Political murder and martyrdom

I mentioned yesterday that I'm reading a biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor who stood up to Hitler and was executed for it. It seems to me we should learn from people like this, those driven by their faith to do what they can in their particular context to defend human life and dignity against brutality. Well, earlier this week marked the 13th anniversary of the death of another faith leader, this one in Guatemala, who was killed for his tireless work on behalf of the brutalized poor in the context of a civil war that claimed something like 200,000 lives.

Once the war had finally ended in 1996, Bishop Juan José Gerardi issued a report documenting who was responsible for the lion's share of atrocities during the conflict. Two days later he was killed. From The Latin Americanist:

Two former military officers and a priest were convicted in 2001 of masterminding Gerardi's murder though the Guatemalan archdiocese issued a call this week for authorities to actively investigate his death. "The Catholic Church awaits for justice to be served against all those involved in the vile assassination," said the director of the archdiocese's human rights division.

The Latin Americanist also shared the following video, featuring a short interview with the author of a book about the murder of the bishop, in which he describes how he first learned about the atrocities in Guatemala and how the weight of this knowledge has impacted his life and work.

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