latin America. Perhaps I would have become distanced from the destitute peasants with whom I grew up in El Paisnal. But my mental illness did not allow me to do so, for I learned what it means to be humble, and that made me a better priest, a better man, a better pastor. Even if some people like my cousin Horacio still think I’m a little off, a little loony.

My first bout of schizophrenia happened when I was studying theology in Panama. All I recall from that first episode is that I felt dazed and somehow removed from reality until I woke up in a psychiatric ward and came back to my senses. Apparently I had suffered from an attack of catatonia. The vice-provincial of Panama had found me in my room with a blank expression on my face, unable to respond to any stimuli, even as he slapped me in an attempt to rouse me from my strange condition. Then I had begun to speak incoherently, muttering nonsensical phrases, even as the tone of my voice became louder and louder.

The truth is I remember nothing from that day of stupor, only what has been reported to me. All I remember is a middle-aged nun sitting at my side in the room at the mental ward – her face was pale and round like the holy host – and the harsh white light from a lamp next to my bed. I asked her where I was, and she responded in an even voice: “You’re in the hospital, Father Rutilio. This morning you had a nervous breakdown.”

The three months I spent in the psychiatric ward were painful, not only because I suffered from strange delusions, but also because of the condition of some of the other patients. I had the sense that someone would try to hurt me, that they would assault me in the middle of the night, and I was terrified when I heard the howls of some of the other patients, which I can only describe as fantasmal: ghoulish, ghostly, frightening. I tried to bury my face in my pillow in order not to hear them, but it was useless. Their moaning filled the halls of the hospital with an insistent echo which made me think I was living through a nightmare, all the while my mind being burdened by the most bizarre anxieties.

When Father Gregorio came by to check up on me, all I remember is that I pleaded with him to let me leave the psychiatric ward and go back to the Jesuit quarters at San Fermin. But he would say, “Not yet, not yet, we need a little time,” and I hated him for it, hated his rotund figure, hated his squinty eyes, hated everything about him. Oh why, oh why wouldn’t he let me leave the hospital?

At the same time, I was terrified that my Jesuit superiors would decide that I was not in the proper condition to become a priest. My vocation had started early in life, when I accompanied my grandmother as she took care of the village church at El Paisnal. I remember playing with my schoolmates when I was a mere nine-year-old, pretending that I was a priest and even replicating the ritual of the Eucharist, sitting behind a wide table with a white sheet on top and handing my friends pieces of bread which symbolized the holy host.

When Archbishop Chavez y Gonzalez visited my town a few years later, when I was around thirteen, he instantly recognized that I had a desire to join the priesthood and invited me to live in the seminary even at that young age. I accepted his offer in an instant. I wanted to live for the Lord and in the Lord, and my mind was filled with thoughts of Jesus and of sharing the glorious gospel with my fellow peasants at El Paisnal. In the psychiatric ward, I feared that all of that would be lost irrevocably. How could a confused man with a psychiatric condition – a madman no less – preach to the masses hungry for spiritual direction? I was sure that the Jesuits would not tolerate it, that I would promptly be ousted from the Society of Jesus.

When Doctor Alcantara came to examine me, I lied to him entirely. Did he think I was a fool? If I told him what I really thought, he’d keep me in the psychiatric hospital for another six months. So I didn’t tell him, for example, that I thought spies were keeping tabs on me ever since I delivered a speech saying all of the Central American countries should unite to oust their North American oppressor. I still believe it happened – that spies kept me in their crosshairs for years – but I have learned mostly to keep my anxieties to myself.

And sure enough, Doctor Alcantara agreed that I should be released from the hospital and transferred to a Jesuit seminary where I could rest and hopefully get cured. The next step, I knew, was to convince my Jesuit superiors that I was healed so that they would allow me to be consecrated as a priest. And I was willing to do anything and everything to accomplish that.     

* * *

This morning I receive an unsigned letter which confirms my fears. Even though I try to hide my anguish from all around me, there is no doubt in my mind that my life is in danger. What other meaning could I give to the thinly veiled message in the letter? Is it my nervous condition that leads me to see it as a threat?

“Dear Father Tilo,” the letter begins. “The Church has had its changes. Now it is the market of vilifications, insults and rumors that never fail. Rumors that the distinguished families of El Salvador are predators who suck the blood out of our noble peasants. It seems the situation is driving you crazy, Tilo, Tilo! You know what I mean. Religion has declined! You’re not cultured. It’s unfortunate that you’re using the studies the government financed for you to offend your friends and the people who relieved your hunger in grueling situations. Are you insane again, Tilo, Tilo? Everyone knows of your condition. Do you want it to get worse? We sign here: the womanizers, the drunks, the thieves, the bachelors!”     

I immediately go to the house of my cousin Horacio with the letter in my hands and knock desperately on the door. He is the only person with whom I discuss my anxieties.

“What’s wrong?” he asks as soon as he sees my face. “What has you so perturbed?”

I say nothing and hand him the letter, which he quickly reads.

“So what?” he asks. “Some asshole sent you a nasty letter. I don’t think it should make you feel afraid. They just want you to stop delivering sermons like the one you delivered at Apopa ten days ago, exciting the anger of the peasants. You ruffled a lot of feathers, you know. What else did you expect in this screwed-up country?”

“Last night I dreamed that they hanged the carcass of a dog from one of the lampposts next to the rectory.”

“So now you’re telling me it’s your dreams that are hyping up your fears? Come on, Tilo, I thought we were well beyond that.”

“I didn’t tell you this before because at first I made nothing of it. But a couple of days ago I discovered that someone had traced a cross with a razor blade on the plastic window of my car. And now I’m thinking maybe it was a warning of some sort.”

“Listen, Tilo. Perhaps you should leave the country for a while. I’ve said this to you before. Right now in El Salvador it’s a messy time. What with the contested elections and the new archbishop and all this fuss about the foreign priests, it’s getting a little crazy. For a person with your nervous condition to be in the thick of it is simply not a good idea.”

“Don’t forget I’m a pastor. Should a shepherd abandon his sheep?”

“It’s just that it seems that it’s getting on your nerves. Some folks are pissed off at you right now because of your sermon at Apopa. In a couple of weeks, they’ll forget all about it. So maybe go to Costa Rica for a month. Or take those classes at the Jesuit university in the United States you’ve discussed for years.”

“You don’t seem to understand. They’re not pissed off, as you say, because of a single sermon I delivered. They’re angry because of all my pastoral work in Aguilares. The peasants were resigned to their condition, they accepted it as the will of God, and then I, along with a bunch of other priests, told them they had a right to a better life on earth. We told them that misery is never the will of God, and that they should demand improvements. We told them they had no obligation to accept oppression. And the campesinos have responded to our call. That’s what has the oligarchy so riled up. I think they fear a revolution.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Horacio answers. “If you think it is so bad…”

“Look at what happened to Barahona last week. They’re not just expelling American and Spanish Jesuits any more. They tortured Father Barahona, a man born in El Salvador just like me. And it’s going to get worse. Already you hear the clamor in the government-affiliated media about punishing subversive and Marxist priests. How do you think they intend to punish us? Do you think they’ll limit themselves to sending nasty letters? Their message is clear. Either leave El Salvador or face the consequences. And the consequences couldn’t be more dire.”

“All the more reason for you to leave the country for a while,” says Horacio.

“Have you heard about Saint Peter’s crucifixion?” I ask. “How he was about to leave Rome to avoid Nero’s wrath?”

“I know nothing about it.”

“Saint Peter had learned that Nero blamed the Christians for the burning of Rome and that he intended to kill all of them at the Circus Maximus. Saint Peter began to make his escape, but then he encountered the Christ at the Appian Gate. The Lord asked Peter why he was abandoning his flock, and Peter immediately returned to Rome, where he was crucified upside down, along with hundreds of other Christians. I can’t leave my beloved campesinos alone to their fate at this crucial time. Things are going to get a lot worse for them too. If I have to be martyred with and for my people, perhaps I should accept it as the will of God.”

“Beware of delusions of grandeur,” says Horacio. “I know you’ve thought for years that spies are tracking you. You’re giving yourself too much self-importance. You’re not Saint Peter. You’re an ordinary priest. Christ isn’t forcing you to sacrifice your life for the peasants of El Salvador.”

“Depart from me, evil one,” I tell him. “You’re not telling me things of God but things of man. Of course every man, not just priests, must emulate the saints.”

* * *

After I was discharged from the mental hospital in Panama, I tried as best I could to conceal my nervous condition from others. I learned to hide my Cross. Fortunately, on the few occasions when I suffered from catatonia again, the episodes did not last very long, and no one was able to witness them. When I felt I was about to lapse into such a state, I immediately sought refuge in my room and avoided the company of others. However, in the light of the years I realize that I suffered from – still suffer from – some sort of bipolar disorder, although it has never been diagnosed by a psychiatrist.

I often feel alternating periods of elation and depression, and this I have been unable to conceal from my fellow priests. But my Jesuit superiors have been kind to me and mostly ignored the fact that from one day to another my mood could completely change. They attributed my days of depression to my excessive scrupulosity – my great and abiding fear of lapsing into sin – and they assigned lighter duties to me because they reasoned that the state of my nerves was often worsened due to mental exhaustion. They also realized that my condition was greatly improved when I was among the peasant people as opposed to performing merely academic duties. So at the right time they approved my proposal for a special pastoral ministry among the destitute peasants of Aguilares.

Only Father Zalba was aware of my constant torment, my abiding pain. This was mostly because I doubted that my ordination as a priest was valid. I felt that when I had received minor orders – a necessary step before full ordination -- my desire to become a priest had not been honest or complete. As a result, I worried that my priestly ordination was annulled from the outset, that I was not really a priest. Doubting about the priesthood is the cruelest torture possible for one who loves his vocation and the priesthood. I feared that I had actually committed a sin when I accepted ordination given the insufficiency of my minor orders.
I wrote Father Zalba in Spain because he was the man that had performed my ordination in Oña and he knew about the doubts which had bedeviled me from the day I was ordained a priest. I told him that I was horrified by the idea that the major orders I received were invalid or at least doubtful. The good Spanish priest was very confused by the concerns stated in my first letter and initially chalked them up to my nervous condition. He wrote to me saying I was legitimately a priest and should not worry about the matter any further, stating that I had certainly not sinned when I accepted ordination.

“Just dedicate yourself to the pastoral work you so love,” he wrote at the end of his letter. “You’re not only a valid priest, Rutilio, you’re an excellent messenger of the gospel for the poor of your native nation. I know of the wonderful work you’ve been doing among the peasants.”    

But my doubts were not so easily abated. To this day, I harbor the suspicion that perhaps I am not legitimately a priest. I fear that I live in a state of perpetual sin, that I am not habilitated to deliver the Eucharist or hear confessions. My second letter to Father Zalba was more explicit, a fifteen-page missive explaining exactly why I felt my ordination was invalid. Initially, I had written an eight-page letter, but I felt I was omitting several important points. So I rewrote the letter, underlining the additions in red ink so Father Zalba would know what I had added and understood the additions were important. In that letter, I reiterated concerns which the Spanish priest already knew. I finished the letter with a desperate request that he respond unless he “wanted to kill me or drive me mad.”

At the time I was made a priest, I wanted to add a phrase stated during my ordination to express my fears that my priesthood might be invalid given the potential inadequacy of my minor orders. In particular, I desired to state during the ordination that “I wanted to receive major orders even under the supposition that by receiving them I would be committing a grave, material and formal sin.” Father Zalba, at the time, had told me I was overly scrupulous, but suggested I merely add that by receiving major orders “I might be receiving them illicitly.” Father Zalba had thought the matter was resolved, but I continued to feel I should have added the reference to committing a “formal sin” by receiving major orders.

That thought continued to rack my mind years after my ordination, and I just wanted to make sure Father Zalba understood my position perfectly. On the one hand, I understood that my doubts and worries might be scruples that I had to drive away. On the other, they seemed to be not scruples but the proddings of my conscience. I’m sure that I was exasperating Father Zalba. Two days after I sent him the letter, I sent him another duplicate of it, since I was afraid someone would open the previous letter and mix up the pages so that the priest could not follow them as he should. In retrospect, I understand that my actions were a reflection of my terrible confusion and must have been maddening to the Spanish priest. To me, it was an existential issue: was I a priest or was I not?

I hoped Father Zalba could resolve the issue in my mind, but he could not. He merely reiterated that it was all a product of excessive scrupulosity and left it at that, probably knowing that any further explanation would be useless anyway.

As a result, I would be left with a strange and hidden fear which pained me for the rest of my life.

* * *

I always say Central America is a good place for schizophrenics to hide, for even the most sane among us must constantly question whether they might be giving in to delusions of persecution. This afternoon, the Catholic comunidad de base of El Paisnal got together at the home of Doña Juana – a small group of about forty members – and I know that I wasn’t the only one in the group who feared there might be informants among us. I know my cousin Horacio would laugh if I told him this, since he is of a skeptical nature. I know he would probably accuse me of letting myself succumb to my nervous condition.

But I know for a fact that many comunidades de base have been infiltrated by peasants who are paid handsomely by the military to identify the “subversives” among us, especially the intrusive priests and nuns so despised by the oligarchy. And of course once the “subversives” are identified, they can be easily eliminated. This is not a product of my imagination. It isn’t a secret that our military forces have a “thousand eyes and ears,” that you never know who might be a spy reporting to the death squads. No priests and nuns have been assassinated – yet – but I know it is only a matter of time, since the comunidades de base established by the clergy have already been loudly and publicly denounced as enemies of the ruling classes and of the Catholic Church itself.

This afternoon I initiate the discussion by asking the group to read the parable of the insistent widow. According to Luke, “in a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’ The judge kept denying justice to the widow, and yet she continued with her pleas.

So the judge finally said that because the widow kept bothering him, he would see to it that she got justice so that she wouldn’t come back and attack him. I ask the group to discuss the meaning of the parable from a religious and political point of view. I always want the peasants to apply the message of the gospel to their own lives. I see the parable of the insistent widow as an allegory of what is happening to the peasants in modern-day El Salvador. But the ultimate meaning of the parable as it applies to the conditions of our country isn’t necessarily clear.

Doña Juana is the first one to opine. She is known as a rezadora – a pious person – and was elected by the comunidad de base to lead the group in prayer and reflection. I try to let the members of the ecclesial community participate as much as possible, and once I start a discussion, I make an effort to let them speak instead of controlling the discussion.

“I see the story as having two different meanings,” Doña Juana says. “First, it tells us that we must never cease in our prayers to God. We must keep asking until He grants our prayers no matter how long it takes. But I also see it as having something to do with the situation we face today in El Salvador. We must keep clamoring for justice until the authorities in San Salvador listen to our requests. I see the government as the judge who did not fear God. And we – the peasants – are like the insistent widow who never tires in her pleas. Ultimately, if we do not tire, if we do not become fatigued, the government in San Salvador will have to respond to our demands.”

Then Alvaro Gomez speaks. He’s a twenty-year-old son of peasants who somehow was able to enroll at a university.

“I think there’s another important point to be made,” he says in a calm but authoritative voice. “The judge only listened to the insistent widow because he was afraid she would come back and attack him. If the judge hadn’t feared her, he never would have delivered justice. I think that applies our country today. Nothing will be accomplished unless we instill fear in the ruling classes, in those Father Tilo calls the ‘Cains.’”

“That invites a question,” I intervene. “Do we instill fear in the oligarchy through threats and acts of physical violence, or do we do so through Christian means?”

“I think it’s clear-cut,” says Doña Juana. “Christ said to turn the other cheek.”

“Nothing will be achieved without violence,” Alvaro objects. “I think that’s clear by now. And it’s just an answer to state-sponsored violence anyway. We aren’t the instigators. No, we’re the ones who have suffered. And it’s our Christian duty to provide a vigorous response. We must not forget that in the end, Cain killed Abel. If we are Abel and the powerful are Cain, then we must kill Cain before Cain murders us first.”

“Can’t we achieve our purpose through nonviolent means?” don Manuel Solorzano asks. He’s a seventy-year-old man with calloused hands. “After all, the insistent widow never resorted to violence. And I don’t think the Good Lord intended us to read His parable as an invitation to armed struggle.”

“We must just keep making our demands,” says a young woman by the name of Betty. “We must insist, insist, just like the widow, but we must do so through lawful and peaceful means.”

“What if nonviolent means accomplish nothing?” I probe her mind. I want the members of the comunidad de base to think through the issue, although I myself don’t think peasant violence is necessary or permissible.

“Well, in that case I’m not sure,” says Betty. “Surely Jesus’ parable can’t be read as an instruction to kill our enemies. Didn’t he say blessed are the peacemakers because they shall be called the sons of God?”

“That’s right,” I say. “Jesus taught us to seek justice through nonviolent means.”

“That contradicts everything you’ve taught us about the need to become aware of our status as oppressed people,” Alvaro says. “You have told us again and again that the poor must abandon their fatalism and demand humane conditions. Don’t you see the only logical conclusion to be drawn from your words is that we need a revolution? Why do you think the oligarchy is so afraid of you Jesuit priests? Your efforts to develop a social consciousness among the peasants have succeeded beyond your wildest dreams. The persistent widow has finally had enough!”

Then a man appears, as if out of the shadows, a stout, red-bearded man I have never seen before.

“You’re teaching these people Communism and rebellion,” he says to me. “If I were you, I’d watch my back, Rutilio.”

“Who are you?” I ask.

“A warning,” he responds. He picks up his straw hat and disappears.    

* * *

I have learned to manage my malady, and the ruthlessness of those in power is no illusion. I know my sermon about the kidnapping and subsequent deportation of Colombian priest Mario Bernal has been received with fear and hatred by those who rule El Salvador. As far as my nervous condition, my people have healed me, for as Saint Francis of Assisi said, “It is in giving that we receive.”

I remember a suicidal man who learned to love life when he was forced to care for a sick brother with a horrible skin disease. During all his months attending to his brother, cleaning the bloody pustules on his face and arms, the suicidal man forgot all about himself, and in the process, his suicidal ideation disappeared completely.

And so it is with me. By giving my love to the campesinos, by living among them during my last five years in Aguilares, I have learned to conquer my mental illness. My Jesuit superiors realized that when I was doing pastoral work with the peasants, all the symptoms of my stubborn schizoid condition seemed to go away. I was never nervous when I was teaching my indigenous brothers and sisters to write and read, to learn their catechism, to realize that God did not willingly consent to their destitution. I may still suffer from scrupulosity and occasional panic attacks, but the worst is over. My fear of the death squads is not a result of my schizophrenia, but a reaction to an undeniable reality.

Here it is perilous to preach the message of the gospel honestly. It is an uncomfortable message, no doubt, especially to those modern-day Cains who might pray novenas once a month and occasionally donate their crumbs to charities but grievously sin against God through their abuse of power and their exploitation of the campesinos. Hadn’t Christ said that whatever is done to the “least of these” is also done to Him? I wanted El Salvador’s rich to learn and live that lesson. I wanted to teach them that salvation could be reached by helping the downtrodden. And I did it with full knowledge that my life was at risk for preaching such a “demented” and “radical” lesson – for teaching such a Christlike lesson!

A week after the deportation of Father Mario, I delivered a sermon in the church of Apopa where he had served as a parish priest. I called it a “demonstration of trust in God,” and so it was. The Mass was attended by multitudinous masses, Father Mario’s angry rural flock, people from every hamlet in the vicariate of Quezaltepeque, all seeking the return of the pastor they so loved and demanding justice from the government and from the church. In my homily, I did not focus exclusively on the disappearance of Father Mario. I emphasized it was his message that had been silenced.

I warned the crowds that the Cains would continue to try to silence that message no matter who tried to spread it, be they priests, peasants or students. The Cains – those in power – would fight to the death to crush the idea that the land was God’s gift to all humanity, that as children of God all of us are equal with one another, that the poor peasants of El Salvador should no longer be treated as slaves. Even the birds fared better, I told the throngs, for the birds could fly all day in liberty and make their nests in the branches of trees without having to toil all morning and afternoon in the sweltering sun.   

After the conclusion of the Mass, the Salvadoran press, an instrument of the oligarchy like so many other institutions in the country, twisted my words to suggest that I was a Communist and snidely suggested that I was desvariando – that I was demented – perhaps alluding to rumors of my madness which, unfortunately, many Salvadorans had already heard.

While I called for “moral violence,” clearly distinguishing it from physical violence, the newspapers announced that my homily called for revolution through violent means. While I denounced class hatred, they suggested I was an adherent of Karl Marx’s call for a fratricidal war between the classes. While I said that if Jesus appeared in contemporary El Salvador, He would be flogged, beaten and crucified again because of His demanding call to love, that he would be called a rebellious subversive and a foreign Communist, they claimed I was echoing the words of Father Camilo Torres Restrepo of Colombia, the revolutionary priest who had once said that in Latin America, Jesus would come back as a guerrillero.

In the end, many newspapers concluded that the procession before the Mass, as well as the Mass itself, was organized by atheistic Communists, and thus the Salvadoran people – the rich and the poor – could ignore its deeper meaning. All I was asking for was an end to the peasants’ misery. The fact that some hard-left groups had participated in the ceremony, among many others, allowed the right-wing press to dismiss my message entirely. 

* * *

This morning, I wake up sweating and hyperventilating. I feel a sharp chest pain and at first think I am suffering from a heart attack. I feel dizzy, unsteady, lightheaded and experience an intense fear, the certainty that I am about to be killed. My heart palpitates and I begin to tremble. I have a vision of the red-bearded man who warned me about my work with the comunidades de base.

“You better watch your back,” he had said.

I imagine him saying, “I will murder you, damned Jesuit.”

My stomach begins to ache, and I feel a sudden nausea. I begin to vomit. Everything around me gives me a sense of impending doom – the darkness of my bedroom, the grayness coming through the window, the rattle of the fan attached to the ceiling. I feel a strong urge to escape but have no idea where to go. I know that I am in greater danger outside my bedroom.

“I shall kill you, damned Jesuit,” I hear again and again as I continue to have flashing visions of the red-bearded man smiling at me. I feel my heart is about to explode – it is beating so hard – and feel I cannot breathe. Surely I am going insane. Surely I am losing all control of my senses.
I have to keep calm. I have to remember these panic attacks are fleeting. I have to tell myself that they usually last no more than half an hour. I know that they happen when I am subjected to intense psychological pressure. Nobody is going to kill me. It is all in my mind. These last three weeks have been grating on my weak nervous condition. So many things have happened – the expulsion of Father Mario, the torture of a former seminarian, the massacre of the protesters in San Salvador. The ruling classes do not want to give an inch, and the peasants have been awakened from their slumber.

I am beset by fears that a bloody civil war is on the horizon, the murder of many priests and nuns. And yet I have to keep reminding myself that I am a recovering schizophrenic, that it is my Cross to imagine fearful happenings. I decide to pray, even as my heart continues to palpitate. Please remind me, Lord, that everything is in your hands. Cure the pain that afflicts my soul.

I fall on my bed and manage to fall asleep. The worst is over. I wake up several hours later, when my cousin Horacio knocks on my door. I tell him nothing of my panic attack. I don’t want to be institutionalized. And there is nothing a psychiatrist can do for me anyway.

“You’re going to El Paisnal tonight?” he asks me.

“Yes,” I answer. I make an effort to appear composed. “The peasants are praying a novena to Saint Joseph, and Father Carranza is unavailable.”

“How are you feeling? Are you still afraid of death squad violence?”

“Much better, thank you,” I lie to him. “You’re right. A priest has never been assassinated in our country. And nobody is going to kill me just because I delivered a fiery sermon. They’re not even mentioning it in the papers any more. The biggest story is Oscar Romero becoming the Archbishop of El Salvador.”

“Do you want me to drive you?”

“No, that’s fine,” I say. “I’ll just drive the Volkswagen Safari myself. Don Manuel Solorzano and the teenager Lemus Nelson have been accompanying me to El Paisnal. They’re both very devoted to Saint Joseph. Tonight is the third night of the novena.”

The truth is that I tried to dissuade them from going with me. I didn’t want their lives to be in danger. The dirt road between Aguilares and El Paisnal was deserted, and it would not be difficult to ambush us as we went on our way. But they had made nothing of the fears which I expressed to them. Don Manuel Solorzano, a seventy-year-old peasant, told me that at his age he had few years left and that he was not fearful of martyrdom for the Church. Lemus, like all teenagers, thought he would live forever, and he made short shrift of my warnings.

“Nothing is going to happen,” he reassured me. “Saint Joseph will protect us.”

At six o’clock, we begin our trek to El Paisnal. At some point we see three peasant children walking in the direction of the town. Don Manuel suggests we pick them up, but I am hesitant. I don’t want to imperil their lives. Don Manuel is insistent, however, and I accede to his demand. The three sit in the back of the Safari. Don Manuel and Lemus sit with me in the front of the vehicle.

For the first hour of our journey, I notice nothing unusual. But at some point, I notice a Ford Pinto with foreign license plates following us closely on the road. I try to accelerate my speed to see if we could lose them, but they remain close behind us. I am sure they are following us with dark intentions, but I say nothing to don Manuel or to Lemus. Perhaps my fear, once again, is a product of my nervous condition. The license plates mean nothing.

And then it happens. The Ford Pinto appears next to our vehicle and forces us off the road. My little Volkswagen Safari rolls down a slope and lands at the bottom of a ravine. Everybody seems to be fine, and only don Manuel seems to recognize the gravity of what has happened.

“They did that intentionally,” he says in a nervous voice. “And they’re not playing games.”

Then we see the men appear. They are led by the red-bearded man who had warned me at the meeting of the comunidad eclesial de base. Lemus recognizes him as a man named Peralta, rumored to be a secret member of a Salvadoran paramilitary group which infiltrated the peasant classes to gather intelligence.

“Get out of the car,” he orders, and we promptly comply.

Immediately he kills the seventy-year-old don Manuel. Then he shoots Lemus in the face, and the lad collapses on the ground. He lets the three children run away, a small act of mercy which I did not expect.

Then he addresses me directly.

“You are the first, but you won’t be the last, Rutilio Grande. Don’t believe your fellow Jesuits will remain unscathed.”

“You won’t be able to silence the Church,” I respond, flashing anger more than fear. “You want to silence the gospel, but Jesus won’t allow it. Christians have been persecuted many times in human history, but never have they been silenced.”

Peralta fires at my left shoulder, and I wince.

“Father, into your hands I commend my spirit,” I say as he fires a second shot at my right shoulder. I get the sense that he wants to kill me slowly, but then the other death squad members appear, and they crucify my body with bullets.

“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing,” I mutter under my breath as I turn over my soul to the Holy Spirit.

It is finished.

* * *

Author’s Postscript

Father Rutilio Grande was the first priest to be murdered during the political and military turmoil which enveloped the nation of El Salvador during the period from 1977 to 1992, but he was not the last. The most notorious assassination was that of Archbishop Oscar Romero in March 1980 as he was celebrating Mass. Other infamous cases include those of the rape and murder of three American Maryknoll nuns and a lay missionary in December 1980 and the killing of six Jesuit priests in November 1989. Overall, the turmoil in El Salvador was to claim the lives of twenty priests, four nuns and hundreds of catechists. Many members of the church-based communities such as that organized by Father Rutilio Grande were also killed. The Salvadoran civil war, which began in 1980 and ended in the Chapultepec Castle peace accords of 1992, resulted in the loss of over 75,000 civilian lives, many of them poor peasants persecuted for their faith in Christ.

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Sandro Francisco Piedrahita is an American Catholic writer of Peruvian and Ecuadorian descent. Before he turned to writing, he practised law for a number of years. He is Jesuit-educated, and many of his stories have to do with the lives of saints, told through a modern lens. His wife Rosa is a schoolteacher, his son Joaquin teaches English in China and his daughter Sofia is a social worker. For many years, he was an agnostic, but he has returned to the faith. Mr. Piedrahita holds a degree in Comparative Literature from Yale College and a law degree from Harvard Law School.

Sandro's other work on Foreshadow:
The Crucifixion of St. Peter (Part 1 of 2; Fiction, August 2022)
The Crucifixion of St. Peter (Part 2 of 2; Fiction, August 2022)
​A World for Abimael Jones (Part 1 of 2); Fiction, March 2023)
A World for Abimael Jones (Part 2 of 2); Fiction, March 2023)
A Jew and Her Cross (Part 1 of 2; Fiction, April 2023)
A Jew and Her Cross (Part 2 of 2; Fiction, April 2023)
God Alone Suffices (Fiction, June 2023)
Salvifici Dolores​ (Fiction, July 2023)
That Person Whom You Know (Fiction, September 2023)
The Slave and His Master (Fiction, September 2023)
The Knight and Lady Poverty (Fiction, January 2024)