El Salvador

In response to “U.S. Aid Would Need to Stop,” editorial, Dec. 7:

“But if the campaign against church workers turns out in fact to be official Salvadoran government policy, this would be so intolerable that U.S. aid would need to stop at once,” the editorial concludes.

On our trip Nov. 19-22 to El Salvador to come to the aid of the Rev. Luis Serrano, an Episcopal priest, and his lay workers, we observed the persecution first-hand. We spent two days in a convent school filled with refugees from a Catholic parish whose church was ransacked and whose homes had been strafed. The sisters were graphic in their description of the terror. Serrano and eight lay workers are now imprisoned in Mariona Prison, charged with complicity in a military attack on the Armed Forces Headquarters last month. Lutheran Bishop Medardo Gomez is in exile, and his home was ransacked. Earlier this year his office was bombed. The list of incidents involving disappearances, arrests, charges and expulsions of church workers defies definition in a letter.

Indeed we must halt U.S. aid to the government and military of El Salvador. We must not participate in a war against the poor and the church which serves them.

REV. SUSAN BUELL

REV. TIMOTHY SAFFORD

MARY E. PARMENTER

All Saints Episcopal Church

Pasadena