The Catholic Leader Flipbook - Issue 5594 - March 22

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The Catholic Leader, March 22, 2020
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EVEN as the government of El
Salvador announced a nationwide
quarantine, hundreds flocked to
a pilgrimage site on March 12 to
remember a Jesuit priest and his
companions killed 43 years ago and
declared martyrs by Pope Francis in
February.
AMass for Salvadoran Jesuit Father Rutilio
Grande at the site where he was martyred along
with two parishioners March 12, 1977, near his
hometown of El Paisnal, was cancelled after the
government prohibited gatherings of more than
250 as a precaution to prevent coronavirus from
spreading.
Instead, the Archdiocese of San Salvador
asked parishes to celebrate “our martyrs” in their
respective localities.
The three were murdered en route to a novena
to celebrate the feast of St Joseph, though the
main target was Fr Grande, killed because he
helped the poor.
In his efforts to teach the poor to read using
the Bible, Father Grande also organised them
so they could speak against a rich and powerful
minority – the coffee farmers and landowners,
who oppressed them.
On March 12, the Salvadoran Catholic TV
station Television Catolica showed hundreds
headed to the church where Fr Grande is buried,
along with elderly parishioner Manuel Solorzano
and teenager Nelson Rutilio Lemus, who died
with him.
The Holy See announced on February 22 that
Pope Francis has recognised their martyrdom.
Papal recognition of their martyrdom clears
the way for their beatification, although the Holy
See has not announced a date or place for the
ceremony.
Archbishop Jose Luis Escobar Alas of the
Archdiocese of San Salvador began the day
celebrating a Mass for the three in a chapel at the
archdiocese.
In a statement late March 11, he said that be-
cause of government regulations, groups of 100-
150 at a time would be allowed into the church
where the three are buried, for those who wanted
to pay their respects on what some of them have
long-considered a type of feast day.
El Salvadorian Catholics mark 43rd
anniversary of Jesuit’s martyrdom
Remembered: Catholic school students participate in the commemoration of the 1977 murder of Jesuit Father Rutilio Grande in El Paisnal, El Salva-
dor, last year. March 12 marked the 43rd anniversary of when Father Grande was killed while on his way to a novena. Photo: CNS
WHILE the coronavirus pandemic grip-
ping the world highlights the frailty of
human life, it is also an opportunity for
people to unite in solidarity, a Church
official said.
“For each person, believer or nonbe-
liever, this is a good time to understand
the value of brotherhood, of being
linked to one another in an indissoluble
way,” Cardinal Peter Turkson, prefect
of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral
Human Development, said.
It is “a time in which, in the horizon
of faith, the value of solidarity which
springs from the love that is sacrificed
for others, helps us to see the ‘other’ –
person, people, or nation – not as just as
an instrument, but as our ‘counterpart,’
a ‘helper,’ made to share with us in the
banquet of life to which all people are
equally invited by God,” he wrote.
The Italian government has taken
drastic measures to prevent the spread
of the coronavirus, which has infected
thousands in the country, especially in
the northern regions of Lombardy and
Emilia Romagna.
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe
Conte announced March 11 that all
businesses, restaurants and bars would
be closed except for supermarkets,
pharmacies and essential services.
Cardinal Turkson said in Italy and
around the world, many were expe-
riencing “days of great concern and
growing anxiety” at a time when
“human fragility and vulnerability”
are particularly clear because of the
pandemic.
Like any other emergency situation,
he said, the challenges facing coun-
tries trying to contain the virus also
“highlight more clearly the serious
inequalities that characterise our socio-
economic systems.”
“Faced with this range of inequalities,
the human family is challenged to feel
and live truly as an interconnected and
interdependent family,” the Ghanaian
cardinal said.
“The prevalence of the coronavirus
has demonstrated this global signifi-
cance, having initially affected only one
country and then spread to every part of
the globe.”
Addressing the lack of liturgical cel-
ebrations, especially during the Lenten
season, Cardinal Turkson said Catholics
were called in this time “to an even
more deeply rooted journey on what
sustains spiritual life – prayer, fasting
and charity.”
“If we cannot gather in our assem-
blies to live our faith together as we
usually do, God offers us the oppor-
tunity to enrich ourselves, to discover
new paradigms and to rediscover our
personal relationship with him,” the
cardinal said.
CNS
For years, the crowds of those making the
March 12 pilgrimage to El Paisnal have grown.
The municipality is close to where Fr Grande
and a group of Jesuits and other lay missionaries
worked with farmworkers in the 1970s.
Lauding Fr Grande, the archbishop said the
Jesuit offered his life and gave it freely, defend-
ing the poor because “in them, he found Christ.”
“God has rewarded him because the name of
his executioners isn’t known. They’re hidden,”
he said. “Instead, the name of our martyrs is
exalted, and they have been rewarded ... they are
taking part in the eternal banquet because God
is just.”
He characterised their assassination as a
“crime against humanity,” but one of thousands
suffered by many other Salvadorans killed dur-
ing the country’s civil conflict that raged in the
1980s.
“Blessed is our homeland that was received
the blood of our martyrs,” he said, adding that
only God can make something good out of
something bad.
In a time in which many live in fear of coro-
navirus, Archbishop Escobar told those gathered
for Mass to pray for the intercession of the
martyrs, for their protection because they were
offered as examples of how Christians should
live but also to intercede for others in heaven.
“We invoke them knowing they are with us,”
he said.
El Salvador does not have any confirmed
cases of the disease COVID-19, but the Salva-
doran government announced late March 11 that
it would not allow foreign nationals – with the
exception of diplomats and residents – to enter
for 21 days as a measure of preventing the virus
from spreading among its population.
CNS
Pandemic a time of understanding the value of brotherhood, cardinal says
Precautions: A worker sanitises Ponte della Paglia bridge on St Mark’s
Square as a measure to fight against the coronavirus in Venice, Italy.
Photo: CNS
This is the prayer Pope Francis
recited by video March 11 for a special
Mass and act of prayer asking Mary
to protect Italy and the world during
of the coronavirus pandemic.
O Mary,
you always shine on our path
as a sign of salvation and of hope.
We entrust ourselves to you, Health of
the Sick,
who at the cross took part in Jesus’ pain,
keeping your faith firm.
You, Salvation of the Roman People,
know what we need,
and we are sure you will provide
so that, as in Cana of Galilee,
we may return to joy and to feasting
after this time of trial.
Help us, Mother of Divine Love,
to conform to the will of the Father
and to do as we are told by Jesus,
who has taken upon himself our suffer-
ings
and carried our sorrows
to lead us, through the cross,
to the joy of the resurrection. Amen.
Under your protection, we seek refuge,
Holy Mother of God.
Do not disdain the entreaties of we who
are in trial, but deliver us from every dan-
ger, O glorious and blessed Virgin.
Amen
Prayer asking Mary to protect the world from coronavirus