Maurico Lopez International Department

Manuel Quintero, HAVANA, Cuba, April 29, 2005

(alc). Mauricio Lopez, a Latin American martyr, who sought to help others and share “not Taxi Heathrow Airport like a partner, but like a neighbor,” is the name of a new department in the Evangelical Theology Seminary (SET) in this Cuban city.

In these terms, the distinguished Uruguayan thinker Julio de Santa Ana expressed himself, a personal friend of Mauricio, in a conference that took place in the SET on April 26 to officially inaugurate the International Mauricio Lopez Department (CIML).

The CIML is an initiative that seeks to disseminate the memory and the work of the renowned Argentine ecumenical leader, as a Christian who lived his Evangelical commitment to the final consequences.

“Living was a constant in Mauricio’s life,” said Santa Ana, adding that the disappeared professor and ecumenical leader “gave without expecting anything in return” and did so “with class and humor.”

Lopez, who was born in Mendoza in 1919, graduated from the Philosophy and Arts Faculty of the National Cuyo University in 1946. At the end of the 1950s he was Latin American secretary for the Universal Federation of Student Christian ! Movements and later Secretary in the Church and Society Department in the Ecumenical Council of Churches, Geneva, Switzerland.

After carrying out specialized studies in the Sorbonne in Paris, he returned to Argentina and was named the first dean of the San Luis National University. He worked to restructure the university and implemented the ideals of a democratic and participatory education and supported the active role of students.

As a result, he was expelled from the University by the military in March 1976.

On January 1, 1977, a group of the Tactical Operations Commando, following orders from the Sub-zone 33 Military Commando, entered the apartment where Mauricio lived with his mother and other elatives. Once the members of the house were identified Mauricio was told to dress. He was put in the back seat of an unmarked Peugeot 504 and taken away to an unknown destination.

Despite strong pressure from Churches, ecumenical organizations and governments from some countries, Argentine judicial and military authorities never revealed the fate of Mauricio. In 1994 he was declared “absent by forced disappearance,” according to the terms of law 24.321

Recent investigation and testimony indicate that Mauricio was likely taken to La Lajas, near Mendoza in the department of Heras, close to the El Plumerillo Airport. There prisoners were tortured before being moved or were killed if the War Council had condemned them to death. Mauricio is thought to have died from torture.

As well as disseminating Mauricio’s thinking, whose works were gathered by Oscar Bracelis and edited in 1989 under the title “Christians and Social Change in Argentina,” by the Ecumenical Cuyo Foundation, the new SET department will promote studies about Latin American and world reality with an inter-disciplinary focus.

It will also be responsible for editing the magazine Christianity and Society, an important legacy from the ISAL and ASEL movement, where Mauricio was one of its most renowned leaders.