No Ordinary Bishop
No Ordinary Bishop When I joined Bishop Samuel Ruiz on his Fast for Peace in December 1994,1 didn't expect that he would be sleeping with the other fasters on the hard wooden floor of the...
...And the government expressed its willingness to stop advancing into Zapatista territory...
...The bishop received dozens and dozens of faxes, letters, and telegrams from Argentina to Austria to Australia...
...But despite the vicious campaign against him, Bishop Ruiz stands undaunted...
...No friend of liberation theology, Prigione insists that the main mission of the church is not economic and social liberation, but liberation from moral sin and misery...
...that it was bad for his health...
...In 1993 the Vatican attempted to remove Bishop Ruiz, but was thwarted when some 20,000 indigenous people from all over the state converged on San Cristobal in protest...
...After witnessing the oppression, the poverty, the marginalization of the indigenous people, I realized I had to devote myself to building a system that eliminates inequalities and promotes sharing...
...They gave new purpose and meaning to my faith...
...On January 3, Bishop Ruiz ended the fast after it had achieved several goals...
...Most of them were conservatives and quite unsympathetic...
...After all, he had been mediating between the Indians and the state for a long, long time...
...One day, more than 100 Tzeltal Indians arrived, having walked for days...
...They had all manner of reasons: that a religious fast should be private not public...
...The bishop would light up every time a new group arrived, and the cathedral would become home to all...
...Because the bishop is his commander...
...At the Monument to the Angel of Independence—right smack in the middle of Reforma Avenue in downtown Mexico City—more than twenty fasters, led by the famous actress Ofelia Medina, set up their pup tents and settled in for a fast that was to last more than two weeks...
...It just so happened that on that very same day, a group of bishops from other parts of Mexico arrived to meet with Bishop Ruiz...
...On February 15, hundreds of conservative demonstrators stoned the cathedral and attacked the bishop's supporters, who had started a twenty-four-hour vigil to protect Don Samuel...
...Bishop Ruiz is not the first bishop in Chiapas accused of inciting the poor...
...Nearly every day, indigenous people trekked in from outlying communities to express support for their beloved Tatic...
...He would pray with the visitors, update them on the political situation, inquire about conditions in their regions—all in their indigenous languages...
...The fast caught on in twenty-eight other states in Mexico...
...The conservative bishops, who have much more in common with rich landowners than poor peasants, held their maracas stiffly and shifted uncomfortably from side to side...
...The most impressive support, r,cR however, came from Chiapas itself...
...Tatic, happy to be with the people he really loves, was beaming and swaying...
...The trance-like music and chanting went on for hours and hours...
...If anyone can perform miracles, Tatic can...
...During his thirty-five years in Chiapas, the bishop has done just that...
...He promoted social-development projects, literacy campaigns, health committees to recover traditional medicine, a human-rights center, and indigenous organizations...
...The bishop doesn't preach love but class struggle," Serrano insisted...
...that an individual bishop should not declare his own fast...
...Bishop Ruiz just smiled and thanked them for their concern...
...M.B...
...Bishop Ruiz began the Fast for Peace on December 20...
...What a sight...
...The exhausted travelers, including the women with babies strapped to their backs, stood up the entire time, swaying back and forth...
...There is a definite move in our state and country toward irreversible war and violence," he declared...
...Then he asked them to join in the indigenous ceremony...
...What would happen if Don Samuel were murdered...
...He is determined to bring peace to Chiapas—peace with justice and dignity for the poor...
...But the government did not keep its word...
...After my experience on the fast, I'll place my bet on the bishop...
...After entering the cathedral and greeting the bishop, they set up their candles, harps, marimbas, and maracas for their syncretic Catholic/indigenous ceremonies...
...The conservatives burned an effigy of the bishop, replete with a ski mask and a hammer and sickle on his miter...
...In another protest a week later, demonstrators gathered in front of the cathedral to set fire to a coffin inscribed with the bishop's name...
...But Bishop Ruiz is no ordinary bishop...
...In 1545, Bartolome de las Casas was run out of town by the local Spanish power elite for refusing to give confession and communion to the Spanish who abused the Indians...
...He is determined to break the 500-year cycle of misery the native sons and daughters of this land have endured—the very misery that has led to the Zapatista uprising...
...The attacks against this diocese began 500 years ago," says Father Gonzalo Ituarte, vicar of the diocese and a close friend of Don Samuel...
...Confrontations would escalate, and the bloody civil war that has been so talked about would probably become a reality, warns historian Gonzalez Esponda...
...We'll get you for this one," their faces seemed to growl at him...
...I have therefore decided to begin a permanent fast as a cry for justice and as an urgent call so that through solidarity we avert war and establish a true peace...
...The similarities to the martyred Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador are uncanny...
...We Mexicans know perfectly well that the Red Bishop Samuel Ruiz gave the orders, the plan, the logistical support, the organizational genesis, and the Leninist-Christian ideology that is behind the guerrillas," declared conservative writer E. Kastell...
...Ruiz (who is known affectionately as Don Samuel or Tatic, which means "our father" in Tzeltal) is the son of migrant workers who picked vegetables in Texas and California...
...It was also logical that the cattle ranchers and the local business elite would see the bishop as the devil incarnate and accuse him of being the Zapatista ringleader...
...At nighttime, we would all curl up together on the cathedral floor...
...Federico Serrano Figueroa, coordinator of a group of businessmen and cattle ranchers called COCECH (the Coalition of Citizen Organizations of the State of Chiapas), is so convinced that Bishop Ruiz is the source of destabilization in the state that he is pressuring the Vatican to remove Don Samuel...
...The bishop's supporters greatly fear for his life...
...Even while fasting, this seventy-year-old diabetic was on the go day and night, meeting with members of the mediating commission, government officials, indigenous communities, foreign well-wishers, and the ever-present press...
...You know why Marcos is only a sub-commander...
...It was therefore only logical that after the rebel uprising, the bishop would be chosen by the Zapatistas as a mediator with the government...
...He turned the San Cristobal Cathedral into a hub of organizing for indigenous rights...
...Sound impossible...
...President Ernesto Zedillo abandoned peace talks with the Zapatistas on February 9, and the attacks against the bishop escalated...
...a San Cristobal restaurant owner asked me...
...No Ordinary Bishop When I joined Bishop Samuel Ruiz on his Fast for Peace in December 1994,1 didn't expect that he would be sleeping with the other fasters on the hard wooden floor of the cathedral...
...They threatened to kill the bishop and burn down the cathedral...
...He became a bishop when he was only thirty-five, was assigned to the diocese of San Cristobal in 1960, and has been working there ever since...
...In 1650, Bishop Villaescusa was beaten by soldiers for his defense of the Indians...
...There will be no reconciliation as long as he remains in Chiapas...
...The purpose of their visit was to persuade the bishop to stop the fast...
...The bishop, ignoring the warnings of his doctors, accompanied them at various intervals, dancing and shaking a pair of maracas...
...Second, the Zapatistas called for a truce and a "new, serious, and responsible dialogue" with the government...
...First, the government agreed to recognize the bishop and his National Intermediation Commission as the official mediating body...
...The controversial bishop has had a rocky relationship with the Vatican, particularly with the Vatican's representative in Mexico, Jeronimo Prigione...
...And our fast garnered international attention...
...I came to San Cristobal to convert the poor," Don Samuel recalled, "but they ended up converting me...
Vol. 59 • May 1995 • No. 5
