Rutilio Grande

Rutilio Grande García, SJ (5 July 1928 in El Paisnal – 12 March 1977 in Aguilares) was a Jesuit priest in El Salvador.

Rutilio Grande was born on 5 July 1928, the youngest of 7 children, to a poor family in El Paisnal, El Salvador.

His parents, Salvador Grande and Cristina García, divorced when he was young and he was raised by his older brother and grandmother, a devout and strong Catholic woman.

At the age of 12, Rutilio was noticed by Archbishop Luis Chavez y Gonzalez during his annual visit to their village and was invited to attend the high school seminary in San Salvador, the capital of the country.

At the age of 17, following the final year of high school seminary (minor seminary), Grande entered the Jesuit process of the formation called the novitiate.

Thus began a period of time outside of El Salvador.

Grande first traveled to Caracas, Venezuela, since there was no Jesuit novitiate in Central America.

Initially, Grande felt called to the missions of the church in Oriental countries of the East.

After two years in Caracas, he pronounced his vows of poverty, Chastity and, obedience and then traveled to Quito, Ecuador to study the humanities, which he completed in 1950.

The following three years were spent as a professor in a minor seminary in El Salvador where he taught sacred history, history of the Americas and of El Salvador, and writing.

Grande continued his studies for the priesthood at the major seminary of San José de la Montaña, where he became friends with Romero, a fellow student.

Grande was ordained a priest in mid-1959 in Spain in the city of Oña.

He returned to Spain in 1962 to complete studies left undone due to his physical and mental struggles.

In 1963 he attended Lumen Vitae Institute in Brussels, Belgium, where he studied new directions in pastoral ministry inspired by Vatican II.

He was particularly influenced by his experiences of an inclusive liturgy which insisted upon the widest and deepest lay participation possible at that time.

As his biographer stated, "Very probably at this moment his fundamental lines of pastoral action matured. Certainly, a part of this epoch in pastoral theological development was to always look for the greatest participation possible by the base or least empowered part of a community, and to never proceed autonomously or without hearing the community."

He returned to El Salvador in 1965 and was appointed director of social action projects at the seminary in San Salvador, a position he held for nine years.

From 1965 to 1970 he was also prefect of discipline and professor of pastoral theology.

He taught a variety of subjects including liturgy, catechesis, pastoral theology, and introduction to the mystery of Christ (philosophy).

He also fully utilized the social sciences in an effort to understand the reality within which he lived and ministered.

During this time, Grande initiated a process of formation for seminarians which included pastoral "immersions" in the communities they would someday serve.

This included time with people listening to their problems and their reality.

Grande put it this way, "the first contact with the people was to be characterized by a human encounter; to try to enter into their reality in order to leave with common reality."

This innovative aspect of formation lasted for a year or two, and then the bishops asked that seminarians be sent back to their dioceses during their breaks so they could be supervised and relationships with the bishop could be better established.

Grande eventually had a falling out with the leadership of the seminary over his methods for formation and evangelization.

He disagreed with the insistence that seminarians separate their intellectual formation from their pastoral formation.

Grande sought equilibrium between prayer, study, and apostolic activity.

There he learned the method of conscientization of Paulo Freire and combined it with the pastoral theology of the Medellín Conference (a meeting of Latin American bishops in 1968).

Attendance at this Institute was a turning point for Grande, for he was finally able to integrate Vatican II, the teaching of the Latin American bishops, and his own reality in Salvador in a ministry that had explosive consequences.

Shortly after this falling out with church leadership, and reconciliation over his criticism of the seminary system, Grande would attend the Latin American Pastoral Institute (IPLA) in Quito, Ecuador beginning in 1972.

Upon his return to El Salvador in 1973, Grande embarked on a team-based Jesuit evangelization "Mission" to Aguilares, El Salvador.

Deeply engaged in the lives of the people he served, Grande led with the Gospel but did not shy away from speaking on social and political issues, which had profound consequences for the church.

He could be credited with promoting a "pastoral" liberation ministry that began in scripture and allowed lay people in El Salvador to work for social transformation without resorting to Marxist analysis.

Grande was prophetic on issues of land reform, the relationship of rich and poor, liturgical inclusiveness, workers' rights, and making the Catholic faith real for very poor people.

He was fond of saying that "the Gospel must grow little feet" if Christ is not to remain in the clouds.

Grande had been master of ceremonies at Romero's installation as bishop of Santiago de María in 1975 and remained a friend and confidant of Romero, whom he inspired through his ministry and through the ultimate sacrifice he made.

He was assassinated in 1977, along with two other Salvadorans.

He was the first priest assassinated before the Salvadoran Civil War started and a close friend of Archbishop Óscar Romero.

After his death, Romero changed his silence and urged the military junta to investigate the murder.

His beatification, through his status as a martyr, was approved by Pope Francis on 21 February 2020, with the ceremony being held on 22 January 2022.