Leaven Of The People

In July of this year, the diocese of Quiche in Guatemala closed its doors. The bishop made the agonizing decision to close the diocese because two of its priests had been murdered and the rest condemned to death by the government. By August, all 40 of the region's priests and nuns had left the area.

The decision to leave came not simply from fear for their lives, although that fear was real. Their departure was a strong statement to the rest of the world about the intolerable repression in Guatemala.

When asked whether the faith of the people in Quiche had suffered since the exodus, one of the priests who left responded with a compassionate smile, "Not only does the Christian life continue there; it continues more strongly than ever before."

The people of the community left behind have chosen a catechist to perform baptisms and another to officiate marriages. Others walk several miles to the capital every week to bring back consecrated hosts for the celebration of the Mass.

The response of Quiche may surprise the North American consciousness of most of us, but it is not out of character among our southern Catholic neighbors. The type of faith and leadership that emerged in Quiche is the foundation of a movement that has swept Latin America, undoing and redefining centuries-old concepts about the church. Small groupings called comunidades eclesiales de base, or base communities, have sprung up all over the continent.

Many streams have watered this movement that today includes more than 100,000 communities with several million members. In 1956 a bishop in Brazil made an annual visit to one of his parishes and was approached by an elderly woman who shared with sadness, "On Christmas Day, the three Protestant churches were all lit up and jammed with people. We could hear their hymns. But our Catholic church was shut, all its lights out, because we had not found a priest to say Mass for us."

The woman's lament stirred the bishop, who began to think in new ways about the priesthood and evangelization. Others had similar awakenings, and a widespread education program for the raising up of lay leaders was launched.

Vatican II, with its emphasis on the church as the people of God, not limited to the hierarchy, and as an agent of change in the world, added momentum to the current that was building. The flow was picked up in 1968 by the Latin American Bishops' Conference in Medellin and its declaration of a "preferential option for the poor," as well as by the appearance of a theology of liberation. And by the bishops' Puebla meeting in February of 1979, base communities were put forth as a priority for the church and described as "the focal point of evangelization, the motor of liberation."

The official church meetings and the documents which emerged from them offered formal recognition and support for a process that was already taking place among the people. An awareness of the repression and massive suffering of the people pushed the official church to cast its lot with them.

Pope John Paul II decried the reality of Latin America, with its vast gap between rich and poor enforced and widened by terror, as "a situation of sin." The base communities are recognized as a frontal attack on sin.

In precisely the areas where repressive military governments are trying their hardest to snuff them out, the base communities are flourishing. The violent repression, rather than creating a paralyzing fear in the people, has thrust them back into the arms of God and to a deeper faith.

The biblical image that comes to mind when one thinks of the base communities is that of leaven. The communities are pocket-sized groups sprinkled throughout Latin America, giving rise to hope. They are drawing the people to new levels of dignity, political awareness, and self-determination.

Most of the communities average 10 to 15 members. Their smallness gives flesh to the promise that "wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them." Rural communities predominate. They are almost without exception composed of peasants and workers, those who most recognize their poverty and need for God. Most are in an area separated by miles from a priest, or in a region where one priest serves many parishes. In Latin America, the ratio of clergy to baptized Catholics is one to 7,000.

The base community is neither a parish nor the denial of a parish. It is a vital ecclesial expression within and connected to a particular diocese, emphasizing fellowship, education, and unity. The people designate leaders among themselves for liturgical direction, biblical teaching, sacramental functions, and other needs of the worshiping community. These leaders are called "animators" or "delegates of the Word." They work closely with a parish priest whose main function becomes coordinating the communities in his region.

The spiritual bonds among the members are more important than the particular structures. The Holy Spirit keeps the community from being a mere association. Participants believe that the Holy Spirit has been poured out on all, and all have a voice. This view of equality has led to a redefinition of authority and placed the responsibility to preach Christ on every member of the community. A priest has pointed out that even Christ, realizing that he couldn't minister to everyone, surrounded himself with 12 human beings "who were quite simple and all mixed up."

One community leader highlighted the importance of the Holy Spirit from a prison cell after being arrested for his activities as coordinator of several base communities. Friends smuggled out his symbolic greeting to members of all communities in Latin America--a carving, carefully made from a soup bone, in the shape of a dove.

Like leaven, the effect of the communities is powerful but largely hidden. While torture and murder make U.S. newsprint, a strongly inspired current of resistance and courage moves quietly under the surface.

Its witness brings to mind images of the early church in the catacombs. A base community often meets in a home or small chapel, with perhaps a crude wooden altar. Usually the standard images or statues of saints have been replaced with pictures of the local priests and community leaders who have been martyred. In this setting, the Greek word for witness, marturia, is true to its root.

The Eucharist is at the core of the life of the community. Here, the members feed on the Word and go forth to become that Word in the world. One woman from a base community in Nicaragua explained, "This is a union of Christians. We understand when we share the bread and wine that everything is to be shared among all people equally. We don't have the right to give some people less and some more. Jesus divided
equally among his disciples."

The Bible is also central. The present-day situation is read in light of its message. Every page speaks of the justice and wholeness that God desires for his people. And every murder, torture, or threat that touches the people negates in the extreme the presence of that justice.

People moving toward God's kingdom are a threat to those working furiously to shatter its promise by widening the trench that separates rich and poor. A united and organized people filled with hope represents a threat that the governments will not tolerate. But the Bible, perpetually exposing the sin of the structures which oppress, continually creates among the people a collective memory that cannot be extinguished.

The starting point for the base communities' witness is not political analysis, but the Bible and its promises. The path to those promises necessarily brings its followers into political engagement. Evangelization in the community includes both a political and spiritual dimension. In the words of a Salvadoran priest, "Conversion is an attitude that helps draw one closer to the brother and sister living in adverse conditions in order that together we might leave those conditions."

Archbishop Oscar Romero underwent such a conversion, which led him to state,"Thanks to my people, I have known God." It was the witness and death of Father Rutilio Grande, the first of seven priests martyred in El Salvador in 1977, that led Romero to a transformation from conservatism to a deep identification with the people.

Grande had a vision for base communities in Aguilares, 20 miles north of San Salvador. He wanted to create a community free of oppressed and oppressor, and to bring the gospel down to earth. He shared with his people that "God is not in the clouds lying in a hammock but is at work and wants you to build the kingdom here on earth."

On the feast of Pentecost in 1973, his parish celebrated the birth and the Holy Spirit's anointing of a new community in their midst. Then Grande's experiment began with four or five priests spending two weeks in each village in the region, sleeping on the dirt floors of the tiny wooden huts and sharing tortillas and beans with the peasants. The priests gathered together all the adults in the evenings and talked about the gospel vision of justice. Smaller groups were formed, and before the priests left the village, delegates of the Word were chosen to carry on the work.

By late 1974, 10 urban communities and 27 rural ones had grown up. Three hundred animators took turns directing the communities. They were presented to the Archbishop for confirmation in the context of a Eucharist. Grande's vision was that there could be "a more human and more just world in which all Salvadorans may be able to share the goods, seated at the common table of the creation, just as we share at this Eucharist table."

Aguilares is a region in which the peasants rent small, steep plots of land from local sugar barons and cut sugar cane for $3 a day at harvest time. Grande denounced this as "an entirely feudal system." A wage dispute at a local sugar mill led to a 20-hour strike which the workers won. The communities supported the strike, and Grande was singled out by the landowners as an instigator of unrest. He was murdered on March 12, 1977.

On the day of his burial, a long procession of peasants walked in the mid-morning heat to the gravesite. One priest in the march explained, "This is truly the people's church. [The bishops' meeting at] Puebla was important in determining whether the bishops belong to this church. The fact is, the bishops need this church."

At the place where Grande had been assassinated, a delegate of the Word spoke to the crowd: "Rutilio Grande wanted the people of God to take their dignity into their hands. This great pilgrimage is evidence of the new church of the people, evidence that the will of God is not that we wait fatalistically for happiness in the life beyond." Then he shouted, "Rutilio Grande, where are you now?"

And the people responded vigorously, "In the heart of the people."

The base communities have exhibited a remarkable courage and nonviolent resistance that has confounded both their oppressors and the revolutionary forces. Their tactics include hunger strikes and demonstrations, along with literacy training and political education. Their aims range from improved bus transportation to better medical care and fair wages.

One base community gave its members enough security to turn down an offer by a U.S. foundation to put a cottonseed oil processing plant in their area, which would have been directed by peasants with the help of technical consultants. The peasants were able to support each other in turning the proposal down. They were fearful of a project whose primary concern was making money, explaining that their "solidarity has no price." They recognized the greed for money as the root of the gap between rich and poor of which they are victims, and chose instead to work on smaller projects of their own creation.

The first battle the communities fight is against fatalism and a long-standing belief that it is God's will rather than the greed of the powerful and wealthy that makes them poor. The temptation to despair in a situation of such blatant disparity and terror is constantly present. But there is a growing awareness that those who are poor bear the marks of Christ and can call the rest of the church to conversion.

In a conversation with members of a base community, a catechist asked, "Why did Jesus choose to be born poor and humble?"

A mother of 10 children, of whom three had died, answered, "Maybe it was to show these rich people that we are important too."

The conversation continued excitedly. Half an hour later a young woman interjected, "I still think we haven't got the right answer to the first question!" The room was quiet. "I think," she continued, "that God chose his son to be born like us so that we can realize that we are important."

The key element in the success of the base community movement is that it believes in itself. It is not a method for building the church--it is the church, carrying on the mission of Christ as prophet, priest, and pastor. The church is renewing itself through the power of the Holy Spirit, recreating the world according to justice. And because of its boldness, a greater surge of shared life, theological creativity, and commitment to the poor is seen in Latin America than in any other continent.

The poor have leavened the loaves. And Christ has gathered those loaves up, blessed, and multiplied them.

Joyce Hollyday was on the editorial staff at Sojourners when this article appeared.