Prophets & Martyrs of Quiche
In Guatemala with SOA Watch delegation we went to visit Bishop Ramazzini of Huehuetenabgo one of the worst hit errors during the massacres of Mayans by the military of the government. The Bishop was noted as a human rights advocate and on the way in to the meeting room we noticed a poster on the wall of “prophets and martyrs” of the region. Both Roy Bourgeois, the founder of SOA Watch and I knew one of the persons picture on the poster in the bottom right hand corner, Padre Lorenzo Rosebaugh OMI. I knew him since the days of the Milwaukee 14 action in 1968. Roy knew him for a long time and Lorenzo, Roy and another person committed the first act of civil disobedience at the School of America’s training base for Latin American military in Fort Benning, GA.
Right before returning to the USA from years of work in Guatemala Lorenzo had been shot when driving a car with other Oblate priests in the area where he had served and the place of much violence against the indigenous people and priest and nuns who worked with them. His religious order said he was killed in a car robbery but many people in the area and others that new Lorenzo, a simple and humble man, thought differently. During the question and answer period Roy asked the Bishop about the circumstances of Lorenzo’s death. He did not add much more to the information except to say they had found the gun that killed Lorenzo not the killers.
In my 2006 trip to Guatemala I had met Lorenzo in Guatemala City and taken a picture of him that was used by the media in reports of his death. The pictured captured the spirit of Lorenzo. The one in the corner of the poster captured a sadder Lorenzo. Both pictures are below.
Many who knew him in Latin America and the USA consider him a Saint, a holy man that was very humble. He stayed at our house the last couple of visits to the USA where he was ordered by superiors to write down his life story and have it published. The book, “Wisdom Through Failure” was not a bestselling but a powerful book to all that read it. As they say in the vigil of those who died in Latin America as a result of our military training of soldiers, “Lorenzo Rosebaugh, Presente!
Picture of Lorenzo on poster
Picture of Lorenzo in Guatemala
City 2006
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