He Wednesday, August 21at 18 Colombia Timewill be held on 4th. Auditorium Organized by Ecclesial Base Communities (CEbs) and the Cebitepal: The path is collective: the footprint of the martyrs.
“The footprint of the martyrs, of the witnesses, the collective commitment of the communities, today has the name of synodality. We want to hear the stories of martyrs of Our America, to continue deepening our ‘walking together’. The path, and the way out, is collective, that is what the martyrs remind us of,” the organizers express in the call.
To expand concepts and learn more, we spoke with Francisco Boschcontinental coordinator of CEbs formation, who with one phrase already immersed us in spiritual worlds: “The martyrs open paths for us to walk hand in hand.” Let us go to the dialogue.
Question: Please tell us about the theme of the 4th Listening Session: The path is collective, the footprint of the martyrs. Inspirations, developments, voices that resonated in the election.
A: Listening, the Shemaas the main commandment. There we have A sign of the times from the Church of the poor. Listening to change everything, to recognize life as it is born, sustained and raised in the neighborhoods, in the countryside, on the borders.
This listening was done territorially, it was systematized and proposed as a continuous path: in the face of the force of sight, to sustain the sense of the two ears, that of the word of God and that of our people, as Blessed Angelelli said. A martyr who shows us a path, who confirms us in a method. This is the main inspiration, to see in our martyrs, companions who fell for a dignified life, for faith and community, to see in them a trace, that is, a sign of their journey, a way of walking.
In this way, the current Pontiff, who accompanies the poor of the world from Rome, calls it synodality: “In these moments when we are called to reflect on the synodality of the Church, we have in these martyrs the best example of this ‘walking together’, since Father Grande was martyred while walking towards his people.” “This is what each one of you, bishops, priests and pastoral workers, ask the Lord today, to be like that priest —Rutilio— with his peasants —Blessed Manuel and Nelson—, always on the way to his people to identify with them.” (Pope Francis, October 2022, in front of the Salvadoran bishops)
We are committed to seeing the blood of our martyrs, our companions who have given their lives, our companions who have spared nothing, and have made the base communities a path of recovery from the martyrdom that has marked our Church, flourish like a thousand paths. “We are once again standing as witness,” said Dom Pedro Casaldáliga with Romero’s body still fresh.
We say the same with the Riojan martyrs, Berta Cáceres and the crucified town of Sao Félix. They are places of signs of the times. These are paths that the martyrs open for us, so that we can walk hand in hand.
Q: The Riojan martyrs (Argentina), Saint Felix of Araguaia (Brazil), and Berta Cáceres (Honduras) are the chosen cases. Why each one and what do you highlight about these testimonies that accompanies “the collective journey”?
A: There is no Church without a collective journey. The hyper-individualism of the market, which idolises capital and sacrifices the lives of the poorest, is the antithesis of the proposal of the Kingdom made flesh in the martyrs. To look directly at the fallen is to consecrate our failures, of the Kingdom that has not yet arrived, to the common journey, to the search for the greatest possible dignity, to liberate, heal and unite all human beings and all human beings, as the Latin American Magisterium told us more than 50 years ago.
The Listening Centre puts its ear to the Matto Grosso, to hear the experience of the collective journey and the martyrdom of a people. The historically crucified people are always the sign of the times, the great Ignacio Ellacuría would say 30 years ago before being assassinated in El Salvador. This is what our way of understanding martyrdom is about as a path, as a synodal method, as a concrete experience of walking with others: an enormous fabric of faces, an immense territory with the blood of those below, a heart full of names, in the words of the poet of Sao Felix.
The second experience It will be that of the Riojan martyrsa martyrial community, which demonstrates the modito in its composition: starting with Wenceslao Pedernera, a lay peasant, passing through religious, priests and the bishop. Here we find the capillarity that will make possible a real transformation of our Church. It is not a question of expecting everything from above, nor of knocking everything down from below, but of putting the layers of the onion into dialogue, so that each one can flourish without repressing the other, so that the communion of the tuber is what allows the table of the poor to be filled. In this metaphor, another martyr, the great Rutilio, enlightens us: each one with his stool has a place and a mission. That phrase became a song and opens the celebrations in many of our communities*before breaking the bread. No one is left out, everyone has a service, a ministry to contribute. From La Rioja, this example enlightens us.
The third It is a face that makes the Ríos cry out. Berta Cáceres, the fight for the common home in Honduras, which has undoubtedly led the first Latin American Pope to paint his teaching with the green of the jungles and the red of the blood of the martyrs. The cry of the earth and the cry of the poor, in the life of a woman, who in her biography describes the lives of so many anonymous people who give everything to care for the common home.
The great Leonardo Boff in the 90s, faced with the end of history, said that the only end was those two cries together, and that if they were not heard, we would not have a second ark to save us. Without Noah, there is no community of life, nor the possibility of a synodal journey.
Berta Cáceres Dom Pedro and his people of Sao Felix de Araguaia Riojan Martyrs
Q: How would you describe martyrial-style synodality?
A: Synodality from the martyrs is the dance of the cries that mark our times: those of women, of the earth, of the discarded, of ordinary people, who believe and love, who suffer and fall, who dance and walk with others, without fundamentalism or blinkers. They do so with the naturalness of those who cannot survive in any other way.
The synodality of martyrs is not that of heroes who die in a pose, as Lucho Espinal once denounced before being assassinated. We do not want more martyrs, we say with him, we want communities of life, that confront evil, that build a dignified life, that take us out of the empire of the market, of individualism that will end the mental health of the planet, and of the ecocide to which the capitalist system is heading.
To return to the martyrs, to the witnesses, is to return to the roots. The radical nature of our faith has the power to change everything that needs to be changed, to make a new world, to build a Church that is synodal or not.
More information: https://celam.haif.app/cursos/curso-cebitepal?lZASA3V5SFQZlBJLeH1tZw==
Experiences to be heard
- The spiral of violence and the commitment to the poorest: Riojan martyrs.
- Giving one’s life for the river: the story of Berta Cáceres, from Honduras.
- The crucified peoples: collective prophecy from São Félix do Araguaia.
*Video song “Let’s all go to the banquet”
You may be interested in: Dario Vitali: “Only a Church-People of God can guarantee an effective exercise of synodality”
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