The cowardly murder of the priest Marcelo Pérez Pérez, parish priest of Our Lady of Guadalupe, in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, is, as the poet Miguel Hernández wrote, a “harsh blow / an icy strike / a dreadful axe” to the indigenous world of Chiapas and to the cause of peace.
Tsotsil from Chichelalhó, San Andrés Sacam’chen de los Pobres, Father Marcelo, defender of life, was born on January 17, 1974, in a campesina family of 11 siblings, in which his parents did not know how to read or write. He studied for five years in a boarding school and was educated in the very conservative diocese of Tuxtla Gutiérrez. On April 6, 2002, the bishop of San Cristobal, Felipe Arizmendi, ordained him a priest. At the time of his murder he was one of six indigenous priests working in the diocese (https://shorturl.at/27azy).
His vocation and ability to evangelize bore unexpected fruit. The last parish to which he was assigned, that of Barrio de Guadalupe, is emblematic for the authentic coletos, known for their conservatism. Although in the eastern periphery of the city there are Base Ecclesial Communities (CEB), Father Marcelo achieved the feat of creating, among the non-progressive believers of his parish, peace committees, alien to the CEB. Last October 20, during his coffin’s journey from the prosecutor’s office to Guadalupe, many parishioners were genuinely moved. In the church a children’s choir bid him farewell.
Father Marcelo never considered himself part of liberation theology. His horizon came from the document of Aparecida 2007: Lights for Latin America, which emerged from the fifth General Conference of Celam, which, from his perspective, points out that the Church must be an “advocate of justice and defender of the peoples.” The priest’s lines of action had four axes: the reality being faced, the word of God in the face of it, the position of the church and the commitments that need to be assumed. He affirmed: “It is not enough to pray, did Jesus only pray? A faith without works is a dead faith. The word of God must be brought down to earth; it has repercussions in real life.”
To his people he warned: “You are the light of the world. You are the salt of the earth. If the light is out, how are you going to illuminate economic, political and social life on a daily basis? Among many other struggles, he accompanied the democratic teachers’ struggle against Enrique Peña’s educational reform. He walked in their marches, spoke at their rallies and advocated for them in his homilies.
On several occasions, caciques, politicians and narcos tried to kill him. On other occasions, they put a price on his life. First 150,000 pesos, then 400,000, the third a million. The hitmen themselves confessed to him: “Father, this is our work. But to kill a father, it is too much. I don’t want to get my hands dirty.” The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) ordered the Mexican State to take precautionary measures in his case, which, of course, were not complied with. The prosecutor’s office knew who intended to kill him.
Perez knew what was at stake: “If it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t. I know that at any moment something could happen to me. But my faith is greater than my death. It’s worth risking my life for peace,” he observed. A tireless fighter for peace, his ideology can be summed up in two signs: an article of clothing and a melody. He wore, as a kind of civilian habit, a T-shirt with the image of Monsignor Óscar Arnulfo Romero, Metropolitan Archbishop of El Salvador, assassinated in 1980 during the celebration of a Eucharist, canonized in 2018. His favorite song was “No basta rezar” (It’s not enough to pray) by the Venezuelan musical group Los Guaraguo.
He explained to his parishioners the deep roots of his mission. “The system we have wants violence, not justice,” he would say. “This system is not humane. Peace unites us. We must seek to build a system that humanizes us.”
Yesterday, his people planted Father Marcelo back in his homelands. His murder leaves an enormous pain and emptiness. These are days of mourning for the indigenous peoples and anxiety for Chiapas.
Original text by Luis Hernández Navarro published in La Jornada on October 22nd, 2024.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.