On March 24, 1980, Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero, who would later be sainted, was shot and killed during Mass. Most of his life, he was a Catholic conservative who opposed the Liberation Theology movement rising within the Church.
Until, living in a poor rural area, he saw firsthand the suffering of the people. Then, in 1977, his dear Jesuit friend, Rutilio Grande, an outspoken advocate for the landless poor, was assassinated. After his death, Romero began publicly denouncing the arrests, torture and murders of those fighting for human rights. Three years later, he too lay dead. The fellow Catholics who thought he’d sold out to Marxism wanted him silenced and were complicit in his murder. But among the people, he is beloved for standing shoulder to shoulder with them, in life and in death.
Alejandro Solalinde is a priest in Oaxaca, whose life in many ways echos Archbishop Romero’s. He, too, could have been comfortable in the Church hierarchy. He, too, acted on his belief that the poor must be prioritized — which may account for his friendship with former president López Obrador, who also insisted, “First, the poor.”
Father Solalinde is well known in Mexico and internationally for giving away all his worldly goods and living in the shelter he built for migrants passing through Oaxaca on their dangerous journey north. Helping migrants threatens the existing social order, which includes the drug cartels operating in collusion with local authorities. But attempts on his life have not deterred him.
We talked with him less about the daily drama of his life than about the spiritual principles that compelled him to his life of service. May we all, Catholic or not, find our way to his Kingdom of God.
Father Alejandro Solalinde is well known internationally for his courageous defense of migrants passing through Mexico. He says that human beings “are now commodities,” because “we are in a neoliberal-capitalist system that does not recognize the dignity of the person and instead treats them as a means for enrichment and accumulation… we must raise our voices to recognize their dignity and demand that they be given an opportunity, because they are victims of this destruction by the same capitalism in their places of origin.”
When and why did you become a priest?
When I was 18 and an architecture student at UNAM, I received God’s call to devote my life to His work — those who are not people of faith don’t understand this. In the Catholic seminary, where novices study for 10 years, wonderful priests greeted me. They taught me not to be rigid but to always learn and change. That led me to question the traditional formal education of the Catholic Church.
I completed my studies, and the people in the Seminary wanted me to go to Rome.
But I didn’t want to be a cookie-cutter priest, the kind that depersonalizes their relationship to the people. Instead, I became a parish priest in rural Oaxaca for 30 years. Even there, the Church higher-ups, the bishops and others, pressured me to follow their bureaucratic way of relating to parishioners.
How does your understanding of Catholicism differ from that of the institutional Catholic Church?
I have faith in the congregation members who are doing God’s work on the ground. The Church has a hierarchical, top-down clerical structure — I’m in favor of a lay structure, where non-ordained activists have greater importance, including a role in decision-making.
The official model of Jesus portrays him as a priestly figure, performing the rituals, giving mass, hearing confession, absolving people of their sins — a Jesus who runs a little store where you can buy forgiveness. To me, Jesus was a teacher. He often spoke in parables, stories that made his message understandable to everyone he spoke with as he traveled about. He went out to the common people, to where they lived, connecting with each in love and peace.
I believe — with Jesus, not the official Church — in the preferential option for the poor. That is, our main mission is to serve those who have been left out and left behind.
And then I differ on the role of women. Is Catholicism masculine? No! It’s clear from the Bible that Jesus’s life was full of intelligent, resourceful, activist women.
Take Mary Magdalene. She’s been portrayed as a prostitute, saved by Jesus. Actually, she was the owner of a fish store and donated money to him and, like many other women, was an evangelist, a missionary. Women accompanied Jesus throughout his life. Catholicism should have no dominant gender.
The “preferential option for the poor” is a core teaching of Liberation Theology. Would you put yourself in that camp?
Liberation Theology originated in the struggles of the people of Latin America. In the latter part of the 20th century, Christians joined forces with Marxists to resist severe and brutal right-wing oppression. They fought for justice together — and learned from each other. Liberation Theologists learned about the historical importance of the working classes in bringing about transformative change. And the Marxists learned that not all religion is “the opiate of the people.” Liberation Theology grew out of the cross-fertilization of Christianity and Marxism.
I have many friends who are Liberation theologists, but I am personally not interested in labels or “camps.”
You made a major theological contribution with your book El Reino de Dios: Replanteamiento Radical de la Vida 9 (The Kingdom of God, a Radical Rethinking of Life).
Finding the Kingdom of God has been my main query. What is it? How will it come about?
In my early studies, we read the Bible in both Latin and Greek, and much of it was confusing to translate. In Luke 17:21, the Pharisees ask, “When will the Kingdom of God come?” In Greek, Luke’s answer was that it is entos, which could be translated as “in you” or “among you.” I’ve come to believe that the text means “among” — that is, in the interrelationships between people. If we change our human relationships to become ones of trust, love, respect, truthfulness and justice, we will be in the Kingdom of God.
Was it your commitment to the poor that led to your work with migrants? Why did that lead to attempts on your life?
No, I met migrants by accident when I was traveling on the train. I’ve always had migrants in my community. Originally, the Mexican Bishopric funded my work. But during Peña-Nieto’s presidency from 2012 to 2018, I was very critical of his and the PRI/PAN government and its ties to the conservative Catholic Church. They cut off my funding, and I had to strike out on my own.
Because I saw that migrants were in danger, I began accompanying them and set up a migrant shelter where they could stay and receive help. I didn’t realize that I was interfering with narco activities, including kidnapping, extortion and even the trafficking of human organs.
Corrupt government officials worked with them and attempted to put me in jail. They burned down my building — with me inside it! But none of that has stopped me.
With this dangerous environment, how are you feeling about Oaxaca’s future?
Oaxaca isn’t generally marked by violence. I’m hopeful — even as I’m mindful of the world’s wars and cruelties. I believe in the resurrection of Jesus. I believe that the Holy Spirit will grow in people’s consciousness. I believe in change. And I believe that migrants and women are the ones who will change people’s hearts and their relationships with others, and who will expand the Kingdom of God.
