THE FOUR OF LA RIOJA

Duty of memory

 «You hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets end decorate the monuments of the holy men. You say: had we lived in the time of our fathers, we would not have joined them in the blood of the prophets... And now, finish off what your fathers began!» (Matthew 23, 29-32)

Fotos; Word Press

Four witnesses of the Gospel have just been beatified in Argentina. They are Enrique Angelelli, Carlos Murias and Wenceslao Pedernera. The three were Argentines; the first was a bishop, the second was a Franciscan friar, the third was a committed lay peasant. Their companion, Gabriel Longueville, a French missionary priest, was also beatified with them. 
The four men lived in La Rioja, an impoverished province in the hinterland, where, in 1976, waited for them a brutal end.  

Who would've believed that? Forty years ago, a merciless military dictatorship takes place in Argentina. Many bishops, priests and catholic faithful welcome that dictatorship as the «God-given arm» from heaven to save the country from distress.  And so, in less than 6 years, that «arm of God» overloads the shoulder of the State with a debt impossible to repay, shoots 15,000 persons, makes 30,000 people disappear, takes 10,000 political prisoners and forces to exile more than million people. And then, this same "arm of God" goes to La Rioja, and treacherously murders four men deeply committed with the poorest people of that impoverished province.

But recently, on May 10 of this year, this same Catholic Church declares martyrs and "blessed" in the heavens the four men murdered by that same  dictatorship that she herself had glorified as the "arm of God"!

While these four men of God were in grave danger, and the Church, which knew everything about that (because it had privileged access to the dictatorship), not only did not lift a finger to defend them, but, on the contrary, did everything to discredit them and make the burden on them even heavier. And now, forty three years later, when they are dead and the dictatorship has been overthrown, she declares simply in the face of the world that these men were not demons, but saints.

Saints, they were indeed, and they became so because they committed the very serious sin of

disturbing. They lived among the poor and the discontented. They denounced the prevailing 

injustice and fought it. They became involved with groups that claimed their rights and called 

for changes. They did not push anyone to violence, but did not hesitate to make it clear that 

the terrible violence ravaging the country was not caused by the poor but by those who 

abused them. That violence did not come from overexploited workers who had every reason 

to revolt, but from the enormous injustices and intolerable inequalities caused by the corruption, 

the rapacity, the harshness, the blindness, and the cruelty of the great proprietors, of their men 

of hand and their unconditional friends of the police and army, copiously formatted, Indoctrinated,

armed and led by the "big brother" of humankind who is still alive, and who is very well known, 

envied, revered and hated all over the world.

The Four of La Rioja have never eaten at the table of billionaires. They never blessed or praised

the Dictatorship that violated, tortured, imprisoned, shot, wiped out thousands of people, swearing

to cleanse the country of all the "subversives" (like them) who dared to dream of a fairer society.

They did not recognize any legitimacy for the militaries who used their weapons to commit even 

worse atrocities than the ones that they claimed to fight. They regarded them simply for what they 

were: usurpers and killers, even if General Videla, the supreme leader of the dictatorship, went to 

Mass and received the holy communion everyday, and his right arm, the Admiral Massera, played 

tennis on weekends with the Apostolic Nuncio. 

They did not obey these authorities, nor that of most of the bishops who, before the atrocities 

that were committed in the country, washed their hands or remained silent, or who, by indulging 

in acrobatics about love, forgiveness and peace showered the death policy of the dictatorship 

with holy water. They preferred "to obey God rather than men", as the apostle Peter declared to 

the High Priest so boldly the day after the murder of Jesus in Jerusalem (Acts 5, 29). They had 

no other teacher than the Jesus of the Gospel, the one who came to bring peace, but not any 

kind of peace nor at any price.

According to them, there was no doubt that in La Rioja Jesus was fighting with them to help the 

exploited peasants to raise their heads, with the results that we know. When men and women 

strive to live and act like Jesus, they end up being slandered, despised and often ridiculed by 

their own brothers. One day, they are murdered. Just like Jesus. This is what happened to the 

Four of La Rioja.

At the time of their death, there were not many people crying for them except a handful of brave 

human rights activists and a number of diehard Christians who still wanted to walk according to 

the gospel in spite of everything. Except also a few cranks like me who, since the Second Vatican 

Council, had the naivety of believing in another Church.

 It took an Argentine to sit on the papal throne so that the bad reputation of the Four of La Rioja 

would be washed away. This beatification, which they would never have imagined, is, in fact, a 

beautiful act of justice that honours this pope; it is also an appreciable balm on the hearts of the 

thousands of other victims of the fierce dictatorship. But, unfortunately,  it might also be a kind of

"embalming" for the dictatorship itself with all its rottenness and all the cowards who, within the 

Church, have cooperated with it without having shown until now the slightest repentance.

I would not be surprised if, to cover the crimes of the elite, pious "beneficent ladies" of high society start raising money to build and decorate a magnificent monument to our new "blessed", but It is certain that, despite the condemnation by the courts of a good number of criminals of the dictatorship, there are still thousands of them who are smoothly sailing as in the best of all worlds.

Argentina has not recovered from the evil that has been caused to it, so that as long as there is 

something to be stolen in the country, the dark forces that have generated so many dictatorships

and engendered, not four, but hundreds, even thousands of martyrs in the past, seem to still 

have a bright future ahead of them.

The dictatorship may have been overthrown, it is not sure that it did not win. Nor is it certain that

the well-deserved beatification of the Four of Rioja is enough for the Church to regain its beauty.

Unless the new "blessed" get down to the arduous task of realizing for their country and for the 

Church miracles of a very special magnitude.

                                                       Eloy Roy

May 2019