Against the background of ecological devastation in the Americas, a growing list has emerged of environmental defenders whose care for our common home has cost them their lives. In Ecomartyrdom in the Americas, Elizabeth Gandolfo explores the meaning of their witness in relation to three recent developments in Catholic theology: the expanded understanding of martyrdom to include those who die in defense of gospel values (justice, concern for the poor); the expansion of Catholic social teaching to include care for creation; and the call for interreligious dialogue and cooperation. “Theology is at its best when it centers the margins, and Gandolfo’s book is an excellent addition to a prophetic legacy pleading for the interruption of extractivism. The convenience we enjoy costs too much if the price is the health and welfare of others. We are living too shortsightedly if our enjoyment of the earth’s spoils does not take into account the long-term detriment of creation.”- Chris Burton, Christian Century Book Review “From Óscar Romero to Marielle Franco and the Guardians of the Amazon Forest, we live among the living memories of those who were assassinated for fighting for our common home and holding our common life together. Gandolfo gives us an absolutely timely book that helps us to understand that, unless we remember those who are gone and join in the struggle of those still protecting the earth and our common living, we won’t have any world left in which to live. ”― Cláudio Carvalhaes, author, Ritual at World’s End: Essays on Eco-Liturgical Liberation Theology “Gandolfo makes presente a Latin American prophetic vision where everything is alive and where resurrection continues in a people’s ongoing journey toward another world already in our midst. Beautifully written with piercing analysis, it is a book for re-forming the church into solidarity with all Creation.”― Leo Guardado, Fordham University “Beautifully written and profound in its insight, Ecomartyrdom in the Americas is a timely and urgent call to conversion.”― Daniel P. Castillo, author, An Ecological Theology of Liberation: Salvation and Political Ecology RELIGION / Christianity / Catholic RELIGION / Christian Theology / Liberation BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Religious ECOMARTYRDOM IN THE AMERICAS Living and Dying for Our Common Home Elizabeth O’Donnell Gandolfo Ecology & Justice Series ORBIS LOGO ISBN 978-1-62698-512-4 Cover design: Pone Sheehan Cover art: “Ecomartirio, voz de la tierra – fuerza de vida” by Alexander Serpas. Permission granted by artist. Elizabeth O'Donnell Gandolfo is Edith B. and Arthur E. Earley Assistant Professor of Catholic and Latin American Studies at Wake Forest University School of Divinity, Winston-Salem, NC. She is the author of The Power and Vulnerability of Love: A Theological Anthropology and co-author of Re-membering the Reign of God: The Decolonial Witness of El Salvador's Church of the Poor . Preface Martyrs of Solidarity, Seeds of Hope In October 2015, a group of pilgrims from El Salvador visited the Vatican to give thanks for the recent beatification of their beloved prophet, saint, and martyr, Archbishop Óscar Arnulfo Romero. Now canonized a saint in the Roman Catholic Church, Romero was assassinated on March 24, 1980, for his prophetic denunciation of economic injustice and political violence, especially the violence meted out against the Salvadoran people by the country’s military government, which was backed by the United States and intent on preserving the wealth and power of the Salvadoran oligarchy. During a papal audience with the pilgrims, Pope Francis honored Romero’s martyrdom with a message about the centrality of martyrdom for the Christian church: “From the beginning of the life of the Church, we Christians, persuaded by the words of Christ, who reminds us that ‘unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone’ ( Jn 12:24), have always maintained the conviction that the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians.” For the Salvadorans on pilgrimage that day, along with their companions at home and millions of others throughout the world, Archbishop Romero certainly is a seed of hope whose witness continues to bear fruit in what Francis called “an abundant harvest of holiness, of justice, reconciliation and love of God.”1 And yet Romero is not a traditional martyr, killed by non-Christians in odium fidei, out of hatred for the faith. Rather, he was killed by fellow Christians out of hatred for his insistence that the Christian faith demands solidarity with the poor and oppressed, active commitment to their liberation, and the creation of a just society in which the abundance of Creation might be shared by all. Like Romero, thousands of other Christians and people of good will also laid down their lives for the sake of justice, liberation, and peace in late-twentieth-century Latin America. These “martyrs of solidarity,” as Michael Lee aptly names th