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March, 2002 Ignacio Ellacuría was
passionate for service, but not any type of service. He always asked himself what do I
need to do in order to serve others. Over his life this question evolved with different
connotations, but it was always oriented towards a search for God’s will and its
fulfillment. In this sense, it was a typical Ignacian question. Ignacio of Loyola asked
himself “where am I going, and for what”, having as a criteria “in
everything to love and to serve”. This is the crux of Ignacio Ellacuría´s life and
priestly vocation. Having heard God´s call, until the end he devoted everything he had to
serve others in the best and most faithful way.
Ignacio Ellacuría´s
life was devoted to serving others, although he received much from others: it was the poor
who helped him make sense of his life; because it was the poor who illuminated how best to
serve. Little by little, he understood service to the poor in a concrete way: taking down
the crucified people from the cross.
Compassion as justice
Compassion led him to
work toward eliminating the root of suffering caused by injustice. Indeed, perceived as a
reaction and not as a mere feeling towards the victims´ suffering, compassion played a
key role. He had a visceral reaction when he saw oppressed people, cheated and fooled, in
the same way that Jesus and many other men and women of good will were oppressed.
Ellacuría reacted to this reality, never accepting that pain, but also never limiting
himself to pitying the poor. In front of the cross, he was always radical. He translated
that compassion into justice, a transformation due as much to the enormous amount of
victims --millions of human beings turned into
“flotsam and jetsam”,
as to the inherent wrongness of injustice. At the root of his life we find compassion, and
thus, neither a categorical imperative of what ought to be, nor an aesthetic attraction to
put into practice a theory of justice.
The suffering he saw had
deep roots, which needed to be eradicated and substituted by roots leading to life and
fraternity. Because of that, Ellacuría rebelled against the unfair and violent reality,
that then and now causes so many victims. He was convinced that his reason for being was
historic and therefore, that all this reality should and could be transformed. In his last
lecture, in Barcelona (November 6, 1989), he said that from the universal and brotherly
perspective of the majority of the humanity “the problem of a new historical project
that is being outlined from prophetic negation and from utopian affirmation, points to a
process of revolutionary change, that consists in reversing the main signs that configure
the world civilization (ECA 493-494, 1989, 1076).
This radicalness is not a
youthful frivolity or an idealistic irresponsibility, but the result of a personal
commitment to reality. At bottom, it was compassion in the face of widespread suffering.
He arrived to this view when he was approaching the reality, perceiving and analyzing all
its complexity and hardness, as they appeared in front of him. This is how he discovered
the option for the poor as an objective demand of reality, and how he committed himself to
change this unfair situation. This is only possible through a constant and gradual effort,
with a pace adjusted to this reality that is to say, one makes exactly those steps that
are possible to make never losing sight of the ultimate goal to which one aspires.
Progress is possible because of prophecy and utopia: Prophecy,
because denouncing the evils of reality in a
radical way, prevents accommodating or resigning oneself to it; utopia, because it
proposes that to which the negation of these evils points to, and beyond, a horizon of
personal and social plenitude. Ellacuría´s genius was his ability to maintain, in a
simultaneous way, the objectivity in front of reality, the action in accordance with real
possibilities, the prophecy and the utopia. But the victims´ suffering was what put into
movement these four elements, what in a simultaneous way united them and gave them
direction. He never relativized this suffering, nor accepted it.
Ellacuría always
searched for truth, a goal not necessarily shared by those who work at a university or
have institutional responsibilities. What he discovered was a truthful reality, the
philosopher Ellacuría´s touchstone. To him, reality took the form of inhuman poverty,
and cruel and unfair death for the majority of humanity. He asserted this discovery with
unequalled rigor and Christian energy, because the theologian Ellacuría found in this
reality a sign of the times par excellence. Each
era, he wrote, has many signs, some being more visible than others; but each era has one
that is principal, in its light the other signs should be seen. For Ellacuría “that sign is always the
people historically crucified” by injustice and oppression. This crucifixion is
constant throughout history, although it has different forms in each epoch: “that
crucified people” he used to say, “are the historical continuation of Yaweh´s
poor, from whom the sin of the world continues to remove any human form, to whom worldly
powers continue to take away everything, continue to take away even life, especially
life” (To discern the sign of times, Diakonía 17, 1981, 58).
This theological
conceptualization of historical reality showed the talent of the theologian Ellacuría,
but it also showed how he captured the tragedy of reality: death, the terrible pain of
victims of this world. We can point out here that before elevating historical reality into
theological concept he radically judged the world. This world is the historical apparition
of Yaweh´s poor, as a suffering poor, and of Christ, as crucified. Christ´s passion
continues in the crucified people crucified by the sin of the world.
From a philosophical
point of view, Ellacuría
takes issue with Heiddeger, when he explains the de-ideologising and uncoveringcharacter
of reality that “maybe,
instead of asking ourselves why there is being rather than nothingness, he should have
asked himself why there is nothingness –no being, no reality, no truth, etc.- instead
of being” (“Función liberadora de la filosofía”, ECA 435-436, 1985, 50). The first impact that reality provokes in people
who know how to view it objectively, is its radical negativity. One can agree or not with
this analysis, but there is no doubt of the impact that the tragedy of this world caused
in Ellacuría.
Justice was his passion,
which helps explain his innate sense of rectitude and maybe also his challeging and
fighting temperament. It was not only a question of eliminating or aliviating poverty, but
also of changing and confronting the world, one divided between victims and executioners,
between poor and rich. A world that together with clear scientific and technological
progress, tolerates the greatest failure of humanity: the destruction of nature and of the
environment, of large groups of human beings, of the family, of the person. Here is the
root of his perception of the poor as the “crucified people”, i.e. there are
whole peoples that have died, that have been killed unfairly by other human beings.
Facing this real world,
Ellacuría supported all the actions that mitigated human suffering. But, on the other
side, pain and the death of millions of victims for the sake of a few, led him to
privilege not any type of action, even if it was a good action, but to give priority to
compassion and love, to actions directed
toward the deprived, that is, to give priority to justice. This efficient love for these
oppressed peoples guided what he needed to do and gave ultimate sense to it. The priority
he accorded to justice led him to initiate the type of action which could most influence
social structures. He supported, of course, activities that put us directly in contact
with the poor, but among those activities, he privileged those that had the potential to
significantly change the situation. This was his personal way of actualizing Ignacio de
Loyola´s well-know maxim: “A good actions become more universal, they become more
divine”.
Moreover, he insisted on
the excluding, dual and dialectic relationship between justice and injustice. At the end
of the 60s, and even before the popular and theological movement that was developing in
South-America had reached Central-America, Ellacuría expressed the need, not only to develop, but
also to liberate, the opposite of oppression, so that justice could become a reality. From
an existential point of view, and in order to express the duality between justice and
injustice, he mentioned early on the need to confront persecution when fighting against
injustice. From this relationship he also deduced the difference and opposition between
that which each God favors: the God of life versus the idols of death.
Finally, Ellacuría saw a
central reality in justice, not the only one, of course, for comprehending and
interpreting the crux of theology: God´s kingdom. God´s kingdom is a kingdom of life for
the poor and for the eradication of oppression, the kingdom of fraternity for humanity, as
the Old Testament prophets and Jesus of Nazareth announced. The same message that Jesus
came to announce and to accomplish, i.e. God´s kingdom, is what should constitute a
unifying object of all Christian theology, as well as of moral and pastoral. The main
possible outcome of God´s kingdom in history is what Jesus´ true followers” should
pursue (“Aporte de la teología de la liberación a las religiones abrahámicas en la
superación del individualismo y del positivismo”, Revista Latinoamericna de
Teología 10, 1987, 9).
Without doubt, Ellacuría
was an exceptional fighter and a lucid theorist of justice but this is not his most
original and creative side. Rather his key contribution is having conceived personal and
institutional reality from its potential to institute justice, in giving a finality to the
victims´sufferings, and in always keeping
their voice present. Only from their suffering can true solutions to the serious problems
of humanity be proposed and accomplished. Starting from this reality, it is necessary to
fight in order to eradicate injustice and in order to make objective justice, and in the
final analysis, God´s kingdom. The progress comes slowly but steadily. Ellacuría learned
and taught how to work in order that the reality
offers as much as possible, but without losing sight of the utopian horizon. The main
point is to start the process, as gradually as you want, but without gradualness
signifying a resigned and disinterested acceptance of what can be and what cannot be done.
The first attitude is
active and looks for solutions; it takes all the necessary steps and understands the path
along which we have to go in order to overcome the existing situation and to approach the
utopian horizon. The second attitude can degenerate into “the way things are”
which easily take us to passivity; it agrees with what exists, stressing good aspects, but
forgets the many people for whom this situation generates evil and death. Therefore,
Ellacuría had actively looked for realistic solutions linked to reality, but always in
the context of the utopia.
In this aspect he was
outstanding. It can be argued whether he was right or not, but it is unquestionable that
he always looked for solutions in active and creative ways, even in advance of others
analysts. He was familiar with political theories and he referred to them, but he never
limited himself to recipes. He maintained his own criteria, he defended what he believed
was fair for the majorities, without fearing attacks from the right, nor seeking the
applause from the left. Thus, in front of the tragedy of the majorities, and based in good
reasons, he abandoned the comfort of body and soul, to which academics and ecclesiastics
are so prone, and devoted himself to find a solution.
Ellacuría asked himself
what to do for the poor and what to do with himself, in this world dominated by injustice
and suffering. In this personal sphere, he listened to its outcry and answered in the most
objective way he was able. The answer is found throughout his life. From its duration --a
message propounded for twenty years--, its complexity --he was forced to take into account
more and more complex variables--, and its costs --work, persecution, , solitude, and at
the end, death-- it can be deduced the extend to which these outcries resonated inside
him.
In 1982 in Valladolid he
ended a talk with words that can be perceived as autobiographical -- “ I would only
ask two things: that we turn our eyes and heart to those who are suffering so tremendously
--some from hunger and misery, others from oppression and repression-- and then, in front
of these crucified people, to do (since I am a Jesuit) Saint Ignacio´s colloquium for the
first week of Spiritual exercises asking: What have I done to crucify them? What should I
do to de-crucify them? What should I do in order to resuscitate them?”(“Las
iglesias latinoamericanas interprelan a la iglesia de España, Sal Terrae 3, 1982,
230).
Intelligence into the service of justice
Ignacio Ellacuría
practiced compassion through his intellectual contributions. It is clear, nevertheless,
that practicing intelligence --even if he was prodigiously intelligent--, was not the most decisive aspect in his life. It was to apply his
intelligence to liberating people from injustice, since he could not remain alien to so
many people´s suffering. In this way he introduced liberation into the theoretical
understanding of intelligence, whose formal structure he defined as “ to apprehend
reality and to face it”.
Confronting it --he
explained-- happens in three levels: the noetic, that which supposes to be embodied in
reality; the ethical, that which supposes that intelligence is applied to reality and
needs to provide an answer; and the practical level, that which has under its
responsibility a specific task. According to this framework, the ultimate goal of
intelligence is not to know more and more, but to take into account reality in the most
adequate way. Most importantly, and here is his fundamental contribution, is the
importance of carefully choosing the locus of knowledge depending on how we choose, the
source of knowledge would yield one thing or another. Without doubt for Ellacuría, that locus in Latin-America, was the poor, or the
majority of the humanity who has no access to basic services, whose dignity is trampled
on, in a universal perspective.
The reason is simple:
these poor are the majority and therefore, carry an important quantitative weight.
Furthermore, for Christ´s believers “they constitute that maximum and scandalous
prophetic and apocalyptic presence of the Christian God, the privileged locus of praxis,
specifically and Christian praxis and reflection”. Ellacuría sees it and touches it
in historical reality and reconfirms it in the reading of God´s word and the history of
salvation, done from this privileged place (Conversión de la Iglesia al reino de Dios,
San Salvador, 1985, p. 163). But he makes a distinction between the physical place, that
can change, and the real locus of knowledge, the poor.
In this way, the
universality of human rights cannot be realized without considering for whom and for what
these rights are. It is critical to be in the right place if we want to be able to
understand and propose true solutions to humanity´s most serious problems. Ellacuría
used to say: “We are not cleverer than others, nor do we have more resources than
others. On the contrary, but we are in the right place”, in which to think about the
world from the poor´s point of view. Even so, he deemed human rights to be a complex and
ambiguous topic, not an easy one. On one side, there is the intrinsic claim of human
rights to universality; on the other side, the claim of certain groups or interests that
human rights are meant to serve them. But this contradiction could be avoided if the
question is approached from the poor´s point of view. It is the poor´s rights which are
constantly and structurally threatened, if not violated in an open way. Therefore, human
rights do not concern only knowledge, but imply also a political and ethical dimension.
Ellacuría called this way of
approaching reality “historizing the method”. His method was simple. Instead of
considering rights from a theoretical dimension, he put them into contact with historical
reality in order to verify their truth or falsehood, their fairness or unfairness, their
adjustment or mal-adjustment. In this way the ethical and political dimensions were
introduced into knowledge. Here, the key is not the proclaimed rights, but their truth,
justice and adjustment to the reality of humanity. It is not a question of telling the
history of the rights, but of verifying their presence in people’s life, in all
people. It is not question of verifying if the rights provide security to some groups, but
if they are effective for the others. Doing so forces us to examine carefully the real
conditions in which people live, because without taking into account the proclaimed
intentions there is no possibility of becoming an effective reality. Without verification,
we run the risk that the principles, instead of pushing needed changes that make the
rights effective, will become an obstacle. To assert the possibility of a principle, even
if it is truthful and fair, is not enough. In order to avoid an escape toward idealism,
leaving behind the people’s reality, Ellacuría brings in the need of verification,
and with it, action, i.e. ethics. This does not mean, on the one side, irresponsible
action, because action always needs to adjust itself to what reality presents. Within this
context, time is an important dimension, because it allows one to perceive and quantify
when principles become reality, or at least, when they reach a certain level of historical
specificity.
That’s the reason
why Elllacuría warned against the veiled ways of defending what was gained by the
strongest. Behind the norm there is often an interested and ideologised concealment. Its
goal is not securing threatened rights or avoiding rights that have been repeatedly
violated nor punishing who is responsible for those violations, but defending what has
already being gained, without a willingness to discuss either how things have been gained,
or how everyone’s rights have become the rights of a few. This happens when few
people have the real conditions to make the rights effective. But when rights become a
privilege, their universal dimension is negated and they are not general rights anymore,
becoming instead the privilege of specific groups.
In general, Elacurría
observes, those having the conditions to make their rights effective are those who also
have strength. Therefore, rights are an attribute of the strongest. Ellacuría recognizes
that rights in genera,l and human rights in particular, are the overcoming, at a level of
a principle, of a divided reality between rich and poor, healthy and sick, employed an
unemployed, North and South, the East and the Western world, etc. The validity of those
principles can only maintained if we hide this duality and we affirm as everyone´s rights
what in reality are the privilege of only a few. Therefore, the true solution demands
leaving behind any a priori judgment and looking for confirmation in the way the
majority lives. We have to work hard in order that reason prevails over strength, but
especially, to defend the weak against the strong. If not, human rights become a very
useful alibi to hide reality and to protect the privileged, negating in that way the
essence of rights. Let´s not forget that human rights are proclaimed as rights aimed at
all of humanity, in order to guarantee the satisfaction of basic needs and dignity. If we
go beyond the declarations of principles and we look around us, it is easy to see the
dramatic reality of the majority of the humanity.
We don´t always face
that reality, in spite of its volume and extension. Normally, we skip it, and look in the
opposite direction, or look at it with indifference. Next to the victims there is a
noteworthy concealment, and human rights could be part of this concealment if they are not
historicised. The world of power and money does not want to look around it because, if it
did, it would become crazy or convert, remarks Ellacuría (“El reino de Dios y el
paro en el Tercer Mundo”, Concilium 180, 1982, 593). But evil can only be
overcome if we face the true reality of this world, which, to a large extent, is a world
of poor people. Their faces show and denounce what the first world carries inside itself.
If this first world looks into the world of the poor, it could see itself as in an
inverted mirror and could recognize its deformed, but true, reality from which it
produces: crucified people.
Ellacuría´s challenge
to human rights is that the proclaimed principles should be a reality in the history of
humanity in a way that they will transform it. In order for these rights to be true, fair,
and just they need to negate and surpass in a simultaneous way, the threat, weakness and
oppression of what now exists. At least, this is what predominates in the largest majority
of humanity.
Between prophecy and utopia
At the end of his life,
Ellacuría synthesized this process which, in the relationship between prophecy and utopia
should be negative, critical and dialectic. Both prophecy and utopia are exigencies from
the same reality. It is a sort of struggle, that is not the same everywhere, nor it is
expressed with the same outcry or with the same expectations. Both prophecy and utopia
should be considered in a mutual reference, in a way that one calls for the other in a
precise way. Utopia is needed because prophecy affirms that there is an evil that needs to
be overcome, and prophecy is needed because utopia claims that the possibility of the good
exists. Therefore, prophecy is the method and utopia is the horizon. From the conjunction
of both we know where we should go and what ´s needed to be done.
Prophecy is a necessary
moment, although we cannot dwell in its negation. Rather we need to move toward an
ever-definitive affirmation, because prophecy carries in itself the principle of
transcendence, since it is attracted by utopia. In this perspective, any accomplishment is
important but temporary. Soon it gets mal-adjusted and even implies a certain degree of
falsehood and unfairness, although each time to a lesser extent. Ellacuría reminds us, in
fact-, that this is how rights appeared, followed much later by so-called human rights,
which reached gradually a more widespread and precise definition. Denouncing without a
utopia is, to some extent, a blind action; but utopia without denouncing is even more
inoperative.
The depth of Ellacuría´s
position lies in viewing the victims´suffering and its cover-up as the ultimate evil;
i.e., viewing them from a radical point of view and not as mere limitations, partial
failures, false steps, etc.. From a Christian perspective, he considered such suffering to
be a sin. Its denunciation was aimed at unmasking realities that needed to be transformed,
not at attacking people. His deeper motivation was to defend the victims, not to insult
the adversary. Ellacuría´s most specific task was thus to unmask vigorously and
rigorously not only the evil of reality but the bad solutions presented. Bad solutions
should also be prophetically revealed, and true solutions should be proposed, solutions
found in different, even contrary, ways. Without prophecy, stagnation results.
Human rights can improve
only if they are linked to a specific social group at a specific time. Or more concretely,
if we consider them from the reality that defines more negatively the situation of a
specific social group. This perspective becomes an exigency when that social group
represents the majority of humanity, as is now true. Ellacuría maintains that the
majority has more humanity than the minority. For him, this was a sufficient argument to
confer human rights and all rights on the majority. Verifying its sufficiency is not
possible; this is a cause to act immediately, although if necessary, in a gradual way,
constantly and unfailingly until human rights become a reality.
By historising human
rights Ellacuría show that the radical problem is the struggle against death, looking for
what gives us life instead of death. This struggle is perceived from different angles, at
the personal as well as social levels. Biological life is a central demand for all human
beings. When it is lacking, then it becomes a primary right. Nevertheless, in the most
wealthy circles of humanity, due to high standards of living, where these rights are
secured, it can seem an obvious presupposition. But this does not apply to the majority of
humanity, for whom it is problematic to conserve biological life, due to extreme poverty
or violence. Human rights should apply to everybody or they stop being human rights. The
majority lack the real conditions needed to continue to live biologically. Therefore, it
is a victim´s fight against his or her executioner, but includes other aspects such as
freedom, justice, dignity and solidarity. It is the fight for the plenitude of life,
which, being biological, transcends that limit.
True freedom should be
freedom for everybody for everything. Up to now, the freedom of a few is founded in the
negation of the other peoples´ freedom, but true freedom is only accomplished through
liberation, not through liberalizing, as can be observed now. Liberalization is the way
for a few, wealthy and strong, who can take advantage of the supposed equal opportunities
of liberalism. Instead, liberation is the majority’s way. The majority will only have
access to true freedom when they have real conditions that propitiate the exercise of its
freedom. This perspective, observed Ellacuría, only appears when reality is viewed from
the poor´s point of view. And he added, in a provocative manner, that “the place
where liberation can appear is in the poor and dispossessed, not in the rich who
disinherit, who have a tendency to not see, even obscuring the need for justice and
liberation” (“Estudio teológico pastoral de la Instrucción sobre algunos
aspectos de la teología de la liberación”, Revista Latinoamericana de Teología
2, 1964, 150).
Salvation of humanity: the true solution
The true solution to the
problem of life is easy, in theory; to put it into practice pertains to utopia, since it
demands, according to Ellacuría: “Conversion and transformation .... a different
inspiration than the current one.. change of the mentality and change in the direction of
history” (“El reino de Dios y el paro en el tercer mundo”, Concilium 180,
1982, 591). Ellacuría called his solution the “civilization of work”, but in
its more original formulation it was the civilization of poverty. In 1982 he described
utopia as a civilization where “poverty would not longer exist, [...] a universal
state of things in which the satisfaction of fundamental needs, the freedom of personal
options would be secured, in addition to a realm of personal and communal creativity which
would allow new forms of life and culture, new relationships with nature, with others
[...] with ourselves and with God” (“El reino de Dios y el paro en el tercer
mundo”, Concilium 180, 1982, 591). In this utopian view, Ellacuría asserts
vigorously that the current civilization has not provided those goods for the whole of
humanity. From a Christian point of view, he underlines that we live in a world of sin.
The problem is more serious than it seems, since “we believe not only in a new
economic order... but also in a new civilization”.
A year later, he insisted
that such a civilization is not only a need, but also offers the possibility for the
spirit to grow. “That poverty -- austerity if we want to make it sound smoother-- is
what really gives space to the spirit, because the spirit does not feel submerged by a
desire of having more than other people, by the concupiscent desire of having all sorts of
superfluous goods, when the majority of humanity lacks the necessary” (“Misión
actual de la Compañía de Jesús”, Revista Latinoamericana de Teología 29,
1993, 119). In his last article (1989), Ellacuría specifies the dialectic opposition
between wealth and poverty. He wrote that the dialectic “refuses the accumulation of
capital as the motor of history, possessing and enjoying wealth as the principle of
humanization, and it considers universal satisfaction of the basic needs the principle of
development, and deems increasing solidarity the foundation of humanization”. The
utopia he proposed, therefore, is not to impoverish everybody, but to oppose one
civilization against the other because, “the current civilization is seriously sick
and in order to avoid a fatal end, it is necessary to try to change it from the
inside” (“El desafio de las mayoría populares”, ECA 494-494, 1989, 1976).
In a world configured --
in a sinful way-- by capital and wealth, Ellacuría proposes the solution of creating a
different dynamism that supersedes it and could in this way lead it to salvation. In
addition to the possibility of life for those who are threatened or lack it, he proposed
to construct a new civilization, in which brotherhood would be a reality. Ellacuría
concluded his life highlighting the hope of a utopian solution, with an even more utopian
foundation. Not only did he advance a prophetic and utopian proposal, but he lived it
himself convinced that it was worthwhile to give one´s own life for its sake.
This proposal of a more
human life, and therefore, more Christian life, is refused by the current world order.
This world order disqualifies the proposal at a theoretical level but also when the
proposal appears as a real possibility. It punishes it. If difficult, the proposal is not
only possible, but is also necessary and good. Those who do not take life for granted
understand it in this manner. “Much remains to be done” concludes Ellacuría, so
much that “only with a utopian approach and with hope can a person believe, and have
the energy needed to try to change history with all the oppressed and poor in the world,
to subvert history, to push it in a different direction...” (“El desafío de la
mayorías populares”, ECA 494-494, 1989, 1976).
Through an old Christian
precept, Ellacuría reminds us that in a world divided by unfair distribution of common
goods, the principle of the priority of what is common and human should prevail over what
is personal and individual (“Historización de los derechos humanos desde los pueblos
oprimidos y las mayorías populares”, ECA 502, 1990, 589). He quotes Saint
Thomas, insisting that human beings are more part of humanity than of the society.
Therefore, a good individual person needs to relate to the common good of humanity.
Moreover, Saint Thomas observes that no particular good, and therefore no right, can be
fully desired, if that good and that right are not oriented to obtain both the common good
of humanity and the human plenitude of the right.
The true solution to the
challenge of human rights is intrinsically related to salvation of humanity; therefore, it
is explicitly considered within a Christian sphere. This is not surprising, since without
this Christian sphere, Ellacuría´s life and thought would be incomplete. For him,
justice, human rights, prophecy and utopia were human and political, but also Christian,
realities.
In the same way that he
was convinced that there are only limitations, failures and sin in this world, he believed
in the possibility of salvation, a salvation that should start to be visible in the
history of humanity. Although salvation seems obvious, it is not. In the current world,
the salvation of humanity doesn’t seem a most reasonable option. At the root of his
hope for salvation and his decision to serve it until the end was the Christian approach;
at the same time, Ellacuría was able to find in history something that transcends it and
opens it to the absolute. Moreover, he was convinced that we cannot understand reality in
its totality without accepting some form of transcendence.
For Ellacuría, what is
Christian goes beyond doctrine and routine. For him, the Christian realm is a way of
being, of seeing, of acting, of hoping and of celebrating. Something that is manifested in
the individual human beings as well as in the collectivity. The former is expressed in
following Jesus and in the configuration of the person in his image. The configuring
principle is a tradition originated in Jesus from Nazareth, updated and lived in
community, in God’s people, throughout the centuries, under the impulse of the Spirit
and revitalized by the best Christians, the martyrs and the Saints. Ellacuría accepted
many other things from the Christian sphere, but Jesus and his tradition was what was
fundamental for him. In him, the Latino-American martyr tradition, and especially, the
Salvadoran tradition, had a special profound resonance, since they touched the fiber of
his faith.
Therefore, “far from
leading to discouragement and desperation, this tradition infuses a new spirit and a new
hope”. Compassion toward the poor and fidelity to hope led Ellacuría to death.
Without doubt, they took away his life, but he gave it freely. They took his life away
because he was “bothering”, but he
gave his life because he loved.
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