On November 16 this Fall, we recognize the 29th anniversary of the death of Reverend Ignacio Ellacuría — an honorable date in our university’s history. On this day in 1989, Ellacuría, five other Jesuits, their housekeeper, and her daughter were murdered execution-style by an elite US-trained squadron of the Salvadoran Army during the end of their civil war. As an outspoken advocate for liberation, Ellacuría was subject to much hatred and opposition. Today in Santa Clara, we see his name and the crosses honoring the other martyrs of El Salvador as we pass by the Mission Church. In securing the constant presence of the crosses, we are standing in solidarity with the martyrs and are actively holding Ellacuría’s philosophy to heart.

Ellacuría, a citizen of El Salvador, was born in 1930 in Spain, joining the Jesuits at a young age. From 1947 on, he lived and worked in El Salvador, with the exception of a few periods during which he pursued his education in Spain, Ecuador, and Germany. Ellacuría is best known for his contribution to Latin American Liberation Philosophy, which developed in Latin America in the latter half of the Twentieth Century, sparked from the works of Peruvian philosopher A. Salazar Bondy and Mexican philosopher Leopoldo Zea. From these initial works, a philosophy was born that focused on the discipline in attempting to make sense of Latin American reality, a reality of dependence on political and economic factors beyond one’s control. Given this theme of dependency, Latin American Liberation Philosophy narrowed in on the social and personal obligation to overcome this by focusing on understanding the fullness of one’s humanity. Ellacuría, in particular, saw human reality as multifaceted, with historical and social components; the possibilities in which individual freedoms must be exercised is not only a product of society, but of past human actions as well.

In June of 1982, Father Ellacuría delivered a beautiful commencement address to the Santa Clara University community, challenging students to make their universities into places of positive and transformative change.

At this time, Ellacuría was working as a professor at the Jesuit José Simeón Cañas Central American University (UCA) in San Salvador, Ecuador, where he pushed for the community to be a vehicle of positive change in the context of the country’s civil war and resulting social issues. What set Ellacuría’s Santa Clara commencement speech apart from those in other years was his emphasis on the core of a Catholic University—its ideals, duties, and what it stands for—as opposed to an emphasis on life lessons for the young graduates to take with them. Casting away this divide we often reference between college and “the real world,” Ellacuría questioned why a difference needs to exist between these two in the first place, reminding the audience that the small bubbles of elite universities are, in fact, artificial.

Not only do colleges deal with culture, knowledge, and the use of intellect, but they must hold social reality as a high concern, recognizing and healing social ills, Ellacuría believed. Highlighting these two foundational components of institutions of higher education, Ellacuría stated the duties that universities, Catholic ones in particular, must undertake to better the world.

“What then does a university do, immersed in this reality? Transform it? Yes. Do everything possible so that liberty is victorious over oppression, justice over injustice, love over hate? Yes. Without this overall commitment, we would not be a university, and even less so would we be a Catholic university.”

And in speaking to the Santa Clara community directly, Ellacuría summoned the beginning of a deep change, one that is challenging and uncomfortable, one that requires sacrifice.

“But American universities also have an important part to play in order to insure that the unavoidable presence of the United States in Central America be sensitive and just, especially those universities—like Santa Clara—which are inspired by the desire to make present among us all the Kingdom of God.”

On graduation day, this type of address is rare to hear, revealing a duty and calling for a change when  recent graduates are celebrating the end of their own four-year journey and focusing on past accomplishments. Many who were present at the address and those who wrote about it later on agree that while it may not have been what we as a community wanted to hear, it was what we needed to hear.

Header image: Candlelit vigil honoring El Salvador martyrs for 15th anniversary in 2004, courtesy of Archives & Special Collections’ Chuck Barry Digital Collection.

Sources

Gandolfo, David I. “Ignacio Ellacuría (1930—1989).” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, www.iep.utm.edu/ellacuri/.

Santa Clara University. “Ignacio Ellacuría, S.J.’s June 1982 Commencement Address Santa Clara University.” Sustainability – Office of the Provost – Santa Clara University, 19 Nov. 2016, www.scu.edu/ic/programs/ignatian-tradition-offerings/stories/ignacio-ellacuria-sjs-june-1982-commencement-address-santa-clara-university.html.

Santa Clara University. “The Message We Need.” Sustainability – Office of the Provost – Santa Clara University, 19 June 2017, www.scu.edu/news-and-events/feature-stories/stories/the-message-we-need.html. This article first appeared in the National Catholic Reporter on May 24, 2017.