Segundo Montes

Segundo Montes (May 15, 1933 in Valladolid, Spain – November 16, 1989 in San Salvador, El Salvador) was a scholar, philosopher, educator, sociologist and Jesuit priest.

Segundo Montes grew up in Valladolid, Spain, where he also went to secondary school until 1950.

On August 15, 1950, he entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus in Orduña.

After a year there, he moved to Santa Tecla in El Salvador under the mentorship of Miguel Elizondo, who described him as an adolescent who hit the football so hard against the wall of the Iglesia El Carmen that he rattled the roof tiles.

When he fulfilled his studies in the novitiate in 1952, he followed the steps of other Jesuit students in Central America and moved to Quito to study classical humanities at the Catholic University.

In 1954, he began studies in philosophy, fulfilling his licenciatura (licenciate) in 1957.

He then returned to San Salvador to teach at the school Externado San José.

He worked for two periods in Externado; from 1957 to 1960 and 1966 to 1976.

He taught physics for many years, and he was responsible for the laboratories in the school.

He was a Prefect of Discipline and Administrative Director.

In 1960, he returned to university to study theology.

He started in Oña, where he lived for a year.

He later moved to Innsbruck, where he completed the three remaining years of studies.

He was ordained a priest July 25, 1963.

He returned to Externado San José as a teacher and was naturalised as a Salvadoran citizen.

Segundo Montes spent most of his time in the school Externado San José or in Universidad Centroamericana "José Simeón Cañas" (UCA).

This changed, however, as the political environment in El Salvador became more polarized later in the 1970s.

He was not singled out in propagandistic government pamphlets against critical intellectuals until towards the end of his life, when his name started figuring in the lists of Jesuits who were accused of being revolutionaries.

His name was commonly the third one after Ignacio Ellacuría and Ignacio Martín-Baró.

Gradually Segundo Montes started assuming more responsibilities in UCA as a lecturer in social sciences.

For a period, he worked as a Dean in the Faculty of Natural Sciences.

In between 1973 and 1976, he was Rector of Externado San José, which was precisely a moment when the school was going through a deep identity crisis.

The consequences of the Second Vatican Council and the Episcopal Conference of Medellín had made Externado San José express a preference for the poor and to prioritize education that contributed to modify the social differences in El Salvador.

This sort of discourse was not well received by the Salvadoran elites, who had been traditionally served by Externado San José.

Segundo Montes handled this crisis in a constructive way.

He was very popular among students and he had many friends.

To prepare himself for academia, he travelled to Spain, and in 1978 he completed a PhD in Social Anthropology in Universidad Complutense in Madrid.

His dissertation was about "compadrazgo" relationships in El Salvador.

His field work included interviews that he performed on weekends in the western part of the country.

Between 1978 and 1982, he was a member of the editorial board in the academic journal Estudios Centroamericanos (ECA).

He was also a member of the editorial board of the Boletín de Ciencias Económicas y Sociales and the journal Realidad Económico Social.

He was a regular contributor to these journals.

He also gave many lectures for national institutes, colleges, worker's unions, cooperatives and political parties.

He was also a member of the board of directors in UCA.

He headed the team of lawyers who put together UCA's law study program.

He returned to teach Sociology in UCA, and starting in 1980, he was the head of the Department of Political Sciences and Sociology.

Toward the end of the 1980s, he was the managing director of the human rights institution he founded: Instituto de Derechos Humanos de la UCA (IDHUCA), and before his death, he was preparing the program for the master's degree in sociology.

A prolific writer, Segundo Montes left behind a series of articles and books.

Beginning in 1984, he headed the research project on Salvadoran refugees.

He was one of the victims of the 1989 murders of Jesuits in El Salvador.