By Johari Jabir

Honoring the nine martyred priests of Mexico

When I was just a boy in the king’s court, I overheard the king say to the merchants of death: “Kill the priests first. They are the village vanguard.” The fact that our king would betray his own came of no surprise to us, little boys in his harem whose small bodies he touched night after night. Yet, it was the priests who made sure our infinity remained untouchable.

Every evening ‘round midnight, in slow solemn procession, shamans, sages, and priests circled the edges of the village  sprinkling water crystals, wafting sweet incense, tossing kisses at the moon, and touching the tree leaves with their fingers, turning them into green lanterns. Out of all the sacred specialists, it was the priests who translated our collective moans and counted, one-by-one, the tears in god’s face.

The priests were killed but they did not die. The goddess of the underworld, Ala, gathered the souls of the priests and clutched them in her womb. When the time was right, she unleashed the priest’s souls onto modernity’s monster, the Slave Ship. Middle Passage catastrophized life’s order but catalyzed a spirit, a culture. Shattering the past while scattering possibilities of New World African Conjurers, Root Workers, and Priests, like me. From St. Louis, Missouri to St. Thomas Parish in Jamaica; Alabama to Alberta; Mississippi to Mexico, priests are the village vanguard.

In Memoria

(Revs) Juan Angulo Fonseca (1970-2023)
Javier Garcia Villafana (b.? – 2023)
Javier Campos Morales (1954 – 2023)
Joaquin Cesar Mora (1956 – 2023)
Gregoria Lopez Gorostieta (1984 – 2023)
Reynolds Rivera (1948 – 2023)
Jose Alfredo Lopez Guillan (1980 – 2023)
Ruben Alcantara Diaz (1973 – 2023)
Archbishop of Guadalajara, Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo (1926 – 1993)

Blessed are those who serve in solidarity with the poor
for God dwells not in the pockets of the rich
but in the poor in spirit
in the wandering deer of a thirsty soul

by and by
when the morning comes
dictators and despots, shall all pass away
so too, shall the cartel, MI6, and the CIA

may global struggle be fortified
radical solidarity be sanctified
God’s Love Supreme be Magnified
In the name of Romero
Cardinal
Dorothy Day
and MLK

Johari Jabir (right) is an artist, scholar, and contemplative. A native of St. Louis, Missouri, Johari is director of music at St. George & St. Matthias Episcopal Church in Chicago, IL, and he teaches in the department of Black Studies at the University of Illinois Chicago. His first book, Conjuring Freedom: Music and Masculinity in the Gospel Army of the Civil War (Ohio State University Press, 2017), is a cultural history of the nation’s first Black regiment, the 1^st South Carolina Volunteers.