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Excommunication for ETA?
Bishops consider move against terrorists
Spain’s bishops may excommunicate members of the Basque separatist group ETA, according to newspaper reports that appeared early in April.
The bishops’ conference was scheduled to meet on April 24 to discuss a formal decree of excommunication against those who have taken part in ETA’s violent 33-year-old terror campaign. The terrorists would be denied access to the sacraments—including funerals, which have taken on symbolic significance when an ETA member dies during violent activities.
Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco Varela of Madrid, who proposed the decree, said the Church has been heavily criticized in recent years, by both the government and the media, for being too passive in the fight against the separatists. “I have no doubt as to the legitimacy of the excommunication order, because terrorism is a very serious crime against life and democracy,” Cardinal Rouco Varela told the daily El Mundo.
ETA—an acronym for Basque Homeland and Liberty—has been fighting since 1968 for independence for the Basque provinces, which straddle the Pyrenees in Spain and France. Since it took up arms, the group has killed around 800 people, mostly security force members, in bombings and shootings. The Basque region, with a population of 2.1 million and a distinct language and culture, keeps its deeply rooted Catholic traditions, with 40 percent of the Basques regularly attending Mass.
The report that the bishops might excommunicate ETA members came as thousands of Basques made a windswept pilgrimage into the Pyrenees, to a Franciscan abbey there, to pray for an end to the conflict. The pilgrimage along treacherous mountain roads to the 500-year-old Sanctuary of the Virgin of Arantzazu, patron saint of Guipuzcoa province in northern Spain, is held annually on the day before Palm Sunday. The mile-long procession was led by Bishop Juan Maria Uriarte of Zamora holding a banner with the single word Bakea—Basque for “peace”—on it.
Bishop Uriarte, who in 1998 attempted to mediate between the government and rebels, made a plea for dialogue as the pilgrims set out on the five-mile walk. “It’s important to build bridges, not walls,” he said. “Dialogue doesn’t mean your view is drowned out. Dialogue can bring people together. We shouldn’t fear dialogue.”
Many Basques see the local clergy as the only truly impartial voices, and thus believe that the Catholic hierarchy may be capable of settling the conflict, at a time when the messages put out by both the government and the rebels have become increasingly strident. Bishop Uriarte pointed out that despite the difference between Spanish and Basque cultures, and even among the Basques themselves, they all share the common Catholic faith.