Central America Travel Seminar: The day we met Jon Sobrino
BY DR. PAUL GALBREATH
This morning our group visited the Pastoral Center of Monsignor Romero at Central America University in San Salvador, El Salvador. It is the site where six Jesuit priests and two women were murdered in 1989. We were taken through the museum, garden, and Chapel to see and learn the story of this atrocity.
In the midst of our tour, we were invited to meet Jon Sobrino (pictured above at right with Paul Galbreath), a Jesuit priest and an esteemed member of the theological faculty who happened to be traveling at the time of the brutal killing of his colleagues.
Sobrino has long been an important theological influence in my own life. In 1985, I read “Christology at the Crossroads” and in my theology classes in Charlotte we read “Jesus The Liberator.” What an honor to see him still meeting with students and surrounded by his writings in his office.
When he came out to meet us in the hallway he announced, “All we have to offer is Oscar Romero and the others who have died.”
It was a challenging and sobering invitation to follow the way of the Cross as we discover the Gospel in the lives of the poor, marginalized, and suffering in our own communities.
With deep gratitude, we continue on our journey.
Dr. Paul Galbreath is a professor of theology at Union.
