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Bishop Medardo Gomez
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Medardo Gomez gives a press interview on the Day of the Child, 2000 |
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Bishop Medardo Gomez
Medardo Gomez is the shepherd for the Lutheran church in El Salvador. He is the only Lutheran bishop the country has ever had, but he is much more. He is a true minister of the love of Jesus Christ to the poor and downtrodden in Salvadoran society. Through the horrors of the civil war in the country to the tremendous economic want and social violence in the decade since the peace accords, Bishop Gomez has boldly proclaimed that the Gospel message requires a Christian walk in solidarity with the poor.
Jesus is found wherever there is a believer: in the street, in the home, the factory, workshops, schools, offices, refugee camps, hospitals, jails, garrisons, battle zones, in the mountains, and in the city. God is present with the true disciple, struggling against oppression, misery, captivity and death.
Medardo Gomez, Fuego contra Fuego (Fire Against Fire), 1990 Augsburg Fortress
Bishop Gomez performs a baptism at Los Heroes de la Fe as Jim and Vonda Drees, of St. John's Lutheran Church of Brookfield, Wisconsin, USA, observe.
Images of devastation from January 2001 earthquake in El Salvador
Our Salvadoran people are in mourning. The tragedy we are experiencing is of immense pain, which only a people accustomed to so much suffering is capable of bearing. In my soul of a pastor, even I ask myself, saying to God, "Why us, Lord?"
We are already tattooed by so much suffering: social, economic, political, cultural problems; epidemics like dengue fever, diarrhea, viruses, etc.; the scourges of poverty, delinquency, violence, and now we are surprised by the natural phenomenon of an earthquake, yesterday, Saturday, January 13, a phenomenon which repeats itself in a cycle of 10 to 15 years.
Excerpts from a January 14, 2001 letter from Bishop Medardo Gomez to sister churches in the United States following the first of two earthquakes to hit El Salvador in early 2001.By the end of our visit, I had learned why a Lutheran bishop is a threat to the government of El Salvador. The "sins" of Bishop [Medardo] Gomez are the sins of a host of others as well: he believes that the church's mission includes political involvement; that the gospel has a special concern for the poor that must be translated into the actions and policies of a nation; that a negotiated peace is preferable to an ongoing war; and that bishops often have to speak out and act in ways that are critical of the government. Such actions, whether by bishops or not, are actions punishable by death, and there are seventy-five thousand dead Salvadorans to attest to the accuracy of that proposition.
Second, I had learned why Bishop Gomez is so loved. Once he was back with his people, he realized that he could not truly be their bishop from the safety of another country, but must be in their midst, working, suffering, threatened, just like everybody else...
At an ecumenical service on Epiphany, a Baptist pastor said to Bishop Gomez, "We Baptists don't have bishops. But you, Medardo, are our bishop."
Ditto for this Presbyterian...
Robert McAfee Brown, Liberation Theology, 1993, Westminster/John Knox Press, Louisville, Kentucky.
Medardo Gomez preaching at the celebration of the 40th anniversary of St. John's Lutheran Church in Brookfield, Wisconsin.
Medardo Gomez gives a press interview on the Day of the Child, 2000
Other Links:
Medardo Gomez on the 10 Year Anniversary of the 1992 Peace Accords
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