Every village in this region of El Quiché has a bloody story to tell. During an eight-year reign of terror that did not begin to subside until a civilian president took office in 1986, thousands of Indians were killed or relocated to concentration camps. By the army's own count, it destroyed 440 Indian villages, some dating to pre-Columbian times. Persecution against the Catholic Church was so ferocious that not a single priest or nun remained in the Quiché diocese. All the chapels were closed, and convents were occupied by troops. In order to celebrate Communion, undercover catechists traveled hours on foot, carrying consecrated Hosts hidden among ears of corn or in baskets of beans and tortillas. Anyone caught with such "subversive material" could expect a slow death by torture. Yet the people kept faith.

Typical of Quiche's "church of the catacombs" were the five catechists of Santa Cruz [del] Quiché--Lucas, Justo, Angel, Domingo, and Juan--who gave their lives for their people; their moving testimony was recorded by a Spanish priest, Father Fernando Bermudez, who worked with Quiché's underground church until death threats forced him to flee to Mexico. One day, in 1982, Santa Cruz, a small market town north of Chichicastenango, was taken over by the army. The villagers were assembled and told that the catechists were "subversives" whom their relatives must kill that very night. Otherwise, the army would raze Santa Cruz and neighboring villages.

The army then withdrew, and the villagers discussed the brutal choice, unanimously concluding that "we won't do it." The catechists were loved and valued for their religious work and for the instructions they had given to promote cooperatives.  But such consciousness-raising was subversive to the military's view because it helped to awaken the Indian masses, a majority of Guatemala's population. Teaching Indians to read and write could be punished by death, as demonstrated by the murders of fifteen priests and a nun who were involved in literacy and leadership training programs for the Indians. The Bible was, of all books, the most subversive because it taught that everyone was equal in the site of God--hence the ferocious persecution of catechists.

The villagers had refused to do the deed, but the five catechists insisted that they must: "It is better for us to die than for thousands to die." At 4:00 A.M., a weeping procession, led by the catechists, arrived at the cemetery. Graves were dug, the people formed a circle around the kneeling men, and relatives of the five drew their machetes. Many could not watch the scene; some fainted as the blades fell, and the executioners' tears mingled with the blood of the catechists.  The bodies were wrapped in plastic and buried. The villagers returned home in silence.

Next day the army captain in charge of the area was informed that his orders had been carried out. Another source of subversion had been eliminated. Or had it? Forcing the catechists' relatives to kill them was part of an army policy aimed at alienating Indian recruits from their village origins by demeaning their race, religion, and traditions. But it failed to work in Santa Cruz or elsewhere in Quiché because the people honored such martyrdom. "We remember them with holy reverence," said a witness to the catechists' deaths, "because it is thanks to them that we are alive today." Life, explained a young Guatemalan, is meaningless "unless you give it away."

("The Way of the Cross," pages 5-6)

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