Gaspar García Laviana

Father Gaspar García Laviana (called Ángel, Martín, and Miguel as noms de guerre) (1941 — December 11, 1978) was a Spanish Roman Catholic priest who took up arms to fight as soldier in Nicaragua with the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) in 1978. Year 1941 ( MCMXLI) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (the link will display 1941 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Events 359 - Honoratus, the first known Prefect of the City of Constantinople, takes office Year 1978 ( MCMLXXVIII) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link displays the 1978 Gregorian calendar) Spain () or the Kingdom of Spain (Reino de España is a country located mostly in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Nicaragua (ˌnɪkəˈrɑgwə officially the Republic of Nicaragua () is a representative democratic republic and the largest nation in Central America The Sandinista National Liberation Front ( Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional) is a socialist Nicaraguan Political party.

García Laviana was born in 1941 in Tuilla, Langreo, Asturias (Spain). Year 1941 ( MCMXLI) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (the link will display 1941 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Langreo, ( Asturian Llangréu) officially Llangréu / Langreo is a municipality of northern Spain, province of The Principality of Asturias The Principality of Asturias ( Spanish: Principado de Asturias, Asturian: Principáu d'Asturies or Asturies) is an Spain () or the Kingdom of Spain (Reino de España is a country located mostly in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. He became a Sacred Heart priest in 1966. The Sacred Heart is a religious devotion to Jesus ' physical heart as the representation of the divine love for humanity Year 1966 ( MCMLXVI) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar of the 1966 Gregorian calendar. After taking charge of a church in Logroño for three years, working at the same time as a carpenter, he moved as a missionary to Nicaragua in 1969. Logroño is a city in northern Spain, on the Ebro River. It is the capital of the Autonomous community of La Rioja, formerly known as Logroño Year 1969 ( MCMLXIX) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Through his missionary work with Father Pedro Regalado in the parishes of San Juan del Sur and Tola in the department of Rivas, García Laviana worked closely with the Nicaraguan peasants and was intimately aware of the many hardships they faced. San Juan del Sur is a coastal city on the Pacific Ocean, in south-west Nicaragua. He often visited sick individuals and was appalled at the lack of accessible and affordable medical care and education available for peasants. He joined other progressive Christians in concientización (or awareness raising) in poor rural communities around the country. His noisy complaints about the neglect of the poor, including sit-ins in government offices, caught the attention of Anastasio Somoza's dictatorship. García Laviana also vocally criticized the brothels located nearby, operating under the protection of Somoza's Guardia Nacional. When he exposed this scandal on the radio, the Guardia Nacional, at Somoza's urging, tried on two occasions to assassinate him. He fled to Costa Rica where he met exiled members of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). The Sandinista National Liberation Front ( Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional) is a socialist Nicaraguan Political party. He agreed with them that the overthrow of Somoza was a moral--even religious--necessity. After agonizing soul-searching, and deep reading in church doctrine, he decided that taking up arms to fight evil did not violate his Christian principles. His decision was broadcast in two secretly distributed public letters that made clear that, with a heavy heart, he felt armed struggle was his Christian duty as a priest in solidarity with the oppressed. Trained in explosives in Cuba, he returned to Central America and joined the "'Benjamin Zeledon' Southern Front" in the Sandinista guerrilla war against Somoza. His unit was betrayed by a traitor and was ambushed on a farm along the Costa Rican border called "El Infierno. " Gaspar rose up to fire when he should have stayed down; he was killed instantly. He never lived to see the triumph of the insurrection the following July.

A closet poet, García Laviana expressed his outrage at the oppression of the poor peasants and their marginalization in society, as well as his own mixture of emotions as he took up arms, in many secretly circulated poems that, after the triumph of the insurrection were published as a collection in 1979 called Songs of Love and War; this was the first book published by the Sandinista government's Ministry of Culture, headed by another poet and priest, Ernesto Cardenal. Year 1979 ( MCMLXXIX) was a Common year starting on Monday (link displays the 1979 Gregorian calendar) Biographies include GASPAR VIVE by Fr. Manuel Rodriguez Garcia (privately printed, 1981) and !GASPAR! A SPANISH POET/PRIEST IN THE NICARAGUAN REVOLUTION by David Gullette (Bilingual Press, 1994) which contains a bilingual collection of his most important poetry.

Father García Laviana was a priest who was greatly influenced by the spirit of Liberation Theology which focused on a "preferential option for the poor" declared at Vatican II and the Latin American Bishop's conferences at Medellín and Cuernavaca. Liberation theology is a school of Theology within Christianity, particularly in the Roman Catholic The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, or Vatican II, was the twentieth century Ecumenical Council of the Roman Catholic Church. Medellín, officially the Municipio de Medellín (Spanish or Municipality of Medellín (English pronunciation mɛdəˈjiːn or, Spanish: or) is the second Cuernavaca (Cuauhnāhuac|kʷaw̥'naːwak is the capital and largest city of the state of Morelos in Mexico.

Daniel Ortega, president of Nicaragua, acknowledged the importance of García Laviana's participation in the revolutionary struggle. José Daniel Ortega Saavedra (xoˈse ðanjεl ɔrteγa saˈβeðra(born 11 November 1945 is the current President of Nicaragua. García Laviana's involvement in the Nicaraguan Revolution encouraged Catholics to support the FSLN by providing the revolutionary movement with a sense of moral legitimacy. Many of García Laviana's concerns became priorities for the Sandinistas when they assumed power. The revolutionary government took up health care as a major priority, implemented agrarian reform initiatives that redistributed land back to many peasants individually and in cooperatives, made education through the fourth grade free and universal, and denounced prostitution. Agrarian reform can refer either narrowly to government-initiated or government-backed redistribution of Agricultural land (see Land reform) or can refer more broadly

See also