The martyrs of Los Leones, Platanares, Suchitoto

It is extremely important that we remember the witnesses to the love and justice of God, not just the grand saints that are known and recognized by the church, such as Monseñor Oscar Romero.We need to remember the saints at our side, at our doorstep. 

I have been investigating the story of the church in Suchitoto, El Salvador, since I spent six months there in 1992. I encountered many people of faith and many stories of those who had suffered and died because of the massive repression and then the bloody civil war - both of which were supported by the US government. 

One of the stories that has fascinated me has been the story of a 28 year old seminarian and twelve young people killed in Los Leones, in the canton of Platanares - a place not far from the repopulated settlement of El Barillo. 

About nineteen years ago I was able to spend time in a celebration in the ruins of the unfinished church where they had killed. Today, on the fortieth anniversary of the massacre, I want to share what I have written and which I hope can be published in a book on Suchitoto some day.I had hoped to get to the site of the martyrdom today for a celebration, but travel there is not possible, due to COVID-19. Instead, I offer this account,

The Massacre of Los Leones: José Othmaro Cáceres and 13 Young People, 25 July 1980

      José Othmaro Cáceres was born on September 19, 1951, one of fourteen children. He was raised in Canton Platanares in the municipality of Suchitoto. A pleasant and sincere young man, he entered the seminary of the diocese of San Vicente as a teenager. In 1980 he was finishing his studies in a seminary in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Photo of Othmaro Cáceres, shared at the memorial Mass

     A note in the archdiocesan newspaper, Orientacion, remarked that he was noted for “a great sense of friendship, joy, tenacity, openness to everyone, simplicity, piety, spirit of service, a deep love of his people, especially the poorest.” He was also a great soccer player. Othmaro’s brother Ariel remembers him as a very friendly and helpful older brother. When he came home from the seminary on vacation he would get up early to milk the cows and then would go out and help in the fields with a cuma, a type of machete. On his visits home he would also meet with the young people in the area who looked up to him and loved to follow him around. He cooperated with Padre Higinio Alas in the parish of Santa Lucía, Suchitoto.

Othmaro Cáceres

      On July 16, 1980, Othmaro arrived in El Salvador from the seminary in Mexico. He was going to be ordained deacon and then a few weeks later ordained to the priesthood for the diocese of San Vicente. After a visit home he planned to return to San Vicente, where he would be ordained. And so, on July 24 he went to visit his family in the canton of Platanares outside Suchitoto, even though he had been advised against this.

      On July 25, 1980, thirteen young men, with José Othmaro Cáceres were killed in Caserío Los Leones, Platanares, by a death squad from Fabián Ventura’s private army. This was a joint military operation with ORDEN and the armed forces that began about 11:00 am.

      Some of the young men may have had connections with the guerrilla forces. But this was a time before there were many organized guerrilla groups in the area. Some were digging shelters for the people as well as preparing supplies if the people had to leave the area suddenly. Many of the youth were actually involved in the work of building the small chapel. Three walls of the chapel are still standing but it still lacks a roof.

      Othmaro was meeting with the young people in the unfinished chapel. According to one report, they were meeting to plan his first Mass in the little chapel. The young people had taken a break in their meeting and were in the church, sharing candy, but Othmaro was outside.

The unfinished church of Los Leones, site of the massacre

      He had just left the chapel when Ventura’s troops arrived, coming from the road and the fields. He heard shots and hid in the grass. When he thought the troops were gone, he entered a nearby house. But they had not yet gone and caught him there. “You’re the one we’re looking for,” they said and accused him of being a guerrilla leader. According to one report, he asked his murderers, “Wait for me to prepare myself,” and knelt down to pray. He asked God for forgiveness and was then shot and then  attacked with machetes. He died of several shots in the chest; afterwards his head was destroyed by blows of a machete.

      Two of the young men killed, José Belarmino Leon and Santos Adrián Leon had been working on the church. An account from their mother, Santana Josefina Leon de Reyes, includes the following details:

      After they had killed the youth, they were seeking a girl names Esther. While seeking them they ran into Othmaro. “You’re the one we’re looking for,” they said. Othmaro lifted his hands and said, “Lord, pardon me.” They took him behind the house and killed him under a mango.

      They machine-gunned him perhaps only because he was studying for the priesthood.

   Those who were meeting in the church all were killed - some with candy in their mouths, others with candy in their hands.

      The death squad cried out afterwards, “We’ve won.”

      An edited version of another account from the testimony of Señora. María Angel Alas, widow de González, October 2, 1983, follows:

      On July 24, 1980, the seminarian José Othmaro Cáceres came to Canton Platanares. He had just arrived from Mexico and was about to be ordained. He was originally from Platanares.... He stayed in the house of Don Manuel Cáceres and his other brothers. That very night he invited my sister Fidelina Alas whether she would serve as his mother for his priestly consecration.

      The next day at 8:00 am he went to the chapel we were constructing for the canton. There he was waiting for his friends from the canton because they wanted to show him how the construction was going. I was present for the meeting and he was inviting us to attend his ordination when four trucks cam by way of the road with National guard, solders and by the field the civil Defense came so that the people wouldn’t flee out the back.

      At that time Fabián Ventura, the head of the Civil Defense, with members of the Civil Defense, entered with National Guard and soldiers. When they first entered, the civil defense members said: “Thus we would like to meet them.”

      Then the youth group which was with Othmaro said that they were just a group of friends meeting together. Then seminarian Othmaro joining his hands and lifting his face [alzando su vista clara], told them that they should let him speak with them. It was at this time that the Civil Defense led by Fabián Ventura began to shoot; the National Guard and the soldiers followed. The dead were: the seminarian Othmaro Cáceres, Belarmino Reyes (24), his brother Adrián Reyes (21), Angelito Rivas (14), Alfonso León (26) and the others young people - a total of fourteen; one young man who managed to flee and get into a straw hut which they set fire to and he died burned.

      I was able flee with Ester Deras, with Martha Alas, Julia Solórzano and a number of others and we ran away from that hamlet. When they left we returned and found the destruction which was horrible: the body of seminarian Othmaro was asked for by the priest of Suchitoto and was buried there. We buried ours in the canton. After that day the men no longer slept in their homes and began to sleep in the fields.

      There was a woman in the house where Othmaro had been before he was killed. A young woman named Nicolasa Leon, she was involved with Caritas which was distributing food and other necessities to the people affected by the violence. Although her name was registered as Nicolasa, she had been called Guadalupe from infancy when she had been healed after prayers to our Lady of Guadalupe. When the death squad entered the house,  they asked for Guadalupe Leon. She told them to look at her identity card and see that she was Nicolasa. They left her in peace. She and others look upon this as a second miracle of la Guadalupana.

      After the killing of Othmara and the twelve young people, Ventura went to a house nearby and hacked a mark in the door with his machete. “Here I leave my mark,” he said. “Next Friday I will continue from here on up [the road to Suchitoto].”

      There is a legend that the next Friday Fabián Ventura went to continue his killing at the turn off the Suchitoto-Aguilares road toward El Roble. At the entrance to the road he encountered a woman in white with her hand raised to prevent him from entering. He could not enter then. Other times when he tried to enter, he encountered the same woman. Who was it? Some say it was the ciguanaba; others say the Virgin Mary. (The ciguanaba is a Salvadoran mythic woman spirit who preys on men in the countryside.)

      After their death, the young people were buried near the unfinished chapel. Fr. Jorge Benavídes came out to take the body of Othmaro Cáceres into town where a wake was held in the Palacios family home. (Father Rafael Palacios was a priest killed in June 1979. The Palacios family lived in Suchitoto and Fr. Raphael is buried in the church.) The funeral Mass for Othmaro Cáceres was celebrated in the church of Santa Lucía in Suchitoto on July 26 with Monseñor Freddy Delgado, vicar general of the diocese of San Vicente, presiding.

      Some have wondered whether Cáceres was targeted or if his death was merely circumstantial. However, he had been involved earlier in the mission teams that assisted Padre Higinio Alas in the countryside; when he came home for vacations from the seminary he would help in the missions and spend time talking with Higinio about pastoral work.

      His death and the death of the others were the work of Fabián Ventura, death squad leader who had his own private army. Othmaro’s death is considered to be the straw that brought the Resistencia Nacional to plan the murder of Ventura. They killed him later that year with an attack on his home in the canton of Asunción, Suchitoto, at the same time they attacked his house for his mistress in what is now Haciendita Uno.

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Photos of the procession and Mass remembering the massacre, about 2001

Women missionary martyrs and other witnesses

I have read in reports on the Synod of the Amazon that there are many women, especially women religious, who have a major role in evangelization and the life of the church in the region. To adapt an image, women hold up at least half the church.

Today, looking at my calendar of witnesses, I noted that on this date five religious women were martyred.

On October 23, 1992, Sisters Kathleen McGuire, Shirley Kolmer, and Agnes Mueller, U.S. missionaries in Liberia, Sisters Adorers of the Precious Blood of Christ, were killed in the Gardnerville section of Monrovia, Liberia. Three days before, two other members of their congregation were killed, Sisters Barbara Ann Muttra and Mary Joel Kolmer. Despite the violence, they had decided to stay with their people. This struck home for me when I first heard of the valiant presence of these women since the two Kolmer cousins had a relative in the parish where I was serving.

On October 23, 1994, Sisters Esther Paniagua and Caridad María Alvarez, Spanish Augustinian Missionaries, were killed in the Bab-el-Ued section of Algiers, Algeria. They were beatified last year with other martyrs of Algeria, including the more famous Trappist monks of Tibhurine.

They are just a few of many women missionary martyrs including Sister Dorothy Stang, martyred in the Amazon on February 12, 2005, who show us the powerful love and mercy of God. There are also the four women martyred in El Salvador in December, 1980; Maryknoll Sisters Maura Clarke and Ita Ford, Ursuline sister Dorothy Kazel, and lay missionary Jean Donovan. 

Another less known woman, Annalena Tonelli, an Italian lay missionary in Kenya and Somalia, was killed in Somalia on October 5, 2003. She worked for those at the margins, “the poor, the suffering, the abandoned, the unloved,” working with those suffering from tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, working against Female genital mutilation, as well as advocating for Somali refugees in Kenya (for which she was expelled from Kenya). She was killed in the hospital where she served the poor and marginalized.

These and many women left their homes and stayed, even when violence surrounded them. Though many were not martyred, they gave their lives in ways that continue to astound me.

I am blessed to have met and worked with some of them. While researching the role of the church in Suchitoto, El Salvador, I heard one Salvadoran women speak of the witness of five US sisters in her area who visited their communities in a war zone. "They came and took away our fear."

Such is the witness of women in the missions and in our world. They remind us, in the words of Annalena Tonelli:

“[Those] who count for nothing in the eyes of the world, but so much in the eyes of God . . . have need of us, and we must be with them and for them, and it doesn’t matter at all if our action is like a drop of water in the ocean. Jesus Christ did not speak about results. He only spoke about loving each other, about washing each other’s feet, of forgiving each other always.”

A 1992 photo of four of the sisters who worked in Suchitoto, before the San Salvador cathedral,
in a celebration of the ceasefire that ended the Salvadoran civil war.

Being a deacon and the witness of the martyrs

This morning I awakened remembering a dream in which I reaffirmed my commitment as a deacon. It was very fitting since today is the feast of Saint Stephen, according to the tradition, the first deacon and the first martyr.

I will be preaching today at Mass in at least one village and so I spent a lot of time praying and meditating on the scriptures. (The homily in Spanish can be read here.)

What strikes me today is how much I feel the diaconate is connected to martyrdom. We deacons prepare the bread and wine, lift up the chalice with the Blood of Christ at the end of the Eucharistic prayer, and are ministers of the Eucharist, especially the Blood of Christ.

For me this year has been marked by Central American martyrs.

In January, Padre German, my pastor, and I made a pilgrimage to Santiago Atitlán, where we prayed in the room where Blessed Stanley Rother, Padre Aplas’, was killed and in the church where we celebrated the Eucharist – Padre presided and I served as a deacon. (An account here.) Padre Aplas’s commitment as a missionary from the US and his desire to stay with the people remind me of the importance of accompanying the people – not just for a short visit, but to share their lives, their joys and sorrows, and to let oneself be vulnerable. 

In October. Padre German and I went to Rome for the canonization of Monseñor Óscar Romero. As I was preparing for my diaconal ordination, I visited his tomb about two weeks before my ordination and dedicated my ordination to him. (My account of that visit is here.)

A month before his martyrdom, Monseñor Romero wrote this in his notebook:

“My disposition should be to give my life for God, however it should end. The grace of God will enable us to live through the unknown circumstances. He aided the martyrs and, if it should be necessary that I die as they did, I will feel him very close to me at the moment of breathing my last breath. But more important than the moment of death is to give him all my life and live for him and for my own mission.”

I will share these words in today’s homily – since we are all called to be martyrs, witnesses.

After coming back from the canonization and a short visit to Iowa, I went to the beatification of two Franciscans in Guatemala, an Italian missionary priest, Fray Tulio Maruzzo, and Luis Obdulio Arroyo, a lay Franciscan, catechist and helper in the parish. Another missionary martyr. But I was impressed by the simplicity and the commitment of Blessed Luis Obdulio, who helped in the parish and drove the sick to the hospital in the parish vehicle. (My reflection after the beatification Mass is here.)

This month, on December 8, nineteen martyrs of Algeria were beatified. When I first read the story of the Trappists monks of Tibhurine, I was touched by their commitment to be with the people in the midst of violence. The testament of Père Christian de Chergé, written before his death, is one of the most moving letters I’ve written, displaying his love and his willingness to embrace the person who might kill him in the future.  (You can download and read it from this site. Also, here’s a short reflection on their witness.)

The witness of these martyrs sustains me and give me courage hope in the midst of difficulties.

I have no desire to be a martyr, especially now that I have permanent residency here in Guatemala and want to enjoy that for many more years.

But the third century document Didascalia of the Apostles (chapter  XVI, iii, 13) notes:

“And know what the ministry is, according as our Lord and Savior said in the Gospel: Whoso among you desires to be chief, let him be your servant: even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life as a ransom for many. So ought you the deacons also to do, if it falls to you to lay down your life for your brethren in the ministry which is due to them.” 

But laying own my life means dying every day – becoming more available for the poor, becoming more flexible, putting aside my desires to be in control or undisturbed.

So, today, I pray to Saint Stephen. May God make me a better deacon, a better servant, to be of service to God, to the church, and, most of all to people in need.

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The image of Saint Stephen is from the works of Ade Bethune whose drawings were often published in The Catholic Worker.  Saint Catherine University has a collection of here works.