Joining the Saints?

Between 1975 and 1983 the Guatemalan Army, “Civil Patrols” created by the army, and other elements of Guatemala’s military and intelligence entities murdered somewhere in excess of 100,000 people. Hundreds of Maya villages were simply wiped out, and in some areas about 25% of the population was cast into internal exile in offical resettlement camps or in refugee centers in Chiapas, Mexico. Hundreds of families constituting “Comunidades de Poblacionies en Resistencia” (CPRs) avoided forced resettlement only by living fugitive lives in the mountains and jungles where they faced starvation and extermination in a life of eternal flight from soldiers on the ground and helicopters from above.

Most of this was done with, at most, a blind eye from the US Government, although often “full approval” or “covert involvement” better describes the US stance to brutal repression in Guatemala. The logic, particularly under the Reagan administration, was to combat some phantom spread of communism – a ridiculous notion, but a guiding one for the old cold warrior. Reagan promised hundreds of millions of dollars to the worst of the butchers, Efraím Riós Montt; and his evangelical buddy and supporter, Pat Robertson, obligated the 700 Club to provide a billion dollars to Riós Montt’s “missionary” campaign of making Guatemala a fundamentalist Christian nation with a “beans or bullets” campaign. Easy enough to understand: if the people didn’t resist the government, they got beans; if they did, they got bullets.

In reality, it wasn’t that simple. Unsuspecting villagers found themselves suddenly invaded without warning. The more fortunate men were conscripted – more were simply murdered, while the women were gang raped and then murdered or simply left to deal with the psychological wounds. The mass graves from these incidents are STILL being discovered and exhumed, and the government and military still takes every opportunity to squelch the anthropological investigations and attempts to bring the murderers to justice.

Unlike a few other countries – notably neighboring El Salvador – the institutional Catholic Church had no popular Archbishop like Óscar Romero to promote justice during this reign of terror. There was, however, at least one justice-minded Bishop in the diocese of Quiché, Juán Gerardi, who spoke out via a network of justice-centered radio stations he established. In early 1980, the Guatemalan military/intelligence services set fire to the Spanish Embassy when they refused to turn over activists sought by the government. Thirty-nine people died in the fire, drawing Gerardi’s strong condemnation.

Later that year, he went to a Synod in Rome, and was refused reentry into either Guatemala or El Salvador when he returned. Throughout that year and the next two, the violence in the area of Chichicastenango and even more in the area north of it called the “Ixil Triangle” escalated as the scorched earth policies were brutally applied, resulting in the worst and bloodiest violence of these years of what was then called “civil war,” but which we now know was a very nominal insurgency with profoundly disproportionate repression as the official response.
Finally the violence tapered off in the mid-1980s, largely due to the mounting weight of international pressure on Guatemala from European nations.

In 1988, the Catholic Church, under the auspices of a new justice-oriented bishop, initiated the “Recovery of Historical Memory” project, which sought to document the horrible repression and torture and massacres. Gerardi was put in charge of this endeavor, with US Historian Greg Grandin playing a leading role. Ten years later the result was a collection of four tomes called Guatemala: Nunca Más! (Never Again!), which drew from tens of thousands of stories and videos and recorded interviews.

Gerardi was warned not to publish the report, but did so anyway, and two days after release of the books he paid the ultimate price, being bludgeoned to death in the Guatemala City rectory where he lived. Two army officers – a father and son – with ties to the Palace Police were convicted of the murder a few years later. One of them, Byron Lima, was murdered in prison after serving 15 years.

Meanwhile, some of the foreign and Guatemalan Catholic Priests and the many catechists who struggled for social justice have never been completely forgotten. But neither have they been honored as the heroes they were by the Church. In various convents and churches throughout the country, shrines honoring them continue to be maintained. But their memories have faded among the popular sectors, as the fighters and victims of those years of violence died off or put the past behind them.

But finally In October of 2018, a Franciscan priest and lay catechist, were beatified by the Church in Guatemala’s eastern department of Izabal for their role in promoting the faith and protecting the innocent through the period of violence. And following more extensive research by historians, forensic anthropologists, and Catholic leaders, Pope Francis authorized the beatification of 13 more martyrs in July of 2020.

Being beatified as martyrs could open the door to canonization as saints. Small recompense, perhaps, for their sacrifice. But at least a step in the direction of making sure that “Never Again!” continues to apply to Guatemala – even as the abuse of the poor and marginalized continues in other forms.