4 lessons from Rutilio Grande, priest, prophet and martyr by Ana Maria Pineda

Courtesy: AMERICA magazine

Residents of El Paisnal, El Salvador, sit below a mural depicting Rutilio Grande, S.J., following a Mass marking the 25th anniversary of his death on March 12, 2002. (CNS photo by Edgar Romero)Rutilio Grande, S.J., and his two traveling companions, 15-year-old Nelson Rutilio Lemus and 72-year-old Manuel Solórzano, had been driving to the small town of El Paisnal in El Salvador to celebrate the novena for the town’s patronal feast of St. Joseph when they were gunned down on the road on March 12, 1977, in Aguilares, El Salvador. Decades after the murders, the Vatican announced on Feb. 22, 2021, that it would recognize the three as martyrs.

The news of Father Grande’s beatification was welcomed by many Salvadorans, who claim Father Grande as one of their own. Outside of El Salvador, Father Grande is primarily remembered as a close friend of Archbishop Oscar Romero. Often overlooked is the fact that at the outset of the civil war in El Salvador, Father Grande was the first priest killed. Indeed, he was the first-born of the martyrs of this new era. His prophetic stance and his solidarity with the poor of his native country led directly to his death. His influence on the church of El Salvador and those who followed him on the road to martyrdom merits profound consideration.

What precisely can be learned from how he lived his life? What might it inspire us to do with our own lives? Father Grande’s personal contributions to the poor of his beloved country, his commitment to the church and the Jesuit community, his love for the people that he generously served, his love for his many friends and family all resonate in the commitment that led to his martyrdom.

1) A life’s value is not determined by one’s net worth.

Rutilio Grande was born on July 5, 1928, in the impoverished hamlet of El Paisnal, El Salvador. His childhood was marked not only by poverty but by the trauma of his parents’ separation and the death of his mother. Her death and his father’s absence required his five older brothers to struggle to provide economic support for young Rutilio and his paternal grandmother. Despite the hardships, Rutilio never lost sight of his humble beginnings or forgot the religiosity taught to him by his grandmother: a people’s faith. The simple joys of interacting with the people of the town and being part of the religious and cultural festivities remained with him throughout his life. He took pride in being Salvadoran. As an adult, Rutilio often described his mestizo identity as a “cafe con leche,” a mixture of coffee with milk.

As he always carried himself with dignity, he demonstrated that being born into poverty did not determine a person’s worth. From personal experience, he understood not only the suffering of the poor, but also the hopes and aspirations they cherished for themselves and their families. This profoundly personal history became foundational for his priestly ministry. It shaped his teaching of the Gospel and resonated in his embrace of the teachings of the Second Vatican Council. Although Father Grande’s priestly formation occurred prior to Vatican II, its spirit captured his ministerial imagination.

2) Holiness can be found in the everyday.

During several periods early in his priestly life, Father Grande was assigned to minister in the seminary of San José de la Montaña in San Salvador.  Encouraged by his studies at Lumen Vitae, a renowned catechetical and pastoral institute in Brussels, Father Grande transformed the traditional formation of the seminary by following the directives of Vatican II. He profoundly believed that future priests had to come into direct contact with the realities people were living. To increase the pastoral sensibilities of the seminarians, he organized trips for them to visit families in the surrounding towns. There the young men had the opportunity to experience firsthand how ordinary men and women were living.

Later, as pastor of the parish of Our Lord of Mercies in the town of Aguilares, Father Grande led a team of Jesuits in an innovative pastoral endeavor, one similar in spirit to the one he had created for the diocesan seminarians. His visionary pastoral innovations included a collaborative team approach and a preferential option to minister in rural areas among peasant workers. The goal of the pastoral activity was to evangelize men and women who in time would become agents of their own human destiny. In this, Father Grande’s vision echoed the opening words of Vatican II’s “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World”: “The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the people of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ.”

His own humble beginnings sustained and nourished his zeal for this new vision. Despite the many opportunities for higher education he had as a Jesuit, he never distanced himself from the town or people who shaped his life. Even long after his death, people remembered Father Grande’s humanity and the ways he showed them a new example of priesthood. He would often say that God was not to be found in the clouds, but rather firmly present on earth in the lives of the people. In fact, Father Grande’s pastoral approach was paving the way to the creation of a new model of church in El Salvador.

3) We all have a missionary call.

Just as Father Grande had earlier adopted an innovative approach to the formation of seminarians, when he was assigned to the parish in Aguilares he invested his energies and efforts into new approaches to the formation of lay men and women. He sometimes said: “Now we’re not going to wait for missionaries from the outside. Rather, we must be our own missionaries.” In this effort, the young pastor and his Jesuit teammates began to visit people in both the rural areas and the towns. In time, their personal approach drew people to the celebration of the Eucharist, the sacraments and Bible study, resulting in a vibrant community of Christians who were actively engaged in the life of the parish.

Father Grande’s ministerial approach was so effective that within a year he had 362 “delegates of the Word” participating in the evangelization efforts of the parish. Some of the lay men and women actively joined the team of Jesuits to collaborate in actualizing the pastoral plan for the parish; others assumed pastoral tasks that matched their newly discovered talents and skills. The evangelizing method in Aguilares was bearing much fruit, and the Gospel was engendering the formation of committed Christians.

Gradually, as men and women who had little formal education reflected on the Gospel, they began to question the injustices they suffered. Campesinos were discovering the liberating spirit of the Word of God and learning how to incorporate it into their lives. Newly enlightened, the people sought out ways to organize themselves in order to demand what was justly theirs. Father Grande did not discourage them; rather, he continued to make them aware of the Gospel message, and of the truth that God had not destined people to live in poverty.

At the same time, he was clear in how he understood his priestly ministry.  He would often tell the people: “I don’t belong to one political party or another. What I am doing is preaching the Gospel.” But as the people gained greater understanding of their rights as human beings, they began to look for ways to secure those rights. It was inevitable that they would become politically involved.

Parallel to the formation of the laity, Father Rutilio gave special attention to a liturgy transformed by the spirit and directives of Vatican II. His childhood engagement in the popular religiosity of his hometown of El Paisnal gave him great insight into and respect for how the faith was lived out by ordinary people. He felt that popular practices that the clergy had previously dismissed as misguided forms of religiosity should be recognized as authentic expressions of faith. In fact, Father Grande insisted that the popular religiosity of the ordinary people be honored and respected and kept as a central part of the pastoral plan of the parish.

For him, prayer, popular expressions of faith and liturgy were integral to the real lives of the Salvadoran people. Consequently, he guided people in reclaiming the values inherent in their devotions and cultural celebrations. Having taught courses on the constitution of the Republic of El Salvador in the minor seminary, he often incorporated that material in his sermons and eucharistic celebrations, linking constitutional rights to the Gospel message. He understood that salvation history in the context of the modern world required that prayer and good works be integrated. All of these pastoral efforts inspired by Vatican II led the way in creating a new way of being church within the contemporary realities of El Salvador.

4) God transforms our wounds.

Amid celebrations of the beatification of Father Grande, those who knew him in life consider that, of Rutilio Grande’s many contributions to the church in El Salvador, the most notable was his work in aligning the church with the actual life of the people. But we are also led to reflect on another contribution he made: showing us what it means to be a saint, to be holy in the modern world. Early in life, Father Grande had suffered a catatonic episode from which he gradually recovered, but which had long-lasting effects on his health. Few people knew just how fragile his health was as an adult, when he dealt with ongoing bouts of depression and self-doubt.

His superiors in the Society of Jesus noted in his personal file: “At the beginning of his religious life, he manifested a clear nervous weakness…. He had psychological depressions and it was feared for his mental health…. He was aware of that limitation, suffered for it, but he did not let it control him. He accepted it.  He worked to dominate it and he overcame it.” Father Grande learned to live with his condition by placing his trust completely in God, and by taking steps to help himself. Every day until his death, he placed himself with utter simplicity in the hands of God.

Even in his fragility—or perhaps through it—this beautiful son of El Salvador accomplished great things for the universal church, the church in Latin America and especially the church in El Salvador, by living and giving his life for the faith. His fragility may have been a difficult cross to bear, but it highlights the beauty of his holiness, his saintliness.

In the final moments of his life, Father Grande rendered his complete surrender as the faithful son of El Paisnal and the church as he said: “Let God’s will be done.” Just as the people of El Salvador will celebrate the beatification of one of their own on Jan. 22, their beloved “Father Tilo,” let us join with them in crying out “¡Presente!”

Ana Maria Pineda

Ana María Pineda, R.S.M., is an associate professor of religious studies at Santa Clara University. A native of El Salvador, she is the past president of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians in the United States. Her latest book, Rutilio Grande, Memory and Legacy of a Jesuit Martyr, was published in January.

Fr. Rutilio Grande - A sign post for the Church

 One more Jesuit Blessed

Different Jesuit sources give different numbers  of Jesuit Saints and Blessed. Approximately there are 52 Jesuit Saints and 146 Blessed (these numbers are subject to correction. Once I get the official information from Rome, I will let you know) leaving aside a great number of Jesuit Venerables and Servants of God.

Today on 22nd January 2022, one more will be added to the list of Jesuit Blessed.  Fr. Rutilio Grande (05 July 1928 – 12 March 1977) was murdered along with his 70 years old sacristan Manuel Solórzano and 15 year old Nelson Rutilio Lemus on 12th March 1977 by El Salvador Army. All three of them and the Italian Franciscan priest Cosme Spessotto (shot dead on 14th June 1980) will be beatified. Here below the life sketch of Fr. Rutilio Grande is given. It is written by Fr. Martin Maier SJ

Pratapananda Naik, SJ

A signpost for the Church  by Fr. Martin Maier SJ

The beatification of Rutilio Grande in San Salvador comes at a time of transformation in the Latin American Church similar to the upheaval that followed the 1968 Medellín conference

Beatifications and canonisations can be pointers to the way the Church is moving. On 22 January 2022 in the Plaza Salvador del Mundo in El Salvador’s capital, San Salvador, the Jesuit Rutilio Grande, who along with his lay companions, Nelson Rutilio Lemus and Manuel Solórzano (murdered on 12 March 1977) and the Italian Franciscan priest, Cosme Spessotto (shot dead on 14 June 1980) – will be beatified. 

They represent the new start the Church made after the Second Vatican Council. They represent a missionary Church that has gone to the social and existential peripheries. They represent a persecuted Church, which has produced numerous martyrs for faith and justice.

Rutilio was born on 5 July 1928, the youngest of seven children, into a poor family in the village of El Paisnal in El Salvador. In 1945 he joined the Jesuits. He followed the order’s normal training in philosophy and theology in Venezuela, Ecuador, Spain, France and Belgium. 

Until 1972 he taught in the national ¬seminary in San Salvador, where he tried to include in formation the spirit of the Second Vatican Council and the second conference of the bishops of Latin America at Medellín in 1968, which had recognised that the level of poverty on the continent “cried out to Heaven”. In the same spirit, in 1975 the Jesuit order redefined its mission in the world as both preaching of the faith and struggling for justice. Rutilio put the preferential option for the poor at the centre of a new concept of a missionary rural ministry. His aim, Rodolfo Cardenal wrote after his death, “was to train priests who would be at the service of the people and not clerical bosses”.

Rutilio was not appointed rector of the seminary. Instead, in autumn 1972 he switched to parish work in Aguilares, a community which included his birthplace. Here, with a team of Jesuits and women Religious, Rutilio began to put his ideas into practice. The overwhelming majority of the people in the community lived in the harshest poverty. The land was in the possession of a handful of wealthy owners. Grande often said in his sermons: “God is not far away in Heaven lying in a hammock; he is in our midst. For God it matters whether the poor are in distress or not.” His approach reflected the “popular theology” developed in Argentina by Lucio Gera, a distinct position within liberation theology that was also to be a strong influence on Rutilio’s fellow Jesuit, Jorge Mario Bergoglio. Rutilio realised that popular piety needed to be freed from magical elements and evangelised. And by reviving the November maize festivities, he showed respect for the ancestral indigenous trad¬itions while inculturating Christian faith. But the heart of Rutilio’s pastoral approach was the base communities, in which laypeople read the Bible together in small groups. They connected the Word of God with people’s lives by following the three-step “See-Judge-Act” process associated with the Young Christian Workers. Rutilio trained men and women to be “delegates of the Word”, ¬messengers of the Word who in turn created new groups. 

Things began to happen. When the peasants of Aguilares saw the lives they lived in the light of the Word of God, they realised that injustice and oppression are a recurring theme in the Bible, and that, through the prophets and through Jesus, God took the side of the poor. Rutilio encouraged the peasants to organise in unions and to demand their rights to a decent life and just wages. Other priests followed this example. But the shift to a preferential option for the poor taken at Medellín was far from being accepted by the whole Church in Latin America. The landowners saw these priests as a threat to their interests, and foreign priests – and Jesuits in particular – were accused of stirring up unrest and promoting Communism. At the beginning of 1977, the first priests were tortured and expelled, among them the Colombian-born Mario Bernal, the parish priest of Apopa, near Aguilares.

On 13 February 1977 there was a protest demonstration in Apopa against the expulsion of Mario Bernal. Over 6,000 people took part. At the end Rutilio celebrated Mass, and delivered a fiery sermon. “It is dangerous to be a Christian around here!” he said. “It is dangerous to be a real Catholic! It is prac¬tically illegal to be a genuine Christian in our country.” He quoted statistics to illustrate the injustice and extreme poverty in El Salvador. Then he went on: “But we dress all this up with false hypocrisy and lavish constructions. Woe to you hypocrites! You go around outwardly getting a reputation as Catholics, but within you are filthy evil! You are Cains and crucify the Lord when he goes around under the name of Manuel, under the name of Luis, under the name of Chabela, under the name of an ordinary rural worker!” 

Rutilio concluded with the image of Jesus returning to El Salvador: “Very soon the Bible and the gospels will not be allowed to cross the border. All that will reach us will be the covers, since all the pages are subversive ... So that if Jesus crosses the border at Chalatenango, they will not allow him to enter. They would accuse him, the man-God … of being a revolutionary, a foreign Jew, of confusing people with exotic foreign ideas, anti-democratic ideas … ideas against God. … they would undoubtedly crucify him again.”

This sermon was Rutilio Grande’s death sentence. On 12 March 1977, as he was travelling to a liturgy with his sacristan, 70-year old Manuel Solórzano, and 15-year-old Nelson Rutilio Lemus, he was murdered in an ambush by members of the National Guard, acting in alliance with the large landowners. The three bodies were wrapped in cloth and laid in front of the altar in the church of Aguilares. Late that night the newly appointed Archbishop of San Salvador, Óscar Romero, arrived. Even though Rutilio Grande was a friend of Romero’s, Romero had been somewhat critical of his pastoral approach in Aguilares: there is a remark to this effect in one of his reports to the Pontifical Commission for Latin America in Rome. But as he stood before Rutilio Grande’s corpse, Romero was shaken to the core. He asked to see the priest’s simple room and muttered to himself, “he really lived in poverty”. He decided to celebrate a Mass in the middle of the night. He took these words as the text for his sermon: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). 

Romero announced that he would not take part in any official government event until the crime of Rutilio’s murder was solved. He decided that on 20 March only one Mass would be celebrated across the whole archdiocese, in front of San Salvador’s cathedral. It was a tense situation. Fearing the large crowds who would attend, the military government did all it could to prevent the Mass. The papal nuncio, too, was against the idea. Romero was not to be swayed. Over 100,000 people gathered for the Mass, which was broadcast on radio. Romero thought that the murderers might be listening. “Brother criminals, we love you,” he said, “and we ask God to move your hearts to repentance, because the Church is incapable of hatred; the Church has no enemies.”

The murder of Rutilio and his companions brought about a profound change in Romero, which some have described as a “conversion”. A timid, conservative bishop became a prophetic defender of the poor. Romero himself later said: “If they killed him for what he did, then I have to follow the same path. Rutilio opened my eyes.” In popular tradition, Romero’s change of heart is described as “Rutilio’s miracle”. The beatification of Rutilio Grande is particularly important for Pope Francis, as was the canonisation of Óscar Romero in 2018. As provincial of the Argentine Jesuits, he had followed their -stories carefully. In an address to the Central American bishops during the World Youth Day events in Panama in 2019, he proposed Óscar Romero – who gave his life for his flock – as the model of a bishop. He knew the life of Rutilio Grande from the biography Rodolfo Cardenal began writing shortly after his -murder. In 2015, when he met Cardenal in Rome, Francis echoed the popular phrase: “Rutilio Grande’s greatest miracle is Archbishop Romero.”

Rutilio Grande’s beatification comes at a time of new movements and changes in the Church of Latin America and the Caribbean, comparable with the transformation of the Church that followed the historic conference in Medellín in 1968. At their fifth conference in Aparecida, Brazil, in 2007 the bishops called for a new missionary impetus. The drafting of the final document was co¬ordinated by the then Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio. It was at Aparecida that Bergoglio first became aware of the significance of the Amazon region and its indigenous population, and the threats they faced. In 2019 the Amazon synod was held in Rome; its vision of a Church with an Amazonian face ¬suggested “new paths for the Church and an integral ecology”.

A new kind of event took place in Mexico in November 2021. A sixth general conference of Latin American and Caribbean bishops was due, but the Pope suggested instead an assembly that would include priests, Religious and laypeople, and it was preceded by a wide-ranging consultation process. The assembly showed that the old hierarchical structures in the Church may have outlived their usefulness; for the Church to survive, laity and especially women must take responsibility for the Church’s mission. Much of what is today on the renewal agenda of the Church in Latin America was anticipated by Rutilio Grande. In his rural ministry in Aguilares, he called for a new emphasis on mission, for the greater involvement of the laity, for respect for indigenous traditions, and for a prophetic contribution to political and structural change. The beatifications of Rutilio, his companions, and of Fr Spessotto are a signpost for the Church on its road to social, cultural, ecological and synodal conversion.

Martin Maier SJ worked as a country pastor in El Salvador for two years after his ordination and has taught at the University of the Jesuits (UCA) in El Salvador. He has written a number of books on liberation theology and Óscar Romero.

For more information and photos -

https://www.jesuits.global/2022/01/19/fr-rutilio-grande-together-with-two-lay-companions-is-beatified-in-el-salvador/

WE NEED A RUTILIO GRANDE TODAY!

 WE NEED A RUTILIO GRANDE TODAY! By Fr Cedric Prakash, SJ

22 January 2022

Jesuit Fr. Rutilio Grande and his two lay associates 72-year-old Manuel Solorzano and 15-year-old Nelson Rutilio Lemus (and Italian Franciscan missionary Fr Cosme Spessotto who was also martyred) will be beatified in San Salvador.

For the people of El Salvador, 22 January 2022 will be more than just a red-letter day. Three of their sons, Jesuit Fr. Rutilio Grande and his two lay associates 72-year-old Manuel Solorzano and 15-year-old Nelson Rutilio Lemus (and Italian Franciscan missionary Fr. Cosme Spessotto who was also martyred) will be beatified in San Salvador. The first three were assassinated by the death squads of Salvador’s then-ruling regime on 12 March 1977. On that fateful day, the three had been driving to the small town of El Paisnal to celebrate the novena for the town’s patronal feast of St. Joseph when they were gunned down. Their brutal murders brought universal condemnation.

Among the first to openly condemn this heinous crime was Archbishop Oscar Romero. He was appointed the Archbishop of San Salvador just three weeks earlier. For years, Romero and Rutilio were good friends but poles apart in their thinking, very particularly in their responses to the terrible realities which gripped the poor Salvadoreans. As a young priest and later as a Bishop, Romero was known for his conservative thinking. He never wanted to rock the boat by disturbing the ‘status quo’. He was afraid to be on the wrong side of the powerful and other vested interest groups of El Salvador. In Spite of a long-standing friendship with Rutilio, he refused to be drawn into the latter’s line of thinking.

Rutilio, on the other hand, was steeped in the faith-justice mandate of the 32nd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus and the vision of Vatican II. The poor and exploited of the country were his major concern. Rutilio wrote, preached and spoke with passion and clarity about the injustices suffered by the rural population and he stood with them as they organised to seek land reform and social development. He left no stone unturned to highlight the sufferings of his people and to make their struggles his own. Unlike Romero, Grande did not hesitate to take up cudgels against the powerful. The landowners came to see Rutilio’s pastoral programmes as a great threat to their interests. In doing so he made several enemies from the most powerful of his country!

When he preached, Rutilio did not mince words. His most famous sermon was the one he gave on 13 February 1977 at Apopa; many people consider that sermon to have provoked his death. 

In the sermon, Rutilio proclaims the equality of the children of God and criticizes the Salvadoran government for deporting a priest, Mario Bernal. Rutilio Grande uses the metaphor of the communal table to declare the love of God’s kingdom and that God has created the material world for everyone to share. In addition, he reminds us that the Gospel message of truth and justice is often considered subversive, especially when surrounded by unjust and oppressive social structures.

He said, “It is dangerous to be Christian in our midst! It is dangerous to be truly Catholic! It is practically illegal to be an authentic Christian here, in our country! Because out of necessity the world around us is rooted in an established disorder, in front of which the mere proclamation of the Gospel becomes subversive. That’s the way it must be, it cannot be otherwise! We are chained by disorder, not order! What happens is that a priest or a simple Christian who practices his faith according to the basic and simple guidelines of Jesus’ message, must live faithfully between two demanding pillars: the revealed Word of God and the People. The same people, the great majority, the marginalized, the sick who cry out, those who are enslaved, those on the margins of culture – 60 percent illiterate- those who are alienated in a thousand ways, those who have been living in a feudal system for centuries.” That sermon given more than forty years ago is still very valid today.

In his powerful biography, ‘The Life, Passion and Death of Jesuit Rutilio Grande’, Fr Rodolfo Cardenal SJ says that, “Rutilio Grande was arguably the first Jesuit to be martyred after the Society of Jesus had proclaimed its commitment to the service of faith and the promotion of justice as two inseparable elements of the Jesuit mission. He preached and embraced the struggle for faith and for justice not in an academic, theoretical context but among and alongside the poor parishioners of Aguilares, with all the difficult issues and contradictions that such a ministry involved. 

Like Archbishop Oscar Romero (1917–1980), he did not quit; he accepted his probable fate knowingly, even with fear and trepidation. His example provides for Christians today an extraordinary model of a parish priest who, without naivety and with Ignatian discernment, made an authentic option for the poor and oppressed.”

Grande’s death was a terrible shock to Romero. In a powerful homily ‘the Motivation of Love’, at the funeral, Romero said, “We speak of the motivation of love, sisters and brothers. There should be no feeling of vengeance among us. As the bishops stated yesterday, we do not raise our voices for revenge. We are concerned about the things of God who commands us to love him above all things and to love others as we love ourselves (Mark 12:30-31). Yes, it is true that we have asked the authorities to investigate this criminal act, for they have in their hands the instruments of this nation’s justice, and they must clarify this situation. We are not accusing anyone, nor are we making judgments beforehand. We hope to hear the voice of an impartial justice because, even with the motivation of love, justice cannot be absent. There can be no true peace and no true love that is based on injustice or violence or intrigue”.

For good measure, Romero added, “The government should not consider a priest who takes a stand for social justice as a politician or a subversive element when he is fulfilling his mission in the politics of the common good.” He also said openly and emphatically, “Anyone who attacks one of my priests, attacks me. If they killed Rutilio for doing what he did, then I too have to walk the same path”. The death of his friend was a turning point in the life of Romero. From that day onwards, he wholeheartedly worked for the rights of the exploited and the excluded. He was assassinated three years later, on 24 March 1980. Today he rejoices with his dear friend in heaven!

 In a letter (3 January 2022) addressed to the whole Society of Jesus, on the occasion of the Beatification, Jesuit Superior General writes, “The growing awareness of the need to promote a transformation of the inhuman circumstances of life of the peasant majority, a situation caused by the unjust structures of Salvadoran society, sparked the social and political struggles of this convulsive period in the history of this Central American country. Many members of the ecclesial communities participated actively in the social and political struggle. For Father Rutilio, his team, and his close collaborators, who were committed because of their faith to the struggle for the justice of the Gospel, there was a clear distinction between pastoral work and partisan political militancy. However, for the minorities who felt their power to be under threat, Rutilio was seen as an obstacle to be removed. The Church, in recognizing the martyrdom of Rutilio, Manuel, and Nelson, judges that their lives were taken because of the faith that gave their lives meaning, the faith to which they gave witness by shedding their blood.”

Rutilio is Salvadoran, a Catholic and a Jesuit! The likes of him, however, cannot be contained by history, time and space. His life and his message serve as an inspiration to all and transcend narrow confines. Given our grim realities, the context and the cries of the people, the Church in India and in fact the entire country desperately need a Rutilio Grande today! Will there be one?

The Author: Fr Cedric Prakash, SJ is a human rights, reconciliation and peace activist/writer.

SAINT ISAAC JOGUES

 

Saint Isaac Jogues

Death: 10/18/1646

Nationality (place of birth): France

Isaac Jogues (1607-1646) became well known in France when he returned after escaping from slavery among the Mohawks in Canada with his hands badly mutilated from torture. Despite his sufferings, he returned to the missions where he was eventually martyred. Jogues was born in Orleans, France on Jan. 10, 1607 and entered the Jesuits at Rouen when he was 17 years old. Two months after celebrating his first Mass Feb. 10, 1636, he was on his way to the Jesuit mission in New France. He wrote his mother of his great joy when he landed in Quebec and saw native Americans waiting on shore. After only a month and a half, he set out on his first mission to the Hurons, traveling the 900 miles to Ihonatiria by water. The party spent 19 days paddling and carrying the flotilla of canoes around obstacles. During the voyage, the Hurons gave Jogues the name ""Ondessonk"" (""bird of prey"").

Jogues met his hero, Father John de Brébeuf at Ihonatiria, and began learning the Huron language. The first problem arose when a smallpox epidemic broke out in the settlement and people blamed the missionaries for bringing the disease. When the epidemic passed, the settlement was abandoned and Jogues moved first to Teanaustayé and then on to Sainte-Marie, a thriving enterprise where missionaries had taught people how to cultivate the land and raise cattle, pigs and fowl. A group of Chippewas who had come to Sainte-Marie admired the prosperous settlement and invited the Jesuits to establish a mission among them. Jogues visited them in September 1641 and found them eager to hear about God, but the small number of Jesuits made it impossible to expand to new tribes at that time.

During the winter and spring of 1642, Jogues prepared neophytes at Sainte-Marie for baptism on Holy Saturday; one of the 120 adult converts was Ahtsistari, the tribe's greatest war chief. Although the French missionary felt contented that Christianity was beginning to take root, he wanted to convert the whole Huron nation and offered himself in prayer as a sacrifice to make that happen.

In June Jogues accompanied a group of Hurons back to Three Rivers, near Quebec, for supplies. The voyage was hazardous because the Iroquois were at war with the French. Jogues tried to get more Jesuit priests for the mission, but none were available. The provincial suggested he take René Goupil, a layman who was a surgeon and had promised to work with the Jesuits, remain celibate and obey the Jesuit superior. Jogues, Goupil and the Hurons set out Aug. 1 to return to Sainte-Marie, but were attacked one day into the voyage by a war party of 70 Mohawks who took three Frenchmen and 20 Hurons as prisoners. The Mohawks tortured Jogues by partly mutilating his fingers. Goupil asked Jogues to accept him into the Society of Jesus as a brother, given the peril they faced, and Jogues accepted his vows en route.

The Mohawks headed back to their home village passing through the St. Lawrence, Lake Champlain and into Lake George. Finally on August 14 the flotilla arrived at Ossernenon (which today is Auriesville, New York) on the bank of the Mohawk River. The prisoners endured the torture of running the gauntlet between two lines of warriors who beat the captives as they staggered by. Jogues and Goupil had to endure other torments; a woman cut off Jogues' thumb. Then the two Frenchmen became slaves of the chief who had captured them. Goupil was killed on Sept. 29, 1642 when someone saw him make the sign of the cross over a child, but Jogues remained a slave even while ministering to the Hurons who had been captured with him. When he accompanied several Mohawks on a trading trip to the Dutch settlement of Fort Orange (Albany), the Dutch tried unsuccessfully to ransom him. Finally they suggested he try to escape. After some hesitancy, Jogues hid in one of the Dutch ships where he remained for six weeks until his captors' anger at losing him subsided. Eventually he made his way to New York and then back to Europe.

He landed in Brittany on Christmas morning and made his way to Rennes where his Jesuit brothers received him as a hero. Jogues' only regret was his inability to celebrate Mass because of his mutilated hands: on the left hand the index finger was nothing but a stub and the thumb was missing while the thumb and index finger of the right hand were badly disfigured. He was unable to hold the host correctly, but Pope Urban VIII granted him a dispensation to celebrate Mass. Jogues visited his mother in Orléans but was eager to return to the missions so he set sail in May, arriving at Three Rivers in time to attend the July peace conference between the French and the Indians representing the Iroquois federation. The final treaty needed the approval of the Mohawks; Jogues was chosen as an envoy to obtain their consent. He surprised his former captors by arriving as the ambassador of the powerful French nation and offering them that government's gifts. They accepted the terms of the treaty, and Jogues offered pastoral care to the Christian Huron prisoners remaining there. Then Jogues returned to Three Rivers on July 3 where he was supposed to remain.

In September the Hurons asked the Jesuit missionary to accompany them on an embassy to the Mohawks who had invited their former enemies to arrange details of the treaty. Jogues took along another layman as his assistant, John de La Lande, an experienced woodsman who had settled in New France before offering to help the Jesuits. The small party left Quebec Sept. 24, 1646. A few days into the trip they learned the Mohawks were on the warpath again. Only one Huron volunteered to continue with Jogues and La Lande. Meanwhile, the Mohawks in Ossernenon had suffered a crop failure and an epidemic, blaming it on the chest of vestments and books that the Jesuit had left behind him when he visited them as French ambassador. Warriors set out in search of some Frenchman to kill and were delighted when on October 17 they captured Jogues and his two companions.

The captors were beaten on their way back to Ossernenon where people cut strips of flesh from the neck and arms of the Jesuit. Some of the clans were friendly toward the missionaries and wanted peace with the French, but the war-like Bear Clan wanted to kill Jogues, which they did the next day when he was struck down as he entered a lodge. La Lande was advised not to leave another lodge where he was under protection, but he tried to slip out at night and was immediately killed by some warriors who were waiting to ambush him. The bodies of the two Frenchmen were thrown into the river while their heads were exposed on the palisades protecting the village.

Originally Collected and edited by: Tom Rochford,SJ

SAINT JOHN DE BRÉBEUF

Saint John de Brébeuf

Death: 03/16/1649

Nationality (place of birth): France

John de Brébeuf (Jean de Brébeuf, 1593-1649) was the first Jesuit missionary in Huronia (1626) and a master of the Indian language. He founded mission outposts, converted thousands to the faith and inspired many Jesuits to volunteer for the missions of New France. Massive in body, gentle in character, with the heart of a giant, he was known as the apostle of the Hurons.

Brébeuf was born in Normandy, France and entered the Jesuits after he finished his university studies. In a spirit of humility, he asked to be a brother, but his superior convinced him to study to be a priest. He taught at a secondary school-level college in Rouen and then was ordained a priest on Feb. 19, 1622. That same year he became the treasurer of the college. The tall, rugged Jesuit responded to an appeal made two years later by the Franciscan Recollects who asked other religious orders to help evangelize the native peoples of North America. Along with four other Jesuit companions, Brébeuf arrived in Quebec June 19, 1625. While Brébeuf waited for the Hurons to arrive, he joined a group of Montagnais in a hunting expedition that lasted from that October until the following March. The young French priest learned to accommodate himself to the native way of travel and diet.

When summer came a group of Hurons came to Cap de la Victoire to barter for trade goods. Brébeuf, another Jesuit and a Franciscan went to meet them and asked to accompany them back to their homelands. The Hurons were willing to take the first two, but not Brébeuf who towered over them and was much too big for their canoes; they were afraid he would be too much work to carry. The missionaries offered enough gifts to overcome reluctance, and Brébeuf was permitted into a canoe on the condition he would not move. On July 26, 1626 Brébeuf began his journey to Huronia. When the travelers came to cascades or places where they had to carry the canoes and all the gear overland, Brébeuf's great strength won his hosts' admiration. They named him, ""Echon"" (""the man who carries the load"").

The party arrived in Huronia in late August, and the missionaries settled in Toanché, a village of the Bear Clan of the Huron nation. Brébeuf first had to learn the Huron language, which he devoted two years to studying, along with the people's customs and beliefs. He had a talent for languages and wrote a Huron grammar, translated a catechism and prepared a phrase book. His success with language did not carry over into converting adults; the only converts he made during the winter of 1628 were the dying whom he baptized.

Brébeuf's missionary efforts were cut short when he was sent back to France after the French and English ended their war. An English blockade had kept the French from resupplying the colony, so Brébeuf took 20 canoes loaded with grain to Quebec on July 17, 1629. Two days after he arrived, the French capitulated and he was expatriated with other missionaries to France.

For two years Brébeuf resumed his work at the college in Rouen, but returned as soon as possible to Canada when it was restored to France by a treaty with the English. He arrived in Quebec in May 1633, but could not get back to Huronia until the following summer when the Hurons came with a small flotilla of 11 canoes rather than their normal one of more than a hundred. They had suffered from an epidemic and did not want to be burdened carrying missionaries back with them, but Brébeuf and Father Anthony Daniel prevailed upon them. The two were separated from their hosts during the journey but found the Hurons at a village named Taendeuiata. They welcomed Brébeuf back, delighted that he had kept his word to return. The Jesuits constructed a cabin just outside the village to house the three priests and five lay helpers who made up the missionary community. Brébeuf taught the others the Huron language and customs. Finally in 1635, he and Daniel began their missionary work, working with children during the day and adults at night. After a year of hard work, they had baptized twelve people, four infants and eight adults just as they were dying.

Competition between Christianity and native religion was a constant fact of life. When drought hit the land, native religious leaders blamed it on the crucifix on the priests' cabin; the Jesuits countered with a novena and a procession around the village. When which rain the prayers, the Jesuits interpreted this as an answer to their prayers. When Father Isaac Jogues arrived in 1636, a smallpox epidemic broke out among the Jesuits and their helpers and then spread to the Hurons. The epidemic lasted all winter; during that time the Jesuits baptized more than a thousand people, all at the point of death. Some Hurons accused the Jesuits of causing the epidemic in order to make conversions. When Brébeuf started a mission at Ossossané, the council of village chiefs blamed him for the disease that lingered on there and decided he should die. That same conclusion was reached for all the Jesuit missionaries during a council of the Huron nation which met in March 1640.

Brébeuf then moved to the mission headquarters, Sainte-Marie, and started working with another tribe, the Neutrals, but he had to flee to Quebec after he was accused of plotting with Hurons' enemies, the Seneca Clan of the Iroquois, to betray his hosts. From June 1641 to August 1644 Brébeuf took care of getting supplies for the mission. Finally he was able to return to Sainte-Marie, but the danger from the Iroquois was escalating. Fathers Isaac Jogues and Anthony Daniel had already been martyred. In September 1648 Father Gabriel Lalemant joined the mission. He and Brébeuf left Sainte-Marie for their weekly tour of the missions on March 15, 1649 and spent the night at Saint Louis village. The Iroquois attacked a nearby village during the night, so the Hurons sent their women and children to hide in the forest. The two Jesuits chose to remain with the men, who were mostly Christians. At dawn the next day, Iroquois swarmed over the palisades and took the Hurons who remained as captives. A renegade Huron among the attackers let the Iroquois know that they had captured the mighty Echon, most powerful of the Jesuit medicine men.

After some preliminary torture, the Jesuits and the Huron captives were forced to run naked through the snow to a nearby village where others waited. The captives had to run the gauntlet and then the two Jesuits were led to two posts where they were to be killed. First the captors heated a string of hatchet blades and then placed the red-hot iron on Brébeuf's shoulders. He did not yell for mercy, so his tormentors covered him with resinous bark which they set aflame. He continued encouraging his fellow Christians to remain strong. Then the Jesuit's captors cut off his nose and forced a hot iron down his throat to silence him; they poured boiling water over his head in a mockery of baptism and then successively scalped him, cut off his feet and then tore out his heart. He was 46-years old and had spent 20 years in New France.

Originally Collected and edited by: Tom Rochford,SJ

SJ Confiscation Day - 20 OCT 1873

At Rome, all of the Society's houses, including the Gesu' and the Curia, were seized by the Government. Fr. General, Peter Jan Beckx, (1795-1887) left the house at an early hour to be spared the trial of appearing before the Commission of Suppression.  

Fr Beckx was fifty-eight years old, a Belgian, who had previously been Rector of the Jesuit college at Louvain. As Provincial of Austria, Beckx attended the General Congregation in 1853, called to elect a successor to Fr. Jan Roothaan who had died in March. In July, Beckx was elected the Superior General of the Society of Jesus. Four Assistants were also elected. The Congregation also expressed concern at the renewed attacks made against the Jesuits, and advised prudence and tact in defending the Society against its detractors. Those were difficult years for the Jesuits. They were expelled from Spain in 1854 and 1858, from Naples-Sicily in 1859, from Germany in 1872 from France and French colonies in1880 and Rome during which time Beckx shifted his headquarters in Fiesole, near Florence, where the 'Curia Generalizia' remained till 1895.

Konknni speaking Malankara Orthodox Christians

 In the following video New Star Brass Band, Brahmavar, Udupi district of Karnataka presents “Axirvad Zôddlølo’ in honour of St. Roche Lopez Noronha (1847-1936).  The trumpet solo is by Winston Suares, the troupe leader. Who is this St. Roche L. Noronha? To know him you must read the following brief historical note:

Konknnis (Konknni speakers) migrated from Goa to coastal Karnataka and Kerala from 13th century onwards for various reasons. Catholic Konknnis migrated from Goa to Coastal Karnataka 1570 onwards. They were under the Goa Archdiocese and served by the clergy of Goa. Goa archdiocese was under the jurisdiction of Padroado, namely, the Portuguese King or queen appointed the bishop and supported the maintenance of the clergy. 

Brahmavar is a small town located in the Udupi district in the State of Karnataka in India. The town is 13 kilometres away from Udupi. In the year 1678, a Roman Catholic Church dedicated to Our Lady of Milagres was established in Kalyanpur by the Padroado Missionaries who were under the authority of the Portuguese king or queen. The Church was destroyed by Tippu Sultan in 1784, but was reconstructed in 1806.

In 19th century a few prominent Catholics residing in Mangaluru city wrote to Propaganda Fide of Vatican and complained that diocesan priests from Goa have neglected and not rendering their service to local Catholics who are inhabitants in Coastal Karnataka. Rome intervened and segregated the Coastal Karnataka areas from the jurisdiction of Padroado and brought them under the Propaganda Fide and began to appoint bishops and priests. Local Catholics who were used to the clergy from Goa, wanted to be under the Padroado jurisdiction. But finally, most of the parishes accepted the jurisdiction of Propaganda Fide. 

The power struggle between Portuguese missionaries and Propaganda Communities had its effects on Brahmavar. The majority of the people supported the Portuguese Missionaries and the Padroado Community. They strongly opposed the Propaganda Fide and Pope. Those who supported the Propaganda Fide built Mount Rosary (1856) Church, which is only one kilometre away from the Milagres Church of Kalyanpur.

In 1886 a Concordat was signed between the Papacy and the Portuguese King by which the Milagres Church of Kalyanpur became part of the Propaganda Fide. Brahmavar Christians petitioned both the Pope and the Portuguese King to reconsider the decision, but Rome did not reply favourably. A number of Catholic families who were in favour of Padroado jurisdiction felt that the response from Rome was not at all satisfactory and it was an insult to them. As a result, many families of the Milagres Church, under the leadership of Fr Roche Lopes Noronha, protested against the Roman Catholic hierarchy. Later, Fr. Roche too was disowned by the Archdiocese of Goa. 

Brahmavar Orthodox Church is a split faction from the Catholic Church formed under the leadership of Fr Antonio Francisco Xavier Alvares (1836-1923). Fr. Antonio Alvarez who was a Roman Catholic priest of Goa at the time, opposed the Vatican policies and interference of the Government in Church administration. His pro-Independence periodicals which were also critical of the Roman Catholic Church were banned. He was excommunicated. He left the Church with some hundreds of Konknni speaking Catholic families from Goa, who were settled in the vicinity of Brahmavar, and joined the Malankara Orthodox Church.  He understood the situation in Brahmavar and organised the discontented believers. Fr. Antonio Alvares was ordained as the first Orthodox Metropolitan of Goa, Ceylon and Greater India in 1889 A. D. by Paulose Mar Athanasius and Geevargheese Mar Gregorios of Parumala at the Orthodox theological seminary, Kottayam in the state of Kerala.

A new Church was built for the split group in Brahmavar. Fr Noronha was influenced by Fr Alvarez and he was very well attracted towards the teachings of the Orthodox Church. Fr. Noronha was given the leadership of the Brahmavar Orthodox Church, which had a membership of 4,000 families. In the year 1889 on Easter Day Fr. Noronha celebrated the Holy Mass in the newly built Orthodox Church. The split group of Brahmavar Konknni community has come into existence since then as a part of the Indian Orthodox Church. Presently, they are under the Brahmavar diocese. During my boyhood they were labelled as schismatics by the local Roman Catholics.

The little known Brahmavar Orthodox Community has a very special status in the history of the Malankara Orthodox Church. The Indian Church which for centuries had been confined within the boundaries of Kerala obtained a national outreach when the former Roman Catholic Priest, Antonio Alvarez from Goa and his community united with the Mother Orthodox Church and he received episcopal consecration as Metropolitan of the Diocese of Ceylon, Goa and India (Malabar excluded).

Fr. Alvarez was the first person to reunite with the Orthodox Church from the Roman Catholic Latin Rite in India. He devoted most of life serving leprosy patients and poor sections of society but he also fought a brave war to protect the Orthodox faith irrespective of the opposition inflicted on him and his followers by the Roman Catholic Church. Sadly, he died in reduced circumstances and was buried in Sant Inez, Panaji, cemetery, without receiving either an Orthodox Christian funeral or the traditional burial accorded to an Orthodox prelate. Today he is regarded as the hero of the Reunion Movement in India. Later his relics were recovered and moved to St Mary’s Orthodox Church at Ribandar, Panaji in 1979 under the direction of His Holiness Mar Thoma Matthews I, Catholicos of the East.

Fr. Noronha was born in Goa in 1850. After completing basic education, he joined the Rachol Seminary in Goa, having been awarded a scholarship. After completing his seminary education, he was ordained a Roman Catholic priest on 12 March 1881 by Bishop Thomas De Almeda. He served as the assistant vicar of Salvador do Mundo Church. Later Fr. Noronha became the Vicar of Ribandar Church and finally reached Brahmavar, where he was united with the Orthodox Church.

Fr. Noronha was a multi-functional personality. He was a great educator, a spiritual father, writer, and social reformer. Joining the Orthodox Church gave Padre Noronha great trouble. He was always threatened by the Roman Catholic Church but he was very much loved by the Brahmavar residents. He was very particular and strict about the Orthodox faith, especially the prayers and sacraments. He encouraged many people to participate in prayers through house visits. On many occasions the Catholic Church tried to entice Brahmavar Orthodox Christians to join the Roman Catholic Church by offering them rosaries, pictures of saints and other valuable gifts, but Fr. Noronha successfully blocked all attempts and confirmed his flock in the Orthodox faith.

He showed great vision in establishing educational institutions, and founded a school which was the first basic educational institution in Brahmavar. The school attracted many students irrespective of caste, creed or sex. Fr. Noronha provided great relief for many people who suffered from different kinds of diseases and treated many people, providing them with food and shelter. Hundreds found relief under his care.

Towards the end of his life, he suffered from diabetes. The Roman Catholic community tried to force him to come back to the Roman Church. Two years before his death it is recorded that a cross appeared on his back and on 23 July 1936 Fr. Roche Noronha died. He was buried at St Mary’s Orthodox Cathedral in Brahmavar. It is reported that a large number of people, especially non-Christians, have received blessings by his intercession after his death and even today many still seek favours at his tomb.  

Fr. Alvares and Fr. Noronha who were both excommunicated by the Catholic Church in Goa, now have become the heroes and saints of the Malankara Orthodox Church and their feasts are celebrated!! Those who are considered as villains in one community, are recognised as heroes in their new community. History has many such examples. Saul who was an ardent Jew who hated and persecuted the Christians of the first century has become St. Paul and the great saint of the  Christians.

Brahmavar Orthodox Christians have a number of peculiar characteristics with regard to their culture, tradition, life style and prayer habits. Along with the orthodox feasts (Perunnal), they also celebrate the memorial feast of Metropolitan Julius Alvarez (September 23) and Fr Noronha (July 23). All Orthodox prayers have been translated into Konknni and Kannada languages. There are two feasts which are celebrated as part of the Latin tradition, Memorial service of All Saints (1st November) and memorial service of All Souls (2nd November). The person who sponsors a major feast is known by the name ‘Sirginth’. He wears special dress and carries an artistic metallic stick during the procession.

Due to marriage relationships many Malankara Orthodox Church members have returned to the Roman Catholic church. Today there are around 850 Orthodox Christian families surviving in Brahmavar diocese of the Malankara Orthodox church. Their religious services are conducted in Konknni and Kannada. They have married clergy. But they have to marry before their diaconate. However, the bishop is chosen from the celibate priests only. Due to historical and ego problems the Konknni Catholics of Brahmavar area got divided into Roman Catholics and Malankara Orthodox Christians!!! 

Pratap Naik, SJ

09 July 2021