Hi. My name is David Staniunas. I'm Records Archivist at the Presbyterian Historical Society. Today, I'm joined by the Reverend Dick Lundy of Wayzata, Minnesota. During over the course of 25 years, his congregation accompanied a man named Rene Hurtado, who fled El Salvador as a seeker of sanctuary in the church. Dick, you've been really generous with your time, and thank you for that. You have sent us a kind of narrative history of the church's work with Rene. I wonder if you could start us off by talking about 1980 and how Saint Luke got interested in Latin America?

Sure. One of the members of Saint Luke was on a national committee of the Presbyterian Church with John Fife. And he learned that what John had to say and was doing. And he said to me, I'll pay for his airfare if you put him in your pulpit. And we did that. And John came and told us what he was doing in helping people get across the border and invited us to become a more like church. We. We? We talked about that for some time. And then John called up and said, I have this guy who is hot because he was arrested in Los Angeles because he bought a car and it turned out to have been stolen. He's here insane. In in in with Southside. And John said, I'm going to El Salvador. I'd like to have him in safe in Minnesota. Well, that changed the whole guilty dialog within our church. We no longer were talking about it. Should we become a sanctuary church? We were talking about Can we say no to this man? And we said we could not. And so he came. He was on an underground railroad to Minnesota and in to Milwaukee. And we went, three of us, and met him there and heard the archbishop talk to the boys in in in their own time. And we brought them home. And. He got a lot of publicity because he was willing to talk about having been a member of the military and having been invited to join a death squad by going out and murdering somebody that night. He and his he left El Salvador for the United States because he refused to do that. His girlfriend's mother had told him that he did not have to be cruel in order to be masculine. And so he he took her advice and left. So that's how it all started for us.

Gets you started. What were some of the early struggles surrounding maintaining sanctuary for Rene?

Well, at first he stayed in the he stayed with a family until we got publicity in the local press. Then he stayed in the church, and church people came to spend the night with him and to bring him food. Then he began to speak to other churches in the upper Midwest. And at that point, the US, the U.S. military, they became alarmed and tried to get me to get him to a meeting with them. We refused to do that. And when they began to talk about having been in a in a in a military, that was cool and awful, some of his translators were better at translating than others. So. Summertime time, it sounded like he had confessed to killing and he had said, we killed. I mean, meaning, members of the military

[off camera] Not killed, raped

Oh. So and we we he spoke to the colleges and churches and other groups all over the upper Midwest. The military tried to arrange to meet him. Army attorney and one man came to see me and said I was probably lonely. Here's a book. I'd like to load him for a few days and then he could bring it back. And I blew my thumb that I saw on the cover of the book. Hell no. But that was the way they tried to get him. Then finally he was arrested and taken to jail in Saint Paul. We were so well-organized that by the time the military got him to fill in Saint Paul, we had about 50 people and grew to several hundred people on the street outside of their office.

Dick. What? Remind me which military authorities specifically were trying to get in touch with the church and get to Rene.

I. They were U.S. Army people.

Okay. Rene in the kind of narrative history you've handed to us. Rene also talks about the significance of the School of the Americas.

Yes.

Yeah. So his he explains that the unit that he was a part of received military training from the U.S., from U.S. assets.

When he was in jail. We we had a contact with the former president of El Salvador who was in in exile in Canada. We brought him. To meet René. We smuggled him into the jail as an interpreter, and the former president said, this man is telling the truth. I know he he knew the procedures involved in guarding me and other presidents of El Salvador. It's clear he is telling you the truth about what he did in El Salvador. That was an amazing event. Then it became. It became clear that he had been fingerprinted in jail and that the government would soon discover his own name, his real name. So it was decided that somebody should go to El Salvador to help his family, because we believed his family was in danger. It was suggested that his pastor should be the one to go. There was a discussion in the government, in the governing body, the church. One man said, if we don't let it go and something happens to his family, we will feel guilty the rest of our lives. If we let that go and something happens to him, we'll be proud of him for the rest of our lives. They those pride over guilt. And so I went to El Salvador with a Spanish speaking woman and with a woman we met in Texas who had been a groupie with with the blacks in San Francisco. And she had a good relationship with her, with the colonels in El Salvador. So we all went and stayed in the Hilton Hotel. And made contact with his family. We also discovered through church work service in El Salvador and in Costa Rica, that it was possible for the family to leave El Salvador and go Costa Rica. Because we offer them the way to go and then we didn't have anywhere for them to go. The church service world service officer in El Salvador is in Guatemala and also in Costa Rica. Made a deal. And I sat outside of the cathedral and somebody came up and I gave them lots of money and that. But we're in a religious family. Airplane tickets to fly as tourists from El Salvador to Costa Rica when they arrive. We had made arrangements to buy them a small. Several acre farm in the suburbs of the town. And they were able to support themselves forming. And then. It became possible for them to leave and come to the United States. That was several years later. All of his brothers and sisters have college degrees that they got there in Costa Rica. His father had open heart surgery in Costa Rica. So the whole family benefited in marvelous ways from Rene's courageous act to leave the country and declare himself.

Going back to Rene's story specifically. You said that he was detained in Minneapolis, detained by I.N.S. or some other agency.

I think. I think I think my representatives of the U.S. Army. I don't I'm not clear about that.

Okay.

I'd bet he was in the hole. He was. In the jail in Saint Paul, across the river from Minneapolis. And. He was there in and the whole immigration system at the court. He appeared in court three times. Who judges? The first to didn't find him in. In being truthful. The third judge from Chicago came. And found him innocent. And by then. It was some 15 years before that, after the beginning of the thing. Members of our church would start would would show up to demonstrate that he was had a big support system. And so we were all involved. Not on a daily basis, many people but in the support system anything that the court that he was a model citizen and working and involved in a church and things like that.

And so after the sort of brief period of detention by the US Army and St Paul, there's basically 15 years of struggle within the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Yeah.

Amazing.

But what what was kind of like daily or what was the kind of daily or weekly routine for Rene and members of the church while he took shelter inside of St Luke's?

What? What did he do?

Yeah. What was it? Kind of daily or weekly routine for him and for church members.

After he lived in the church for a while, we decided he really didn't need to do that. So he lived in a home about. A block and a half away, and people would come and stay with him there. And then he got a job working in a bakery and. He was in. He was included in the families of the church. When. When it was Thanksgiving time and Christmas time and all that, he was apart. I was at church yesterday and talked to. The woman he calls his mother here in this country. And she's she's entertained him for all family events. He is, I guess we need to say he is married. He married an attorney who was not not his attorney. We had the benefit of three human rights attorneys in Saint Paul who worked on his case for Bono for many years.

You mentioned that, Rene, and I imagine you and other members of the church did speaking tours and kind of interpretation surrounding sanctuary to other churches and other groups.

Yes, we did. And when he was when his English wasn't good, that's when we got into trouble, because the term translators said he said he killed people. And what he was saying was that I was a member of the military in which people were killed. He and he early on, he admitted when he was as a member of the military, he was to go out and kill two young women. He admitted that he he raped them instead.

And that was a mistake. That was a mistranslation.

Yeah. So yeah, he became very much a part of our congregation and our families and and and people have been to Costa Rica to visit his family. And they still have some. Some people are they're still looking for a new saw. So I know. But most of whose brothers and sisters came to this country.

Yeah. We're. We're most of the audiences that you spoke to Presbyterians in the Upper Midwest.

Yeah, Presbyterians, but college campuses. And it was a time when Sanctuary was very much in the press and we were able to provide them with a real live person. And so there was a lot of interest. And so we we sort of wore out several translators who got invited. Over and over again to come.

Can you reflect on kind of the response that Presbyterians and Presbyterian Church has had to? To your speaking tours to witness the Rene Lloyd thing.

I think we were well received. Mm hmm. We were not asking people to become sanctuary church, but we were interpreting what we thought was of a mistaken government policy. And to tell you the truth, we were so swamped with helping him live and then helping him speak that we didn't have enough energy or members to go out and tell people specifically, this is the steps you need to do to become a sanctuary church. And we did. We could not do that organizing for them. There were several other churches in the bay in the Twin Cities area who were sanctuary churches. They were not Presbyterian, but they did not got the publicity that. That we had.

Dick. Do you remember those other churches in the Twin Cities area that were sanctuary?

No. I'd have to go back. Okay. To go research.

Now. That's fair. Can you tell me about. Can you tell me anything more about the network of people that it would have taken to get Rene from? I think El Centro or to get him from the Southwest border crossing to Milwaukee. Like, how does that as the Underground Railroad, as you said.

You had railroad people who agreed to to. Try to drive Rene and several other people with him to to another location where they meet somebody who would also drive them further. That's the way they travel across the country. At the same time, my wife, my first wife was in. In the Southwest. And she was driving. She was riding in a car in which they were taking people to Denver.

Yeah.

And she was arrested and. To let the judge. Allowed her to come home and stay until she was convicted?

No, she was a unindicted, unindicted coconspirator.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

She's allowed to be. She had to stay in the house. She was under house arrest until the trial was over.

Yeah. This is Mary Ann Lundy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That was. That was in action separate from what we were doing.

Yeah. Yeah.

But it's the time. And John five was was convicted as a felon.

You mentioned earlier, picking up Rene in Milwaukee and the archbishop speaking to Rene and other men. Do you do you remember that, archbishop?

I don't remember. We'd have to look at who was in power the time, but.

Okay.

He is a marvelous service. He. He came down out of the pulpit in his great red gown. And put his round his arms around each. Of these refugees from El Salvador. And then we had been all of us had been sitting up in the choir in front of the church. Then they turned on the lights and the TV cameras came and we all went down the center aisle. We applied to the end of the archbishop was a very powerful event. Then we ended up spending the night with the sisters who were sympathetic and were able to house us.

That's wonderful. But another thing you mentioned, Marianne Lundy's. Connections of John Fife and her period under house arrest. During the trial of Fife and his collaborators, Marianne has talked about being surveilled by government authorities and harassed by phone. Yeah. Do you remember anything about that period or also in in St Luke's experience?

At that time, she was working either for the YWCA or the denomination in New York, and she got involved with five directly from New York. And then the judge said she had to come back and live with me. And I remember we met her at the airport and all of a sudden, Hail Mary, don't you? We don't you cry and had a great celebration out in the airport in Minneapolis. So my friend said. Well, the punishment we had. She had to live with you again.

There was. Did did St Luke's as a church experience surveillance or harassment?

Hmm. No, I don't think so. I think I think once in a while we had a visitor. We couldn't quite. Understand who he was and. We had enough publicity, though, so that when the military wanted to loan him a book, they met me in a park and gave me this book to share with him. And then there was another person who who hoped that we would somehow incorporate him in our system. And we were a little leery of all of that. So we didn't do that sort of stuff. We kept it within the church and it. We were all I should say, we were all sort of naive. Doing all of this and getting so much publicity. Last week, I went to a funeral memorial service of a man who was very instrumental in the church. And the day in which Rene went first time to church, he wore a mask and his picture was taken out on the front page of the Tribune. And the man I helped mourn two days ago was in the sea right behind Rene. And he was. It was a very powerful. Officer of a huge bank in the Minneapolis. And I remember he said, I maybe I'll lose my job on Monday morning when they see me here. But they didn't. He didn't lose his cool. It. Anyway. It was exciting. Useful. We were proud. And we finally did something besides just take a position. We helped a whole family.

Yeah. Yeah. You did more than talk about it.

Yeah.

Yeah. St Luke's is still really active. Advocate for the poor and oppressed around the world. Can you talk a little bit more about what St Luke's is currently up to?

St Luke's, yes. Very, very much involved that it's suffered. It's suffered several pastors that didn't fit after me and it lost a lot of membership. So it is like many churches. Struggling for numbers. It's the people who were instrumental in this. Action that we took many years ago or now. My age or older or dead. So there are people there who remember this fondly, but they don't. They've moved on to other issues. The church has a long history of being a peace and justice church. I'll tell you one other story. Peter Hiebert was the one who met me at the airport when I flew here from from Illinois in campus ministry. And Peter, after I'd been here for a month and a half year, said to me, Dick, I like to take your lunch. And I said, Fine. He said, Well, it's in Washington, D.C.. I said, okay. So we went to Washington because Saint Luc had raised money for the organization of Senators called peace through law. And it had contributed significant money for that before I got there. Anyway, Peter took me to Washington to meet the general. The retired general who was instrumental in all of this. We walked in and Peter said to the receptionist, I've come to see the general. And she said, I'm sorry, the general's not in today. And he said, Would you please tell him that Peter Hegarty came to say hello to him? And she said, The Admiral is here. So that was a sort of a clue about the way he's in this in this little suburban church he'd been involved in. Lots of stuff.

Yeah, but it was connected enough to organize actions in DC.

One time several pastors before me. It had been a a had the church. And Huddart. You're a big name in the post Korean church. And Barbara, that was the pastor and when I came to. Serve the church to people. To pastors. Afterwards, I would say I was pastor of St Luke and they would say, Oh, that's a Dutch church. Anyway, he had it created a. An active. Church. Not just studying, but action. And if you are going to be a good Presbyterian, you had to do what you had to do, study and action. Not bad, huh?

Yeah. I'd like to thank you for your time. Is there. Is there anything else that you'd like to talk about regarding sanctuary and. The work at the church in the present.

I think. I think I will say that there were several members of the church who. Who? Spent. Almost full time. Programing, Renee, and getting him speeches and support and in support. Nancy Burlingame was one of the primary. Unfortunately, she died at an early age. But. She is the one who who got the credit for having 500 people on the court outside the court the day he was arrested. We had such a telephone system going that within several hours, people showed up at the jail. And Nancy. Nancy, if she were still here, you'd be interviewing her for sure.

Yeah.

Oh. There are other people, too, but they're sort of second string compared to Nancy. Okay. Is this what you wanted to hear?

I loved hearing your voice. Thank you so much.

Yeah.

Yeah.