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[Episcopal News Service] During the 45th anniversary week of St. Óscar Romero’s March 24 martyrdom, Cristosal hosted an ecumenical group on a four-day pilgrimage in El Salvador to commemorate his life and teachings. “San Romero is a martyr and a saint, but he is more than that. I feel like there are certain faiths or churches that want to put him on an altar far away from the people, but San Romero is among the people. He had a preferential treatment for the poor and he struggled for the people of El Salvador,” Fátima Placas, Cristosal’s former education director who now works in a crisis consulting role, told Episcopal News Service. Placas, who is Salvadoran, was the pilgrimage’s primary coordinator. Cristosal is an Episcopal-affiliated independent nonprofit committed to defending human rights and promoting democratic rule of law in Central America. Its executive director, Noah Bullock, is also an Episcopal Church missionary. Romero, the former archbishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of San Salvador, is widely recognized today as a champion of liberation theology. He was a vocal critic of social injustice and the violence between the Salvadoran government’s armed forces and leftist guerrillas that led to a 12-year civil war beginning in 1979. Romero brought global awareness to the killings, human rights abuses and disappearances of civilians in the early days of the war. “Romero was very comfortable being around people who are poor or displaced or victims of violence, and that’s part of what Cristosal tries to be, too. Romero was about inviting the church to become involved with people who are suffering from human rights in a way that isn’t patronizing,” the Rev. Geoffrey Curtiss, a retired priest in the Diocese of Newark and a Cristosal board member, told ENS. Romero’s outspokenness led to his assassination on March 24, 1980, when an unknown gunman shot him in the heart while he was celebrating Mass at the Hospital of the Divine Providence in San Salvador. Six days later, during Romero’s funeral at the Metropolitan Cathedral of San Salvador, more gunmen shot at the more than 250,000 mourners, causing a stampede and at least 31 fatalities. Fourteen Americans traveled to El Salvador for the March 21-24 pilgrimage. They visited faith-based communities, attended worship services, processions, and vigils, and talked with Salvadorans who had firsthand memories of Romero. On the first day, the pilgrims visited the Hospital of the Divine Providence, followed by the Museum of the Word and Image in San Salvador, a museum dedicated to collecting and preserving memories of El Salvador’s civil war. The pilgrims also visited a museum dedicated to Romero’s life, located inside Central American University, San Salvador, a Jesuit-operated private school. While there, they spoke with Sonia Suyapa Pérez Escapini, a theologian and director of the university’s theology department, and members of the Association for Promoting Human Rights of El Mozote. The pilgrims spent the second day, March 22, visiting an organization that supports the development of communities in the El Bálsamo mountain range in Santa Tecla, La Libertad. While they were there, a community of families who were displaced during the civil war hosted a special family-friendly commemoration of the 45th anniversary of Romero’s martyrdom. On day three, the pilgrims traveled to the northern part of El Salvador to visit the Episcopal-Anglican church in Carrizal, a growing congregation that celebrates and preserves its Indigenous ancestral culture and Nàhuatl language. They spent the afternoon engaged in conversation with members of a nearby Catholic parish who use music to promote faith and the fight for dignity and justice. The Anglican Episcopal Diocese of El Salvador is part of the Province of Central America and is led by Bishop Juan David Alvarado, who also serves as primate.  March 24, Romero’s feast day, was a day of prayer, reflection and devotion. It included a morning Eucharist and walking the Stations of the Cross through San Salvador’s historic center. The procession toward the Catholic Cathedral of San Salvador culminated in an ecumenical Mass led by Alvarado and visiting Romero’s tomb. On the way, procession organizers delivered an anti-mining petition to the Supreme Court of Justice. The pilgrimage then met with human rights advocates who work with Cristosal and learned more about the organization’s year-round work. The pilgrimage concluded later that day. “We’re most grateful for the people who have opened up their own spaces to share with us their reflections and how the legacy of San Romero drives them, and why he’s still a beacon of truth and justice and human dignity,” Tarrah Palm, Cristosal’s interim director of development, told ENS. Founded in 2000 as a partnership between El Salvador and the United States, Cristosal, from its base in San Salvador, assists internally displaced people and provides legal and accompaniment services to individuals and families whose human rights have been violated by the state. It also has operations in Guatemala and Honduras. Cristosal operated a humanitarian assistance program until February, when U.S. President Donald Trump ordered a 90-day pause on more than $60 billion in foreign aid to evaluate it against U.S. foreign policy goals. The foreign aid freeze forced Cristosal to cut most of its staff and terminate its humanitarian assistance program, which provided protection and reintegration services to 1,600 internally displaced people.  Following the Trump administration’s cuts, Bullock, the executive director, told ENS the organization would continue its humanitarian assistance work through philanthropic support and individual donations. “The program was so valuable to so many vulnerable people who still need help,” said Placas, whose position as Cristosal’s education director was eliminated amid the staff cuts. Placas, Curtiss and Palm all said Romero’s teachings and emphasis on advocating for the poor and oppressed remain relevant today amid global humanitarian crises. “His preaching is something that we can absolutely relate to right now, with the wars internationally, and with the disappearance of people in El Salvador, and with the people who have been incarcerated in El Salvador without due process, […]

As a church rooted in justice, reconciliation and love, we cannot ignore the increasing concerns around X.com’s role in amplifying harmful rhetoric, misinformation, and hate speech.

[Episcopal News Service] Lawyers for The Episcopal Church and 26 other faith-based plaintiffs argued April 4 in federal court that Trump administration immigration policies pose an “imminent threat” to their religious practices by creating an atmosphere of fear among the immigrant communities they serve. The interfaith group of denominations and religious organizations in early February sued the Department of Homeland Security, objecting to policy changes under President Donald Trump that ended past protections against immigration enforcement actions at houses of worship and other “sensitive locations,” such as schools and hospitals. The nonpartisan Georgetown University Law Center is arguing the case in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. At the April 4 hearing, lawyers asked the federal judge for an injunction against the government to block enforcement actions at houses of worship. Episcopal News Service and other observers were granted remote access to audio of the hearing by phone. “These are sacred spaces. Having armed agents come into their spaces and desecrate their worship area is a profound injury,” Kelsi Corkran, one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers, said. She noted that some plaintiffs have responded by asserting privacy rights in congregational spaces that previously had been open to the public, to bolster protections against “unreasonable searches and seizures” as provided by the Fourth Amendment. Congregations would prefer not to turn their public spaces private, “compromising their religious duty of openness and hospitality,” Corkran said. The lawsuit, filed Feb. 11 by the Christian and Jewish organizations, accuses the Trump administration of violating First Amendment protections of both freedom of religion and freedom of association, because of the burden created by the “looming threat of immigration enforcement action at their places of worship and during their religious ceremonies.” The lawsuit notes that many congregations serving immigrant communities have already seen decreases in worship attendance and participation in social service ministries. At issue are changes to Department of Homeland Security policies since Trump took office on Jan. 20. The next day, the department ended Biden administration policies that had identified certain sensitive areas as protected from immigration enforcement actions. “This is a narrow and specific challenge to the reversal of a long-standing policy, a decision to authorize site inspections and disruptive raids at sacred spaces,” said Kate Talmor, another lawyer for the plaintiffs. Department of Homeland Security has long recognized that protecting sensitive locations from enforcement actions “is necessary to protect religious exercise,” she said. Kristina Wolfe, the attorney for Homeland Security, countered that the plaintiffs had not met the “high bar” in proving that their congregations have been unduly targeted or that their religious activity had been disrupted. The lawsuit cites only one example of immigration agents attempting an arrest at a church – at a Pentecostal service in Atlanta, Georgia. “They have not demonstrated that their places of worship are special law enforcement priorities, that they have been singled or targeted for enforcement,” Wolfe said, adding that “the government does have a compelling interest in ensuring and enforcing our nation’s immigration laws.” At the conclusion of the hearing, which lasted more than two hours, Judge Dabney Friedrich thanked both sides and said she expected to issue an opinion “in the next week or two.” The plaintiffs’ 80-page complaint includes short summaries of ways they say the government’s policies have burdened the faith organizations’ practice of their religions. The Episcopal Church’s summary includes the following examples, which do not give specific locations or congregation names: Local officials parked outside one Episcopal church during past enforcement efforts and attempted to arrest undocumented congregants leaving the church. At another congregation, federal agents already have appeared outside its food pantry, photographing those in line. In one Episcopal diocese, some congregants were reluctant to join an informational Zoom call with an immigration attorney. Some congregations have stationed members at their doors to watch for immigration officials. The Episcopal Church is one of 12 denominations that have signed onto the lawsuit, which also includes the Disciples of Christ, Mennonite, Methodist, Presbyterian and AME Zion churches. Other plaintiffs include regional denominational bodies and other religious associations. – David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.

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