I spent the last few days of my stay in Central America in Guatemala City visiting my long-time spiritual director Fr. Michael Lenihan, OFM, whom I know from the years in which we were both simultaneously assigned in Honduras. The night before I returned to the US, I had the joy of participating in the 25th anniversary celebration of Our Lady of Tepeyac parish, which the OFMs in Guatemala staffed in the first years of its existence. The church was filled to overflowing with mostly indigenous Guatemalans, there were about 15 guitars playing in sync with the choir, and the whole event was suffused with the rich authentic beauty of a faith that has taken deep root in and flourished in a native culture. There's something very "incarnational" about Catholic faith and life that enables a fusion like this to take place that is at once genuinely Christian and yet fully human, respectful of culture but also transforming from within to allow its full beauty and potential to blossom in Christ.
The celebration was especially significant to me because it was presided by Bishop Mario Rios Montt, auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Guatemala, successor to assassinated Bishop Juan Gerardi as chairman of the Church's Human Rights Commission, and brother of notorious ex-president, general, and ultra-conservative evangelical pastor Efrian Rios Montt. General Rios Montt was responsible for some of the worst genocidal atrocities in the 1980s during the country's civil war. For me the experience was a reminder of the horrific suffering the country endured during those years, and also of the way the destiny of each human person unfolds in the choices and responses we make to the experiences and opportunities life presents us. It's amazing that one brother became the person responsible for helping to uncover the truth about the violations of human rights with which the other is so notoriously associated. But more than anything it was a testimony to the triumph of grace in a man (the bishop) who has dedicated his life to the service of Christ and become an advocate for the defenseless victims of political violence and oppression.
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