Talking with Jose "Chencho" Alas

Jose “Chencho” Alas has led a dramatic life, which is more than I can say for most Catholic priests I know. But then again, Chencho is an ex-priest, forced to give up his vocation for his allegedly Marxist dealings. He’s been kidnapped, beaten, left for dead. Not the case with my local clergyman.
Chencho is a peace activist from El Salvador who has worked hard to gain land-owning rights for peasants. His vocation brought him into communities inhabited by both the rich and the poor, though he has a special affinity for peasants, having grown up as one himself.

Chencho is a learned man with a background in theology, cultural anthropology and economics. When I ask him if he’d like to go back to school, he laughed heartily. “I am 73 years old!” he said. “Besides, I am too busy.”

After completing his studies in El Salvador, Canada, Rome, and Belgium, Chencho moved back to El Salvador to preach the message of peace and economic rights for the poor. But when his close friend the Archbishop Oscar Romero was shot in the heart while saying Mass, Chencho was forced to flee the country. Threats to his life made his mission in El Salvador impossible.

Chencho moved to the United States and worked in Washington, D.C,. as an officer of financial operations at the Inter-American Development Bank. While in D.C., Chencho also found opportunities to speak with political leaders, explaining the economic and land ownership problems in El Salvador and across Central America.

Today, Chencho lives in Texas, where he serves as the head of the Foundation for Self-Sufficiency in Central America. Chencho’s greatest hope is that people can organize themselves and mobilize on behalf of their own economic and political freedom; sustainability and cultural understanding are key aspects of his mission. Despite relinquishing his role in the Church, Chencho feels closer to the work of God than ever before. During our conversation he explained, “Once I realized that I couldn’t be a priest, then I really could do the work of God. I was really free to do what I wanted.”

Read the findingDulcinea interview with Jose “Chencho” Alas

Isabel Cowles
Writer

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