CCIDD ALERT  MAY 2006

 

 

GERARDO THIJSSEN DIES, UNTIRING DEFENDER OF HUMAN RIGHTS

 

     The above headline appeared on the front page of the Jornada de Morelos, one of Cuernavaca’s major newspapers, last Saturday, May 20.  Of course, you knew him better as that charismatic and committed Dutch missionary who spoke with almost all of our CCIDD groups challenging you to “come down from the stands and get into the game” in the struggle for social justice, kin-dom building.

 

     Gerardo was a very close and good friend.  As my daughter Ivonne’s godfather, he was my “compadre” – an important relationship here in Latin America.  We knew each other in Chile and he lived with Gaby and I for the first six months upon his arrival in Cuernavaca.

 

     Gerardo involved himself with CCIDD from the very beginning when we functioned as an international dimension of the diocesan pastoral plan under Bishop Sergio Mendez Arceo, the most radical Roman Catholic bishop in the world.  Later, in 1982, he was a founding charter member of CCIDD when we became a legal non-profit foundation and continued on our board until his death last week.

 

CIRCUMSTANCES OF HIS DEATH AND FUNERAL

 

     Gerardo was in relatively good health and still active until about ten days before his death.  Indeed, he insisted in participating briefly in the occupation of a Cuernavaca ravine to save it from destruction (see story in the new CCIDD newsletter).  He had fallen recently and broken his hand.  A few days later, he was admitted to a local private hospital because of an intestinal stoppage but indications were that he should be able to leave in a couple of weeks.  However, two days later he was transferred to the social security hospital when his situation turned worse.  His intestines were not functioning (the necessary contractions) and toxic liquids were building and affecting other organs like the kidneys and liver.  Doctors were afraid to operate because of a long standing heart condition.  They finally needed to attempt an exploratory operation but he died on the operating table about 7pm on Thursday, May 18.  The operation revealed that blood clots had blocked the blood flowing through the veins enriching the intestine which had caused its paralysis.

 

     Gerardo’s wake was from 7am to 3pm at the municipal funeral home at La Paz cemetery in Cuernavaca.  Many people came to pay their respects to this great man.  A mass was concelebrated by three priests about noon which lasted an hour and a half due to the many moving testimonies different people made concerning Gerardo’s commitment and guidance within struggles for justice and faith.

 

     All followed the hearse one block to the crematorium where his ashes were given to his wife Irene and me three hours later.  I was the last person to say my farewell with the crematorium.  He looked like he was asleep with the coffin.  Not like a corpse.  I took his hand assuming it would be cold and rigid.  It wasn’t.  I felt within me a profound feeling that he would be opening his eyes.  He didn’t.

 

Gerardo had requested that people not have the traditional novena (nine days meeting to pray the rosary, etc.) but something focused on building the kin-dom of God here on earth and putting into practice what he and Don Sergio Mendez Arceo had taught.

 

The Don Sergio Foundation has organized a novena in the Casa del Encuentro (same property as CCIDD) where we are meeting at 5:30pm each day to remember Gerardo, his teaching and how we will apply it.  A final big event of celebrating his passage to a new life will be held at the Benedictine Sister’s retreat center on Sunday, May 28.

 

CCIDD will very much miss Gerardo both as board member and even more his powerful witness within our programs.  The different groups of Christians that he formed along with the social movements that they struggle within will also miss his presence greatly.  We can only hope that part of his moving force will still motivate our efforts from above.

 

 

A BRIEF BIOGRAFY

 

     Gerardo was born on July 11, 1926; one of fifteen children from a poor rural family.  He decided to enter the Congregation of the Sacred Heart to become a missionary priest and received the customary philosophical and theological formation.  Arriving to his assignment within a very poor rural parish in Chile in 1952, he soon had his traditional teaching questioned by the material impoverishment but spiritual richness of the people.  He found himself within the Diocese of Talca working under Bishop Manuel Larrain, also a giant within the Latin American church.  Don Manuel is considered the main architect for forming the Latin American Bishop’s Conference, first in the world, in 1955.

 

Gerardo grew in awareness and commitment while forming an alive church struggling to improve the lives of its people.  Forced to leave the area by the wealthy landowners due to his commitment with the poor, he was made the second pastor of a huge squatter settlement in Santiago, the capital of the nation.  Working with its 30,000 inhabitants, mostly politically socialists and communists but also deeply Christian, they developed a model of church as the people.  He helped transform those of his parish and they very much transformed him while working with faith for social justice.

 

Gerardo headed the pastoral team there.  A young priest named Gustavo Gutierrez would travel from Peru to live and reflect with them.  He then wrote a book named Liberation Theology based very much on his contact and experiences with Gerardo.  Thus, Gerardo could be considered the grandfather if not the father of liberation theology.

 

The very bloody military coup occurred on Sept. 11, 1973 in Chile.  Gerardo was one of the most wanted by the soldiers.  They arrived at his squatter settlement, killed two youth who would not tell them where he lived and riddled his church with bullets.  A friend who was the auxiliary bishop brought him to the Dutch embassy hidden in the trunk of his car.  After having spent some time in Holland, he returned to Peru hoping to find a bishop willing to accept him.  None would.  He then went to Ecuador where he was thrown in prison.  Remember Don Sergio, he called and was invited to come to work in Cuernavaca.

 

Gerardo could not adapt to the so sacramental focus of the priest here so asked Bishop Sergio for permission to be able to be reduced to the lay state.  As such, he continued to work as a lay missionary with the moral and financial support of his religious congregation until his death.  His widow, Irene Ortiz, shared his thirst for justice through her strong feminist involvements, especially relating to the struggle of the domestic workers.

 

Gerardo dedicated himself primarily to working with the base ecclesial communities during the past 28 years.  He founded the GER, Groups of Study and Reflection, to better form leadership for the communities and other struggles.  He was the primary force behind the formation of the Sergio Mendez Arceo Foundation as well as being instrumental in CED, the Center for Encounters and Dialogues.  Where there was a worker’s struggle or strike, a problem in a poor neighborhood, a struggle against the imposition of COSTCO or the peasant’s plight; Gerardo was there.

 

At his final moments, Gerardo was calm and ready to accept the Will of the Father, to enter into that final trip with faith and satisfaction and giving thanks that God called him into such a rewarding mission in life.  The newspaper headline said it as Gerardo would have liked:  UNTIRING DEFENDER OF HUMAN RIGHTS.                     ADIOS GERARDO, ADIOS COMPADRE 

                                                                                                   RAYMOND PLANKEY