Father Marcelo, Fallen Tree

Photo: Elio Henríquez

Waking up to videos of Father Marcelo in the confinement of the pandemic was a balm. His eyes roamed the mountains at dawn. Every day he would show us why it was worth being alive, the grandeur of the land, the song of the birds and the purple orange of the dawn. The landscape he inhabited, Simojovel, Huitiupan, Pantelho, Chenalhó, the pastoral routes he traveled.

It is the same route that since long ago is the scene of a terrible violence, which not only witnessed, but sought by all means to resolve. Always enunciating peace and justice.

In those long and beautiful videos he narrates, sometimes in Tsotsil and sometimes in Spanish, psalms, dreams and stories of his people. Tsotsil priest, pride of his people, one of the few priests from the communities that exists.

I reminisce, while we guard his body in the Jobel prosecutor’s office, here with his clan of San Andres Larrainzar. There are many Joveleños, his friends.

Her family brought with them their traditional attire. His beautiful San Andres costume, his red and white sash with the singing frogs embroidered and the universe with the stars. His black chuj, his hat of ribbons, his white breeches.

His family, serene, makes agreements about the rites and funeral that are already being prepared in San Andrés, in spite of the fact that those of the Guadalupe neighborhood wanted the vigil over him to be held there.

The songs of liberation theology are heard. His parishioners, those always faithful to the Diocese of San Cristobal, of the ecclesial base communities, accompany him. Disconsolate women from the communities of the south of San Cristobal de las Casas, defenders of the wetlands, weep disconsolately.

We drink verbena tea with pox. And we wait. Inside the impenetrable prosecutor’s office, our Frayba, endures the legal procedures and ensures that the experts do their work.

Not even in the nineties, during the rampant paramilitary war, did the diocese lose one of its own. It happened now, when a Tsotsil preacher led the homilies in the most populous neighborhoods of the Royal City.

In the route that we take, the coffin passes through the tourist walkway, now converted into a passage of bars, cantinas and noisy norteño music. I think it is unprecedented for a non-Caxlan priest to travel this route with the honors of a crowd. The church is full of people from all the parishes of San Cristobal. A children’s choir sings “if I keep silent I will regret it.” The confraternities, the choir and the board of festivities say goodbye. The bishop says that the church is full of forgiveness but calls for justice.

The coffin is carried by parishioners who take turns. So we walk back along the Guadalupe walkway and cross the city to the west, on our way to San Juan Chamula, his path to San Andres Sakamanchen de Los Pobres.

Now you go to your cave. You are going to your ancestors. Now you are going to meet the sun, a woman tells him, in the dark and rainy evening on the borders of San Cristóbal and San Juan Chamula. “Justice,” accompanied by crying, a lot of crying, is the slogan that kept us on our feet.

(*) Human Rights Defender. Desmi

Original text by Ana Valadéz published in La Jornada, on October 21st, 2024.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.

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