Put A Little Water Bit Of Water In The Window…We Are Going To Make A Miracle!
Oh, how we would have enjoyed knowing James Martin Weeks!
Oh, how we wish he were still alive to encourage and comfort Rolando Jose Alvarez Lago as he languishes in a Nicaraguan prison!
It is possible – but, admittedly, highly unlikely – that America’s “responsible politicians and all citizens” [the words of Pope Francis in his February 12 Angelus address] will spend a few minutes after Friday Juma Prayer or Saturday synagogue services or Mass and worship services on Sunday, turn southward to bow low with foreheads touching the ground and pray earnestly for Rolando Jose Alvarez Lagos of Matagalpa, Nicaragua.
We pray they do.
More importantly, we hope and pray that they learn from his example.
But before we turn to Rolando Alvarez, some lessons from Clinton, Massachusetts native James Weeks, who was ordained as a member of the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette in 1962 and two years later began his mission in Argentine, working to promote peace, justice and human rights.
On August 13, 1976, while teaching in the seminary in Cordoba, he and five seminarians were arrested by the military; he was held for two weeks before being deported to the United States. The seminarians were physically and emotionally tortured, insolated and lived under constant threat of immanent death until their release – one on September 11, the others on October 9.
In The Catholic Church and Argentina’s Dirty War, Boston College sociologist and Jesuit Gustavo Morello, SJ tells their story and, in two brief vignettes offers inspiration and a sense of their profound faith. [For ease of reading, we have slightly edited his text.]
“The experience in prison was a retreat, a time of introspection during which they reflected deeply on their religious commitment and on their lives ‘because we knew that any day…they were going to kill us!’ [reported Father weeks.]
“The religious difference between the victims and the victimizers was evident, and the ethical consequences of these different religious ideas were discussed at various times. One afternoon, ‘a police officer came and said to me [Father Weeks] “Is it a sin to kill? [Because] I kill in the name of God.” So, I said, “Our God is the God of life and not of death.” And then, next to me was a trade unionist from the wholesale food market, and he began to cry, Father, that’s the best sermon!… I’m not a believer, [but] that’s the best sermon I’ve heard in my life!”’”
Morello reported that the seminarians were deprived of bibles and denied the opportunity to meet with a priest for confession and, despite the fact that a military chaplain celebrated Mass for other prisoners, they were not allowed to attend or receive Communion. As a result
“[Father] Weeks thought up a strategy to be able to have a daily Mass and to preserve the characteristic that identified them and was debated by their oppressors: their Catholic membership. That practice helped them to feel the presence of Christ [according to seminarian Alfredo Velarde] and to affirm the identity of the group: ‘We are Catholic seminarians, victimized for living out a way of being Catholic,’ that of a commitment to the poor. In the Catholic religion, participation at Mass (the rite in which bread is shared) is a sign of belonging to the same universal community. The ‘clandestine’ mass challenged not only the imposed silence but also the exclusion from the common Mass [celebrated for other prisoners], the ‘excommunication’ imposed by the terrorist state. [Weeks] was very spiritual, affirmed Alfredo, with a fairly classic spirituality, confirmed [seminarian] Alejandro [Dausa]. That religious conviction moved Weeks, who proposed, ‘Every day, at 5, let’s say, we are going to celebrate Mass,’ they gave us [ … ] a big piece of bread every day, and … ‘I have water and bread, we are going to make a miracle [happen].’ Alfredo added that the instructions were, ‘Put a little bit of water in the window, and if Christ converts that water into wine, I have here a little piece of bread, I will celebrate mass… and consecrate your bread so that you can receive communion.’ Since they had no access to a Bible, they proposed Gospel passages that they remembered: ‘Today we are going to meditate on the Beatitudes,’ or choose a Gospel…”
Rolando Alvarez, Catholic bishop of the inland Diocese of Matagalpa, was instrumental in negotiating between the government of Daniel Ortega, who has been in power since 2007, and protesters in 2018 following waves of civil unrest that began when student demonstrators took to the streets to denounce government’s plans to cut pensions and raise taxes.
The Inter-American Commission Human Rights has reported the government arrested 1,614 people in the wake of those initial demonstrations and another 328 were killed.
Starting on May 16, 2018, Nicaragua’s Catholic bishops attempted to intervene as mediators, helping organize a first round of peace talks. However, Ortega has a history of attacking the Church as a “perfect dictatorship” and denouncing priests as “killers” and “coup plotters” attempting to overthrow him. He has undertaken a campaign of Cold War-era attacks that have included the closing of Catholic radio and television stations and the expulsion of members of the Missionaries of Charity – frequently referred to as “Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity.”
By the end of May 2018, the peace talks had failed, with pro-government forces opening fire on protestors and Ortega’s accusations that they were a foreign-backed “coup.” He also banned virtually every possible opponent from running against him in the scheduled 2021 presidential elections; as a result, he won with upwards of 75 percent of the vote. Spain’s foreign minister branded the vote a “farce” and President Joe Biden called the proceedings “a pantomime election that was neither free nor fair.”
Just days before the election, Ortega accused the nation’s Catholic bishops of having drafted a political proposal in 2018 on behalf “of the terrorists, at the service of the Yankees.” He also branded the bishops as terrorists. The Catholic Church in Nicaragua has suffered almost 400 attacks at the hands of the Ortega dictatorship, according to lawyer and investigator Martha Patricia Molina in her report “Nicaragua: A persecuted Church (2018-2022.”
Bishop Alvarez announced in May 2022 that he would begin an “indefinite” hunger strike to protest what he called police harassment of himself and other Church members and the government’s refusal to respect his “constitutional rights, civil rights [and] free transit.”
During a 3:00 a.m. raid on August 19, 2022, Nicaraguan police broke into the chancery – governing – office of the diocese and arrested Alvarez and five other priests; the bishop was later transferred to the nation’s capital and placed under house arrest.
Bishop Alvarez’s “trial” – originally scheduled for March – was suddenly held on January 10, amid complaints about serious irregularities in the process. The bishop was charged with “crimes of conspiracy to undermine national security and sovereignty and the propagation of fake news through information and communications technologies to the detriment of the Nicaraguan State and society,” according to a statement from the Managua Criminal District Courts.
Nicaraguan lawyer Yader Morazan, a human rights advocate now living in the United States, blasted Judge Gloria Saavedra as “today’s executioner, …replacing the first executioners who tried the protesters of 2018… She has not even had a judicial career, because she was a coordinator.” Under the Nicaraguan judicial system, coordinators are “community leaders, volunteers, with a community spirit at the service of the administration of justice. They do not judge cases, they are not public defenders, they are not prosecutors,” according to Morazan. He also noted that the bishop’s public defender, Jennifer Hernandez “is the regime’s favorite public defense attorney to hold hearings against priests.”
In early February, five priest were sentenced to ten years in prison – convicted in closed-door trials in which government-appointed defenders acted as their attorneys. All five had worked for and with Bishop Alvarez. Two seminarians and a cameraman who worked for the diocese were also tried, convicted and sentenced; all were stripped of their right to ever hold political office. "This is an insult to the law, an insult to people’s intelligence, an insult to the international community and the international agencies for the protection of human rights," the Nicaraguan Human Rights Center said in a statement Feb. 7.
On January 10, the press office of a Managua court issued a statement announcing “the initial hearing of the penal process where Rolando Jose Alvarez Lagos appeared as the accused took place” on that day.
On Thursday, February 9, 222 political prisoners – students and opponents of the regime who had been held in what were described as deplorable conditions – boarded a flight to the United States, landing in Washington at about noon. The list of the new exiles included opposition candidates disqualified prior to the 2021 election.
Bishop Alvarez refused to board the flight and was subsequently moved from house arrest, where he had been held for five months, to a prison notorious for its dehumanizing conditions.
The following day, February 10, Judge Octavio Rothschuh delivered the verdict on Bishop Alvarez over state-controlled media; the bishop was not present. Bishop Alvarez was found guilty on charges of conspiracy to undermine national integrity and spreading false information; he was stripped of his Nicaraguan citizenship and prohibited from holding elected office or public positions.
He was sentenced to 26 years in prison.
Twenty-six years.
Twenty-six years!
Nine-thousand-four-hundred-and-ninety days.
Nine-thousand-four-hundred-and-ninety days!
James Weeks eventually resumed his missionary career. The son of Clinton, Massachusetts, died on March 30, 2015. He gave more than 48 years of his life in service to missions in Peru and Argentina.
For decades, while attending daily Mass and when the priest lifted up the bread and wine as an offering, my father prayed
“For the missioners of our Church,
that they may live to see the success of their efforts.”
As people of no faith, of any faith, of Faith, let us – when we take a small piece of bread in our hands - pray that the spirit of James Martin Weeks will accompany the spirit of Rolando Alvarez.
_____
In the November 18 edition of AuthenticHealers.com – “Corporations Are People, My Friend,” we reported on Packer Sanitation Services, Inc. using child labor in meat packing plants.
We are pleased to note the headline “Over 100 children illegally employed by US slaughterhouse cleaning firm” in the February 17, 2023 edition of The Guardian. The Guardian reports:
“More than 100 children have been discovered to be illegally employed by a slaughterhouse cleaning firm across the country, federal authorities said.
‘The Department of Labor announced that a federal investigation found Wisconsin-based Packers Sanitation Services Inc (PSSI) employed at least 102 children, ranging from 13 to 17 years old, to work overnight shifts at 13 meat processing facilities in eight states.
“The investigation discovered that children were working with hazardous chemicals and cleaning meat processing equipment including back saws, brisket saws and head splitters. At least three minors suffered injuries while working for PSSI, one of the country’s largest food safety sanitation service providers.
“The states in which the children were employed include Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, Tennessee and Texas. The processor which had the largest number of employed minors is JBS Foods, with 27 children employed, followed by Cargill Inc, which had 26 employed children.
“Other processors include Tyson Food, George’s Inc, Buckhead Meat of Minnesota, Gibbon Packing Co, Greater Omaha Packing Co Inc, Maple Leaf Farms and Turkey Valley Farms.
“According to court documents, a 14-year-old child who worked at a Nebraska facility from 11pm to 5am five to six days a week from December 2021 to April 2022, cleaned machines “used to cut meat”. At one point, the child fell asleep in class and also missed class after suffering injuries as a result of chemical burns. Several other children were also reported to have suffered from chemical burns.”