On the morning of November 16, 1989, the Atlacatl Battalion of this Salvadoran Army, led by 19 graduates of the School of the Americas (SOA) entered the grounds of the University of Central America and brutally assassinated Elba Ramos, her 16-year-old daughter and six Jesuit priests--among them Father Ignacio Ellacuría, an outspoken critic of El Salvador’s military dictatorship. The SOA Watch movement initially formed to denounce this massacre—one of the many atrocities that occurred in Central America as the United States funded civil wars and trained military at the SOA/WHINSEC.
Urged on by Father Roy Bourgeoise, founder of the SOAWatch, and informed by activist contacts in Latin America countries affected by U.S. policy in their countries, the SOAWatch has gathered each year since 1990 on the third weekend in November to continue raising a rallying cry opposing U.S. militarism. Seeking to bridge the intersections of the past with the present in memory and resistance, SOA Watch returned to the gates of Ft. Benning, Georgia where the U.S. Army school is located to both mark this milestone year of gathering by the movement and commemorating the atrocity that impelled the beginning of the movement as well as to re-pledge itself to continue resistance to expanding militarization by the U.S. plaguing Latin America, and more recently along the border.
The Progressive Catholic Coalition has been gathering at the School of the Americas Watch (SOAW) each year since 2004.
Six Catholic reform organizations continue to be contributing sponsors of the PCC each year. The coalition brings a justice-based Church-reform presence to the gathering of hundreds of activists from across the country at the School of the Americas Watch [SOAW] each year. From 2016 to 2018, that gathering took place at the U.S./Mexico border in Nogales, on both sides of the border wall.
Presently the PCC includes these sponsoring organizations working for justice in Church and world: Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests (ARCWP), Call to Action-usa, CITI [Celibacy is the Issue-Community is the Intent] Ministries Inc., the Federation of Christian Ministries (FCM), CORPUS and Women’s Ordination Conference (WOC).
The context for the PCC presence this year, as in the past, is this gathering, like a family reunion. Familiar faces, needing reintroductions; new faces needing to be introduced. And all in one unified spirit of warm sharing stories of what’s been happening since the previous year, recounting what’s being done back home to further the efforts of the SOAW movement.
SOAW 2019
The SOAW program for the weekend offers themes that resurface each year: updates of what the movement staff have been working to communicate to its activists. Plans for the future. And after 29 years of converging as a movement, mostly in Columbus, Georgia, at the gates of Ft. Benning, but more recently at the border in Nogales, Arizona/Sonora, Mexico, there is much to review.
On Saturday, two panels shared thoughts on “Bridging the Past and the Present of the Organization”—some of the history of what the movement has managed over the years and what’s next.
Panel I: “Lessons Learned over 30 Years of Resistance”
- Between 2009 and 2012, a resolution to close the school while an investigation of the record of graduates was begun was introduced by Rep. McGovern of Massachusetts had gained added co-signers. However, the resolution was not introduced for a vote on the floor. Following the change of the name from SOA to WHINSEC, legislators were of the pinion that the school should have time to rove itself.
- More recently garnering legislative sponsors to back the present Berta Caceres Bill (HR 1945) to end military funding in Honduras.
- By 2016, Venezuela, Argentina, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Bolivia and Uruguay publicly committed to no longer sending soldiers, nor police to the institution.
- November 13, 2012: Meeting of Denis McDonough, deputy national security adviser to President Barack Obama with a delegation from the the SOAWatch.
- Legislative action of the past to close the U.S. Army school where so many graduates have been implicated in committing atrocities against their own people,
Panel II: “Effective Organizing Strategies in the face of U.S.-led and -supported Violence
The weekend might be summed up in remembering and re-commitment for both SOAW and the sponsoring members of the PCC.
Further information about the speakers at these panels and t\heir topics can be found at
An evening program by Pax Christi—Solidarity, Resistance and Hope: The spirituality of Nonviolence Lived Out in the Central American Martyrs and Struggles of Justice Today—topped off the day.
THE RE-COMMITMENT OF THE MOVEMENT
The list of SOA graduates who engaged in massacres, assassinations, torture and disappearances of Indigenous, union and community leaders, and who launched coups and became military dictators, is long. From El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala to Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Colombia, there is an SOA connection to the repression and brutality committed against the masses of people
If there was any doubt about the timeliness of the message of the gathering of the SOAWatch movement at this time, the coup in Bolivia and the news at the border validate the effort.
The knowledge that at least seven leaders of the recent coup in Bolivia against democratically-elected Indigenous President Evo Morales were SOA graduates — such as General Williams Kaliman Romero who trained at SOA in 2003 — underscored the continuing need to win the demand: “Close the SOA!”
That ICE agents and Border patrol officers are being trained at Ft. Benning shows how this facility is a tool of U.S. militarism being used against people forced from their homelands by the actions of trainees from the SOA/WHINSEC.
THE PRESENCE OF THE PCC at SOAW 2019
Each year the PCC has two opportunities for participants in the SOAW: an information table with materials about the sponsoring organizations and a Eucharist led by both women and men priests.
At the PCC Information Table: Young people from around the country were more evident this year. Eight of them from St. Charles Borromeo Church, Skillmen, New Jersey, gathered around the PCC information table to ask about the sponsoring organizations.
One of them commented how welcome they have been made to feel among the people from around the country. To these young people, being recognized by so many “gray hairs” was unexpected. And the older members of the movement were encouraged by the presence of these dedicated young people.
Inclusive Liturgy: Kathy Butler and Janet Sevre-Duszynska, both of ARCWP—a sponsor of the PCC—composed the Liturgy which was led by Katy Zatsick and Diane Dougherty, also of ARCWP. About 30 people made their way to a beautiful Victorian home on Broad Street near the Chattahoochee River for the celebration on Saturday evening.
The home, an AirBNB, was secured by Jeannette Mulherin, formerly a board member of WOC and long-time supporter of the PCC. The liturgy was modeled on the way communities in El Salvador allow time for everyone to include their comments so that the Spirit is respected in the gathered believers before the prayer continues.
The announcements following the liturgy included the urging by Fr. Roy Bourgeois to gather on July 16th at the Vatican Embassy in Washington—or for those who cannot travel the distance, at their chancery office— to demonstrate for the ordination of women. The other announcement was an invitation to pass to the kitchen where pizza and refreshments await an informal opportunity to socialize. Most did and departed full of the Spirit, good conversation and appetites satisfied by pizza.
AFFIRMATION OF THE IMPORTANCE OF THE PCC PRESENCE
Two comments during the weekend bridge the past and present affirm the value of the presence of the Progressive Catholic Coalition.
Following the liturgy on Saturday evening, a high school student from Stillmen, New Jersey, expressed her opinion about the womanpriest-led service: “I miss the usual readings and homily that helps me apply the readings to everyday life. But it was nice having priests who are women leading the mass.”
The other comment came as the Sunday Solemn Procession was ending. Erin from Pennsylvania, reading the message on my wearable “sandwich board” banner told me, ““Thank you so much for doing this,” she said enthusiastically, “my mother has been alienated from the Church because if inaction about these same issues. I’m going to show her the pictures of the message you’re wearing to show her that there are groups working for the same issues she advocates for.”
The wording on the banner that grabbed Erin’s attention read:
The Progressive Catholic Coalition
- Denounces Militarism--both exported and at the border
- Supports the Amazon Synod Recommendations:
- Restoring a married priesthood
- Protecting the Amazon Rain Forest and
its Indigenous Peoples.
SAVE THE CHURCH! ORDAIN WOMEN!
The PCC, recognizing the SOAW emphasis on the effect of militarism at the border, has for the past 3 years brought the presence of its sponsoring organizations to the SOA Watch Border Encuentro in Nogales. This year that presence returned to the gates of Ft. Benning to display the PCC banner listing the names of sponsoring organizations at its information table and at the Sunday Solemn Procession. These services provide SOAW participants—especially young people—with a clear message that there exists a "reforming Church" dedicated to promoting justice and peace on the level of both church and world—topics they do not hear about in their home parishes—that touch their hearts and lives.
The SOAW program on Sunday concludes with the Solemn Procession during which the names and ages of those killed by SOA/WHINSEC graduates are read to which the gathering raises their crosses inscribed with names of the dead as they respond "PRESENTE", indicating that they are present in mind and heart and in the continued struggle to end the militarism that has caused their deaths.
The blessing all invoked at the beginning of the Solemn Procession prays:
May love and courage go with us as we do the work of building community and transforming injustice. May memory and wisdom root us as we face the radical violence of a failing empire.
May humility and gratitude guide us as we join in solidarity with people all over the world fighting for their lives.
May joy and beauty nourish us as we vision past failed structures and institutions into another world. May awe and imagination teach us how to listen for the voices of our ancestors who know the way back home.
Together we cry. You are not alone. Together we are making liberation. No están solas, no están solos, juntos hacemos la liberación.
The comments of people—from young people unaccustomed to being welcomed among adults and unfamiliar with informal liturgy to a daughter whose mother, alienated from the a church she sees as out of touch, encouraged to see a reform presence at the SOA Watch event, all brought together in the struggle for justice—demonstrate that there is good reason for the sponsoring organizations of the PCC to be present at the SOAWatch gathering.
Please like the PCC on Facebook @ppc4churchjustice. The SOAW website is found at www.soaw.org
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