Top photo caption: A statue of Christ holding a lamb is pictured at Jesus the Good Shepherd Church in Dunkirk, Md., April 1, 2022. OSV News photo/Bob Roller
By Effie Caldarola, OSV News
In the midst of the bloody Syrian civil war, a Dutch Jesuit named Father Frans van der Lugt was killed in the ravaged city of Homs. It was April 7, 2014. He was beaten and then shot in the head.
The 75-year-old priest had ministered in Syria since 1966, and although given the opportunity to leave, he remained among the starving and embattled poor, trying to publicize their plight and aid them in their sorrows.
Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman at the time, said Father van der Lugt “died as a man of peace … with great courage in an extremely dangerous and difficult situation. … Where people die, their faithful shepherds also die with them.”
I remember being very touched by Father van der Lugt’s death. I knew Jesuits who had known him, and read their remembrances. I thought about 75-year-olds that I knew, perhaps relaxing on the golf course or enjoying a late afternoon cocktail as a reward for careers well spent. Father van der Lugt chose a different route.
Lately, I remembered him again as I watched a movie that I had missed the first time around but had always wanted to see.
The 2010 French film “Of Gods and Men” tells the story of a group of French Trappist monks who live peacefully in an Algerian village. Their neighbors are mostly Muslims; you can hear the Muslim call to prayer in the background of their daily life. It’s a peaceful coexistence, with one of the monks helping out as the village doctor.
But, as Algeria’s own civil war grows, a nearby group of foreign workers are assassinated by religious extremists, and the entire community is fearful. Like the Dutch priest, the Trappists have an exit strategy. The local Algerian government actually pleads with them to leave.
But as Father Lombardi said, “Where people die, their faithful shepherds also die with them.”
“Of Gods and Men” is beautifully filmed, yet at times seems to move slowly to what the viewer knows is its inevitable conclusion. But the drama is in the interior struggle of the men themselves. Does it make sense to stay? Is this why they joined religious life? Is this really God’s will? They cannot provide protection to the frightened people around them. They can only provide witness.
If the concept of shepherds intrigues you, you might want to read “The Shepherd Who Didn’t Run,” Maria Ruiz Scaperlanda’s beautiful biography of Father Stanley Rother, a farm boy from Oklahoma who became a priest serving in Guatemala and was martyred there in 1981.
He was serving the impoverished Mayans of the region when civil war raged between the militarist government and rebel guerillas. Father Rother’s name appeared on a death list. He returned to Oklahoma briefly; he was urged to stay home for his safety. But he returned to his parish. Shepherds don’t run, he said. He is the first martyr from the U.S., and the first U.S.-born priest to be beatified.
We could mention so many others. The four Church women brutally raped and killed in El Salvador in 1980. The six Jesuits, their housekeeper and her daughter killed in that country in 1989.
Why? Why are those bringing the Prince of Peace targeted for violence? What is it that those who espouse war fear in those who seek to build the beloved community, a phrase spoken by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, a man who himself espoused non-violence and paid with his life?
Most of us will never face the choice to leave or stay and risk death. But each in our own way is called to be faithful.
Effie Caldarola is a wife, mom and grandmother who received her master’s degree in pastoral studies from Seattle University.
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