Congregation Takes Risk to Back Salvadoran Plea
Episcopal News Service. June 2, 1983 [83106]
Mary E. Huntington, The Living Church
MADISON, Wisc. (DPS, June 2) -- On May 23, St. Francis House, the Episcopal center at the University of Wisconsin, became what is believed to be the first Episcopal Church to offer open sanctuary for refugees from El Salvador and Guatemala. Three adult Salvadorans and one child are currently living at St. Francis House and may remain through the summer.
Identified only by first names and with their faces hidden behind scarves and dark glasses, the adults were introduced to the press by the Rev. Thomas B. Woodward, Episcopal chaplain and director of St. Francis House, who explained why the student center had decided to join approximately 45 other churches in the U.S. which have invoked two ancient concepts of "sanctuary" -- the church as a holy place set apart for God's use, and the church as a place of refuge for those fleeing abuses of civil power; the latter holding a more certain place in the public imagination than in modern law.
The congregation of St. Francis House, Woodward said, was taking this action as a form of religious protest against what it sees as an inhumane policy of the U.S. government. Under international and domestic law, they feel, the U.S. is obligated to accept people fleeing violence and persecution, but in classifying Guatemalan and Salvadoran refugees as "economic" rather than "political," the government is denying asylum to all but a small fraction.
Although the law itself is fairly clear, the latitude given in classification continues to cause hot disputes. While the Reagan administration presses for more military aid to El Salvador, its spokesmen maintain that violence and persecution are not widespread enough to justify political status.
Numerous local churches and religious leaders have given their endorsement and pledged their support for St. Francis House's action, including two of Wisconsin's Episcopal bishops, the Rt. Rev. Charles T. Gaskell, Bishop of Milwaukee, and the Rt. Rev. William C. Wantland, Bishop of Eau Claire. Representatives of area churches and religious organizations took part in an ecumenical service marking the formal declaration of "sanctuary" later in the evening.
The penalty for harboring an illegal alien is a prison sentence of up to five years and a $2,000 fine, Fr. Woodward said. "If the Immigration and Naturalization Service were to burst into St. Francis House, the first person they would have to arrest, as president of the board and first officer, is Bishop Gaskell, and as he has said, he is ready to go.
"I'm second in line... then, we all go -- because of some poor, frightened refugee whose crime is that he or she doesn't want to get shot at.... It is always difficult when law and compassion, law and justice, are opposed... but the rule of faith is that when the cross and the flag conflict, we are called on -- unhesitatingly -- to follow the cross."
A large congregation more than filled the modern stone and glass chapel. After prayers, scripture readings, and the singing of Ein' Feste Burg, letters of endorsement from religious supporters were read to applause from the congregation.
In his sermon, Woodward drew a parallel between the plight of Central American refugees -- "what we do is arrest these refugees at our border as illegal aliens, imprison them, and then, as rapidly as possible send them back to the death squads and terror of Central America" -- and the shiploads of refugees from the Holocaust "going from port to port, nation to nation, looking for some place to land, some safe place, until they finally died -- at sea.
"That is not maudlin claptrap cluttering up a sermon; that is real and it is being re-enacted in the present tense. There are many stories to be told -- terrifying stories, heart-breaking stories, stories of unimaginable violence and terror, some stories critical of our government's involvement with the ruling families of El Salvador and Guatemala."
As the telling of these stories is deemed an important aspect of sanctuary, the three adult Salvadorans made brief statements in Spanish which were translated into English. They told of capricious arrests and torture -- "It is a crime to be young in my country," said one -- imprisonment ending in death for some and forced exile for others; a child mute and traumatized after watching police beat her mother; other children forced to witness the torture of their parents; a government steeped in lies and corruption.
All three made pleas that Americans support the church-organized solidarity groups in El Salvador that care for orphans and others made helpless by political strife in that country, and exert pressure on the U.S. government to stop sending money and arms to the governments of Guatemala and El Salvador.
The Episcopal Church, through actions of the General Convention and of the Executive Council, advocates such a halt and continues to press for fair and uniform treatment for refugees. The immediate issue of "sanctuary" has not been addressed, although a 19-year-old statement by the House of Bishops concedes that civil disobedience may be acceptable if all legal pressures for change have been exhausted or seem fruitless. The statement insists that such action be carried out after prayerful consideration, non-violently and with a willingness to accept any penalties that follow the action.
In adopting this course, the St. Francis congregation appears to be striving to meet all of those conditions and, even prefaced its actions with a letter of declaration to the attorney general of the United States.