Baltimore representatives make pastoral visitation to El Salvador

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Click play below to listen to Catholic Review Radio interview with Lia Garcia and Father Austin Murphy. Full story follows.

Looking at the names of nearly 1,000 people inscribed on a seemingly endless memorial wall in the small village of Mozote in El Salvador quite literally took Lia Garcia’s words away.

The marker recognized the many townspeople – about half of them children – slaughtered during the Central American nation’s bloody civil war by Salvadoran military forces Dec. 11-12, 1981.

“When you see names on plaques and the ages of the children, as a mother, my heart just broke at that moment,” said Garcia, director of Hispanic Ministry for the Archdiocese of Baltimore and an immigrant from El Salvador who returned to her homeland Jan. 25-30 as part of a regional Catholic pastoral visitation of the country.

Garcia, translating in English and Spanish for Salvadoran Cardinal Rosa Chávez and the pilgrimage group, couldn’t keep interpreting as she looked at the names on the wall. The weight of the tragedy and the realization of what it took to live through it was too much for her.

“It was just a reminder of how fragile life is and (a reminder) of the power of the Salvadorian community – the resilience of the Salvadorian community,” she said.

The United States is home to approximately 1.3 million Salvadorans, with nearly 206,000 of them living in Maryland. Among the 23 parishes in the Archdiocese of Baltimore that have active Hispanic ministry, 22 of them have a majority of their Hispanic population made up of Salvadorans, Garcia said.

Many of the immigrants fled El Salvador’s 12-year civil war, arriving in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s. Later, others were driven out of their homeland by gang violence and crime.

Many of the people of Salvadoran ancestry in the Archdiocese of Baltimore are from the southern part of El Salvador, where the war was most brutally felt. They still have many family members in El Salvador.

The recent pastoral visit to El Salvador, which Garcia helped coordinate, was designed to help those in Hispanic ministry in the United States better understand the social, spiritual and cultural realities of the people of El Salvador and to better serve people of Salvadoran descent in Catholic dioceses here.

The group included representatives of dioceses in Maryland; Virginia; West Virginia; Washington, D.C.; and the Archdiocese for U.S. Military Services.

Joining Garcia in representing the Baltimore archdiocese were Father T. Austin Murphy Jr., pastor of Christ the King in Glen Burnie and St. Bernadette in Severn; and Redemptorist Father Ako Walker, pastor of Sacred Heart of Jesus-Sagrado Corazón de Jesús in Highlandtown.

Bishop Mark Brennan of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, a former auxiliary bishop of Baltimore, also joined the group, as did Washington Auxiliary Bishop Bishop Evelio Menjivar-Ayala, who was born in El Salvador.

The group visited a variety of sites, including the parish where St. Óscar Romero was baptized, the chapel where he was assassinated and his tomb in San Salvador.

The group met with a variety of Salvadoran church leaders, including Cardinal Chávez, and learned about the work of Baltimore-based Catholic Relief Services in El Salvador. Members also visited Templo de la Divina Misericordia, a shrine to Divine Mercy under construction by the Siervas de la Misericordia de Dios in Ocicala Morazán. Father Walker and members of his parish have been assisting with fundraising for the project.

“One of the most impactful things I think for a lot of us was how full the churches were in the places where we celebrated Mass, Father Murphy said, “full of children, full of families.”

Father Murphy, whose Glen Burnie parish is made up of a majority of Hispanics, said it was powerful to visit so many places that hold deep meaning for the Salvadoran community, helping him better understand where the faith of so many of his parishioners is rooted.

“It was just a great opportunity for me to really appreciate the gifts that they bring and the sacrifices that they bring to church,” Father Murphy said.

The priest noted that his parishioners had urged him to go on the trip.

“Seeing their joy at the fact that their pastor would go to their home and to be able to experience that – I almost get choked up about it when I think about how excited they were for that and the fact that I did it,” he said.

Father Murphy noted that St. Romero lived in a house right next to the hospital where he regularly celebrated Mass for religious sisters and where he was ultimately murdered. It showed how closely he walked with his people, Father Murphy said.

“To be able to celebrate Mass at the altar where he died was incredibly significant for me,” he said.

The priest recalled that during a visit to the Cathedral of Our Lady Queen of Peace in San Miguel, Bishop Menjivar-Ayala asked the packed assembly how many of them had family back in Maryland, Virginia and Washington.

“Maybe 40 percent of the church – a packed church – raised their hand,” Father Murphy said, highlighting the strong, ongoing connections between people of Salvadoran descent in the United States and their homeland.

Father Murphy said the pilgrimage group enjoyed experiencing the food of the people of El Salvador and their rich culture. In conversation with others on the visitation, he said there was a feeling that more clergy need to participate in similar trips to other Spanish-speaking countries and to African nations from which many recently arrived Catholics to the United States call home. 

“That’s part of accompanying people in their journey of faith – wanting to know and being interested in knowing that person’s culture, that person’s background,” he said.

Email George Matysek at gmatysek@CatholicReview.org

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