Joaquin and Xavier

Last Monday, June 20, the Jesuits Javier Campos Morales SJ and Joaquín Mora Salazar, SJ were assassinated inside the Cerocahui temple, in the Sierra Tarahumara of Chihuahua.

In that remote village they lived and worked. Javier had been accompanying the Rarámuri for half a century; Joaquín arrived for the first time in 1976 and had had several stays in the region.

He returned permanently to the mission in the year 2000. On Monday afternoon, gunmen tried to kill a person who sought refuge in the temple. Joaquín and Javier found him there, badly wounded and helpless; The criminal followed him there.

While one of them helped someone who needed comfort, the executor killed the fallen, and then the one who cared for the wounded, perhaps with the anointing of the sick.

Then he shot the other priest, and then they took the bodies… They were not young: Javier was 79 years old and Joaquín, 81.

They should have retired a long time ago, a rare practice among members of the Society of Jesus if they are healthy and willing to give. In theory they never stop working, because when they are old or sick, some receive visits and give spiritual and human direction to those who seek them; others write, and all receive an important task within their spirituality: Pray for the Company and its works.

Joaquín and Javier worked in the Cerocahui parish, cared for and accompanied their indigenous brothers, and in addition to their pastoral responsibilities, they carried out human promotion, education and organization tasks among the neighboring Rarámuris.

Javier was also the superior of the mission, a work several hundred years old of the Company, which since the Colony has cared for that vulnerable mountain population.

I have known them since 1969. It is hard for me to say I met: It is difficult to accept a violent and unexpected death. In those years they were studying Theology in Mexico City, I was a Philosophy student. We live something. Joaquín, “Morita”, was quiet and shy, spoke little, withdrawn and gentle. Javier, “El Gallo”, was more extroverted.

I had met his father during my short time at Itesm. Some who studied and lived at the Tec in the 1960s, in the student dormitory, will remember a somewhat round man, somewhat bald and with gray hair, who walked through corridors and dining rooms, always wearing a jacket and tie, friendly and firm, who was the manager of that boarding school and dining room. He was Mr. Campos, Javier’s father. And although his death is close to us, it must be said that they are part of a huge series of murdered in Mexico.

They chose to accompany a population that has always been excluded and mistreated. They lived among them, shared their tortillas and tejuino, followed them in their dances and their celebrations, in their jobs and shortcomings. They came from outside, they were “chabochis”, strangers, outsiders.

They chose to become one with them, share life, and ended up sharing death as well. Almost a perk of the trade… And now they are part of a huge group, for many anonymous.

His death has a paradoxical value: It reminds us that all those who have died and disappeared in recent decades have a name and surname, job and family, someone who remembers them and mourns them.

Javier and Joaquín had a job and a job, illusions and dedication, families, brothers and friends. Their lives were valuable, like those of many whose names we do not know, but they are named and longed for in their families and their towns.

They are missed and needed, they are mourned and remembered; and they are a permanent demand for justice. Because the insecurity and impunity that multiply these atrocities is not new, nor is it anonymous: Our governments have often tolerated, or have been complicit with, those who use violence to establish terror in the regions, to plunder peasants and indigenous people and terrorize to the poor and excluded forever.

This government says it wants change, that’s why we support it; We also demand…

Joaquin and Xavier