Berta Cáceres and the response of the church

Berta Cáceres was a Lenca woman who stood up for the Lenca people and advocated for the care of our common home, this earth which is God’s gift.

Her killing on March 3 in La Esperanza leaves Honduras without the gift of her love and struggle for the earth and for the Lenca people.

The world has responded in protest of her killing and demanding a just and prompt judicial process – something which is rare in Honduras.

I have not written until this moment but I have been deeply affected by this example of the persecution of another person committed to the poor and to our common home.

A question some may ask is, “Where has the Catholic Church been in this time?”

There has not been the outpouring of concern I had hoped – but there are small efforts.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the major role that the Jesuit-supported Radio Progeso has played in responding to the killing of Berta Cáceres. Padre Melo (Ismael Moreno, S.J.) was at the front of the crowd on the day of her burial, together with Padre Fausto Milla of our diocese and two Claretian priests. A friend who was there told me how Padre Melo’s talk was interrupted by the mourning rites of the Garifuna. Rather than being distraught, he invited them to come forward and pray the Our Father in Garifuna.  He invited representatives of other indigenous groups from Honduras and Guatemala to come forward and pray the Lord’s Prayer in their languages. The prayer was also offered in Spanish and English. A US clergywoman who works with refugees was among those at the front.

But what about other sections of the church, especially the institution?

Perhaps the strongest institutional response to date has come from the Vatican. Yesterday I came across a strong letter from Cardinal PeterTurkson from the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, dated March 15, lamenting the death and calling for an “independent and impartial investigation.”

On March 3, a letter was distributed which was signed by Caritas Honduras as well as several other diocesan offices of Caritas, together with various congregations of religious and parishes, mostly in the dioceses of San Pedro Sula and La Ceiba. I will translate this soon. I found it on the Caritas Honduras website but have not been able to access the site last night or today.

Caritas Honduras also had a statement on the killing of Berta Caceres dated March 11which I came across yesterday. 

The diocese of Santa Rosa de Copán had hoped that there would be a Mass for Berta Cáceres on the day of her burial and sent a priest with a special message. For various reasons they were unable to celebrate the Mass. This is my unofficial translation of the homily which was prepared for the funeral Mass.  (I will post the Spanish in my Spanish blog later since I only have the homily in printed version.)

Homily for the celebration of the funeral of Berta Cáceres
Parish of Our Lord of Intibucá
 Texts: Genesis 1, 1-31; Psalm 8; Luke 11: 21-27
 Brothers [and sisters]:
 We are gathered to entrust to the infinite and merciful love of God, our Father, Bertita Cáceres, whose death has filled with sorrow all of us citizens of Intibucá, of Honduras, and of the international community. At the same time we wish to console her family and her community with the tenderness of God, as the psalmist says.
 It is not our place to judge anyone; only God knows the depths of persons and only he knows that which is enclosed in the human heart. Therefore, his justice is always wrapped in mercy. In these moments, we turn our gaze to Christ who died for our sins and rose for our justification; be believe in him, we trust in him, and we hope in him.
 It is this Christian hope which we celebrate in a special manner in the holy Mass, since this sacrament is the memorial of the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, his Passover, which gives all of us Christians a profound hope in the moments of grief and sorrow. It is a  certain faith that life continues for all those who believe and hope in Christ.
 We have heard the Word of God in the book of Genesis, which reveals to us God as Creator; he created the earth, water, trees, animals and everything that exists and as the summit of work that generates life, he create man and woman in his image and likeness. We are not the owners of the earth, nor of the [natural] resources, nor of life. We are simply administrators. Our obligation derives from this. To care, protect, and defend this common home. The goods which the Lord has created were destined for the common good, not for the good of a few. Thus we believe that our sister Berta understood this and struggled much for this.; she consecrated her life and sealed this struggle with her blood: to defend our natural resources and the rights of the indigenous.
 In this respect, our bishops in the Fifth Latin American Episcopal Conference in Aparecida declare the following:
 “The Church is grateful to all who devote themselves to defending life and the environment. Particular importance must be given to the most serious destruction under way in human ecology. She is close to small farmers who with generous love very laboriously work the land, sometimes under extremely difficult conditions, to draw out a livelihood for their families and to provide all with the fruits of the earth. She especially cherishes the indigenous for their respect for nature and love for mother earth as source of food, common home, and altar of human sharing.” (472)
 Analyzing the actions against the environment, such as the ominous consequences for the present and future of our Latin American continent, our bishops point out, continuing to point out that
 “Today the natural wealth of Latin America and the Caribbean is being subjected to an irrational exploitation that is leaving ruin and even death in its wake, throughout our region. A great deal responsibility in this entire process must be attributed to the current economic model which prizes unfettered pursuit of riches over the life of individual persons and peoples and rational respect for nature. The devastation of our forests and biodiversity through a selfish predatory attitude, involves the moral responsibility of those who promote it because they are jeopardizing the life of millions of people, and particularly the milieu of peasants and indigenous, who are pushed out toward hillside lands and into large cities where they live overcrowded in the encircling rings of poverty. Our region needs to advance in its agroindustrial development toward appreciating the wealth of its lands and its human talents at the service of the common good, but we must mention the problems caused by the savage uncontrolled industrialization of our cities and the countryside, which is polluting the environment with all kinds of organic and chemical wastes. A similar warning must be made about resource-extraction industries which, when they fail to control and offset their harmful effects on the surrounding environment, destroy forests and contaminate water, and turn the areas exploited into vast deserts.” (473)
 As the diocesan church we are grateful for the testimony and the struggle of Berta Cáceres in the defense of our natural resources, and we are in solidarity with our Lenca indigenous brothers [and sisters], making our own the words and sentiments which his holiness, Pope Francis directed to the indigenous in his recent visit to Mexico, by affirming to them:
 “In a systematic and structural way, your people have been misunderstood and excluded from society. Some have considered your values, cultures, and traditions as inferior. Others, dizzy with power, money, and the laws of the market, have stripped you of you lands and have implemented actions which contaminate them. How sad! Would that we all make an examination of conscience: forgive us, forgive us, brothers [and sisters]. Today’s world, despoiled by the throw-away culture, needs you.”
 With the words of Jesus which we have heard in the holy Gospel, we address the family of Berta: “your brother will rise; likewise we make clear our accompaniment, assuring you of our prayers.
 Brothers and sisters, let us renew the supreme act of handing oneself over to death which Jesus did to save us. Trusting also that the redemptive sacrifice reaches our sister Berta in so far as it is needed and that it be a source of forgiveness also for those who caused her death.
 The risen Lord strengthens our Christian hope: I am the Resurrection and the Life.

Turning mourning into hope-filled struggle

After midnight on Thursday, March 3, indigenous environmental advocate Berta Cáceres was killed in Esperanza, in the department of Intibucá, Honduras.

She has long been active with the struggles for justice of the Lenca people. She has been outspoken in her opposition to environmental projects and policies that affect the lands and lives of indigenous people. She was also outspoken against the US-back 2009 coup.

I never met her. I have read about her. My sense is that she was a radical, one going to the roots of the problems.

But I know that the political, social, and economic elites (and some religious elites) that supported the coup to keep their power were very much in opposition to her and her accompanying the struggles of the indigenous in one of the poorest departments of the country.

Her most recent struggle was against a proposed dam that would affect a river that many Lenca hold sacred.  Accompanying the people who were not consulted, she led them in their efforts to stop the project; it has not been stopped but one major investor withdrew.

The struggle for land, the struggle of the indigenous, the struggle for Mother Earth are sadly needed these days.

As Pope Francis wrote in Laudato Si’,  2:

This sister [Sister Earth] now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will. The violence present in our hearts, wounded by sin, is also reflected in the symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air and in all forms of life. This is why the earth herself, burdened and laid waste, is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our poor; she “groans in travail” (Rom 8:22).

He also rightly sees that the concern for the earth must include concern for the poor (Laudato Si’, 49):

Today, however, we have to realize that a true ecological approach always becomes a so­cial approach; it must integrate questions of jus­tice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor. 

Though he was writing primarily about water for drinking and human use, what Pope Francis wrote about multinationals is, I believe, relevant to the killing of Berta Cáceres, who was fighting against the concession of the River Gualcarque to a corporation:

it is also conceivable that the control of water by large multinational business­es may become a major source of conflict in this century. (Laudato Si’, 31)

In the face of this, it is important to recall the words of Pope Francis in Bolivia at the World Meeting of Popular Movements, word which Berta Cáceres may have heard or read: 

In conclusion, I would like to repeat: the future of humanity does not lie solely in the hands of great leaders, the great powers and the elites. It is fundamentally in the hands of peoples and in their ability to organize. It is in their hands, which can guide with humility and conviction this process of change. I am with you. Let us together say from the heart: no family without lodging, no rural worker without land, no laborer without rights, no people without sovereignty, no individual without dignity, no child without childhood, no young person without a future, no elderly person without a venerable old age. Keep up your struggle and, please, take great care of Mother Earth. I pray for you and with you, and I ask God our Father to accompany you and to bless you, to fill you with his love and defend you on your way by granting you in abundance that strength which keeps us on our feet: that strength is hope, the hope which does not disappoint….

That’s what Berta Cáceres fought for. May our mourning for her be turned into a joyful and hope-filled solidarity, where we struggle together for the earth and for the poor.

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The photo from the wake of Berta Cáceres is from the Facebook page of Radio Progreso.