Ecuadors defender of poor
replaced
By LUIS ANGEL SAAVEDRA
Special to the National Catholic Reporter Cuenca,
Ecuador
Archbishop Alberto Luna Tobar, 76, an outspoken defender of the
rights of Ecuadors poor and indigenous people and one of the
countrys last progressive bishops, was replaced in February as head of
the influential Cuenca archdiocese by a staunch conservative.
The change came less than a month after Luna supported protests
that led to the overthrow on Jan. 22 of President Jamil Mahuad by a
civilian-military junta that quickly relinquished power to a civilian
government. While many Ecuadoreans praised Lunas measured response during
the crisis, members of the church hierarchy blamed Luna for fomenting
rebellion.
ýLuna, who began his church career in a wealthy parish in
Quito, Ecuadors capital, can be viewed in the tradition of other Latin
American prelates Ñ including retired Cardinal Evaristo Arns of Brazil,
the late Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador and retired Bishop Samuel Ruiz
García of Chiapas, Mexico -- whose views changed remarkably following
contact with the poor and marginalized in their cultures.
The transition in archbishops also points up how open
disagreements among elements of the episcopacy here have become. The contrast
between Luna and Vicente Cisneros Durán, the Vaticans pick as his
successor, is apparent.
I dont share Archbishop Lunas rebellious
attitude toward political issues. Just because they are part of the church
hierarchy, bishops should not go beyond the churchs evangelizing
mission, Cisneros told a Guayaquil daily newspaper.
ýAlthough he no longer heads the archdiocese, Luna remains
president of the Human Rights Commission of Cuenca, which includes nearly all
local community, political and grassroots organizations. And his supporters
believe Ñ or hope -- that the mark he has left on the archdiocese in his
nearly two decades there will be difficult to erase.
In Spanish, a bishops title is Monseñor. Luna, who
refused to use the title archbishop, is known simply as Monse to
indigenous people, prison inmates and government officials alike. He arrived in
Cuenca, Ecuadors third-largest city, on April 8, 1981, with a reputation
as a priest of the wealthy.
The delegation that accompanied him to his new see did nothing to
dispel his image. The group included two right-wing former presidents, Galo
Plaza and Andrés F. Córdova, as well as a number of bishops and
political figures.
But the seeds of change had already been planted in Lunas
ministry. He was only 15 when, as a Discalced Carmelite seminarian, he traveled
to Spain to complete his studies, arriving in the middle of the Spanish Civil
War. That, he says, was the first defining moment. He spent his first year in
Spain without studying, some days without eating, seeing the pain of
death. That experience made me an opponent of violence.
In his last several years in Quito, he worked in a poor
neighborhood established in a land takeover. His homilies took on a more
progressive tone, and many Santa Teresita parishioners began to avoid his
Masses.
He started going into the hardest, poorest parishes, pointed
out the problems and began to bring that reality face to face with the
gospel, Fr. Román Malgiaritta recalls. He made it so that
the most radical among us had a hard time following in his footsteps. He turned
our way of walking with the people into a marathon.
Death threats were not long in coming. Strangers raided
Lunas office and rifled his papers. He was placed under surveillance,
although he never tried to hide. In fact, the repression gave him the courage
to confront right-wing President León Febres Cordero openly, publicly
criticizing Pope John Paul IIs praise of the president during the 1985
papal visit to Ecuador.
When Luna speaks of those days, it is with long pauses, as though
he is seeking the strength that kept him faithful to his idea of
combative solidarity.
Turning the other cheek doesnt mean an eternal state
of submission or passivity, he said. It means helping the offender
to move out of his condition of being an offender. That is why there is
legitimate protest and combative solidarity among the poor, to lead the rich
out of their state of sin.
Lunas ministry among the provinces indigenous people
has not always been easy. In La Unión, where parishioners had dragged an
alleged murderer into the parish hall last October and lynched him, he drew the
wrath of local officials.
They tortured [the alleged murderer], broke his arms one at
a time and then, while he was still alive, they set him on fire, Luna
said, still visibly moved by the memory. They called this taking
justice into their own hands. Executioners of the language is what they
are.
In response, Luna closed the parish and removed the priest.
Right-wing politicians accused the archbishop of being soft on crime. Luna,
however, was adamant.
These savage attitudes show nothing of justice, but rather a
barbaric, criminal injustice. They are public crimes, social crimes, with
guilty parties, among whom we are also tolerant accomplices, he said.
In order to have the censure lifted, members of the community of
La Unión publicly repented, committed themselves to caring for the
family of the man they had lynched -- who turned out to have been innocent --
and promised never again to take refuge in the anonymity of an enraged
crowd, without recognizing our undisputed communal responsibility, as
Luna said in a eucharistic celebration of forgiveness last Christmas.
Under Luna, Cuenca has become the largest source of vocations of
priests committed to the poor -- indeed, of all priestly vocations -- in the
country. Most of Cuencas priests received their early training as lay
ministers. In his time in Cuenca, Luna ordained 50 priests, many of them from
indigenous communities. There are presently 21 seminarians in the seminary, but
Luna says the real roots of their vocations lie in the churchs community
work, where the gospel meets reality.
Luna has been one of the harshest critics of Ecuadorian politics.
He has left virtually no major issue untouched in the editorials he writes for
a Quito daily newspaper.
His belief in legitimate protest against an economic system that
kills a people slowly led Luna to identify with Ecuadors
indigenous movement. In 1990, when the first indigenous uprising in recent
history occurred, Lunas conviction that the protests were a fight for
dignity led him not only to encourage indigenous communities, but to call on
mestizos, or mixed-blood Ecuadorians, to support them.
Living with dignity does not only imply living according to
universal values and the doctrine preached by the church in the spiritual
realm. Dignity is more concrete. It means establishing ways of living together
fairly, eradicating the sinful system in which we live when we submit to the
economic model imposed by the powerful. Thats why our commitment is to
walk with the poor, Luna says.
Luna was a key participant in a Peoples Parliament of
Ecuador that met Jan. 10. Delegates from grassroots groups and community
organizations developed a series of proposals including restructuring of the
executive, legislative and judicial branches of the government; an end to
corruption and impunity; support for the Jubilee 2000 debt initiative and a
democratic economy that did not exclude large segments of the population;
reforms in health care, agriculture and social security; and full recognition
of the countrys pluriculturality. The parliament also called for
demonstrations and a peaceful takeover of Quito, the capital -- a
decision that helped pave the way for the presidents ouster on Jan.
21.
By January, Ecuadors economy was in a tailspin. In 1999
alone, the countrys currency was devalued by nearly 200 percent,
inflation ran at 60.7 percent and the economy shrank by 7.3 percent. The
minimum wage is only $40 a month, and 64 percent of the population lives in
poverty or extreme poverty.
Luna was bitterly critical of government policies that so
aggressively attack the rights of the injured parties that its time to
invite those who make up this sector of Ecuadorian society -- who are condemned
to a slow death -- to rebel against this profanation of charity and demand
plain, simple justice, he said.
A march on the capital by indigenous organizations came to a head
Jan. 20 and 21, when the protesters occupied Congress and the Supreme Court. In
the end, a three-member Junta of National Salvation was formed. In
the early morning hours of Jan. 22, the junta turned power over to Vice
President Gustavo Noboa.
Miguel Lluco, head of the Pachakutik Movement, which launched the
indigenous groups foray into electoral politics four years ago, later
commented, If Archbishop Luna had been there, things would have turned
out differently. No general could betray Monse.
In one poll, 51 percent of the respondents said they were most
impressed with the way Luna acted during the crisis. Ecuadors Catholic
hierarchy did not see matters in the same light, however, and the decision to
replace Luna was swift. Cisneros was named on Feb. 15.
Luna himself is aware of his achievements, but speaks of them with
humility. Life has been generous with my presence in society, he
said. I have no more power than the community. To be a bishop is to be a
spokesman and guide.
National Catholic Reporter, June 2,
2000
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