 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Segundo Montes" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(January 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
 |
| Part ofa series on |
| Persecutions of theCatholic Church |
|---|
 Catholicism portal |
Segundo MontesSJ (May 15, 1933 – November 16, 1989) was ascholar,philosopher,educator,sociologist andJesuitpriest who was born inValladolid,Spain and died inSan Salvador,El Salvador. He was one of the victims of the1989 murders of Jesuits in El Salvador.
Segundo Montes grew up inValladolid,Spain, where he also went to secondary school until 1950. On August 15, 1950, he entered thenovitiate of theSociety of Jesus inOrduña. After a year there, he moved toSanta Tecla in El Salvador under the mentorship ofMiguel Elizondo, who described him as an adolescent who hit the football so hard against the wall of theIglesia El Carmen that he rattled the roof tiles.
When he fulfilled his studies in the novitiate in 1952, he followed the steps of otherJesuit students inCentral America and moved toQuito to studyclassicalhumanities at the Catholic University. In 1954, he began studies in philosophy, fulfilling hislicenciatura (licenciate) in 1957. He then returned to San Salvador to teach at the schoolExternado San José. In 1960, he returned to university to studytheology. He started inOña, where he lived for a year. He later moved toInnsbruck, 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 inUniversidad Centroamericana "José Simeón Cañas" (UCA). 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 between 1973 and 1976, he wasRector of Externado San José, which was precisely a moment when the school was going through a deep identity crisis. The consequences of theSecond Vatican Council and theEpiscopal Conference of Medellín had made Externado San José express apreference 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 Salvadoranelites, 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. This changed, however, as the political environment in El Salvador became more polarized later in the 1970s. He was not singled out inpropagandistic 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 afterIgnacio Ellacuría andIgnacio Martín-Baró.
Gradually Segundo Montes started assuming more responsibilities in UCA as a lecturer in social sciences. For a period, he worked as aDean in theFaculty ofNatural Sciences. To prepare himself foracademia, he travelled toSpain, and in 1978 he completed aPhD inSocial Anthropology inUniversidad Complutense inMadrid. Hisdissertation was about "compadrazgo" relationships in El Salvador. Hisfield work included interviews that he performed on weekends in the western part of the country.
He returned to teachSociology in UCA, and starting in 1980, he was the head of the Department of Political Sciences and Sociology. Between 1978 and 1982, he was a member of the editorial board in theacademic journalEstudios Centroamericanos (ECA). He was also a member of the editorial board of theBoletín de Ciencias Económicas y Sociales and the journalRealidad 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 oflawyers who put together UCA's law study program. Beginning in 1984, he headed theresearch project on Salvadoran refugees. 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 themaster's degree in sociology.
A prolific writer, Segundo Montes left behind a series of articles and books. From 1982 and onwards he wrote at least one book a year. He wrote mostly inSpanish, and so far none of his works originally in Spanish have been translated toEnglish. However, his research on refugees, displaced people andhuman rights made him well-known internationally. He visitedWashington, D.C., on repeated occasions, to testify in the corresponding committees in theUnited States Congress, to defend the rights of Salvadoran refugees. His last trip to Washington was in early November 1989. In one of the halls of Congress, the organisationCARECEN (an organisation for the assistance of refugees) granted him a prize for defending the rights of Salvadorans.[1]
Segundo Montes did research and wrote onsocial stratification,land ownership, the possibilities for democracy and the military. His work on these issues is still a dominant influence on the theoretical frameworks employed by researchers to analyse Salvadoran society. His work is referenced in studies ofpower distribution and the effects of emigration on Salvadoran society. His published articles included an analysis of economic, political, and other motives for Salvadoran emigration to the United States. It addressed claims by the United States government that Salvadoran immigrants were economic refugees who therefore did not qualify forpolitical asylum.[2]
The political implications of Montes' commitment to his ideas met strong opposition from theconservative religious and political forces in El Salvador. This opposition led to Montes' murder by theSalvadoran Army in 1989 at his residence in UCA along with five other fellow Jesuit priests (among themIgnacio Ellacuría andIgnacio Martín-Baró) and two employees. Their murders marked a turning point in theSalvadoran civil war (seeHistory of El Salvador). It increased international pressures on the Salvadoran government to sign theChapultepec Peace Accords with theguerrillas.
