"Betray Not the Fugitive"

By Richard N. Ostling

Churches defy the law to give sanctuary to Salvadoran exiles

In a makeshift, third-floor apartment inside Seattle's University Baptist Church, a young woman refugee from El Salvador prepares for the birth of her baby, while down the hall a Salvadoran army deserter waits until he can flee to Canada. In Chicago's Wellington Avenue United Church of Christ, a Salvadoran family of six lives above the gym. "If they make us go back," says the father, "we will disappear and die for certain."

The Seattle and Chicago churches are part of a growing ecumenical network of U.S. congregations, at least 43 to date, that are openly invoking the ancient right of "sanctuary" within a holy place to shelter more than 100 illegal refugees, mainly from El Salvador, who have escaped from Central America. Hundreds of other churches are giving aid to refugees and supporting the movement. To hide their identities, many of the fugitives wear masks while on public view in the churches. The United Methodist Church and United Presbyterian Church have asked their 47,000 congregations to proclaim sanctuary, and the board of directors of the American Friends Service Committee has urged Quakers to give asylum to the refugees.

Though most of the sanctuary congregations are Protestant, Milwaukee's Roman Catholic Archbishop Rembert Weakland last month opened archdiocesan property to the refugees and on Easter weekend personally baptized, in Spanish, two children of the seven Salvadorans. Says Weakland: "Sanctuary is not really a way of avoiding justice, but a holy respite so that true justice can eventually be done." But three other Catholic prelates, Joseph Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago and Archbishops John Roach of St. Paul-Minneapolis and James Hickey of Washington, have criticized the movement, arguing that Catholics should aid refugees through legal means and lobby to change laws. Roach, who is president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, feels that granting sanctuary may be illegal, although the concept has never been tested in court.

Christians who advocate lawbreaking for a higher good believe it is futile for the Central American exiles to apply for legal residency. Some 250,000 are in the U.S. illegally, and last year the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) approved only 74 applications for asylum from Salvadorans, rejected 1,067, and faces a backlog of 25,000 other cases. The Government, which has deported 24,700 Salvadorans since 1980, argues that most Central American refugees are ineligible to be granted asylum under U.S. law because they are fleeing harsh economic conditions rather than political persecution. The INS declares that there is no proof that those deported from the U.S. have been tortured or executed, although Salvadorans in the U.S. insist that those who have been sent back have disappeared or been mistreated.

The INS states that it has no plans to raid church premises to seize refugees, noting that it has enough trouble dealing with Salvadorans it can easily reach. Says an INS agent in Chicago: "We have no wish to inflame passions." Thus the hundreds of church members involved in the movement are unlikely to face the statutory penalties of up to five years in prison and a $2,000 fine for harboring illegal aliens. But the fact remains that those granting asylum have to come to terms with their open defiance of the law.

The concept of sanctuary in a holy place was known in ancient Athens. Today's sanctuary advocates often quote Isaiah: "Hide the outcasts, betray not the fugitive." From the early Christian era until the 17th century, when its power declined, the Catholic Church in Europe provided havens. The practice was revived in the U.S. before the Civil War to aid fugitive slaves. During the Viet Nam era, some draft resisters sought shelter in churches, but were unceremoniously seized by federal agents.

For John Steinbruck, a Lutheran pastor in Washington, the issue today is compelling and clear: "The church by definition is a sanctuary. If we don't accept that, we ought to stop false advertising and close up shop." However, Roger Shinn, a social ethics professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York, doubts that the historic concept has any bearing in the U.S.

The sanctuary movement was started two years ago by Quaker Jim Corbett and colleagues in the Tucson Ecumenical Council. The movement's national coordinator is the Chicago Religious Task Force on Central America, which has sent booklets promoting the sanctuary ministry to more than 5,000 inquiring congregations. Last month the National Council of Churches and the Lutheran Council in the U.S.A. began sending their congregations materials on helping the refugees.

As they grant sanctuary, many congregations feel that they are benefiting from the experience as much as the refugees. Pastor John Fife of Tucson's South-side Presbyterian Church says that providing a refuge has been a "conversion experience" that has enriched the faith of his parishioners. Fife's church, one of the most important in the movement, has sheltered and then passed on to churches in the north more than 450 Central American refugees. --By Richard N. Ostling. Reported by Anne Constable/Washington and Lee Griggs/Chicago

With reporting by Anne Constable/Washington and Lee Griggs/Chicago This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.