Salvadorans and Americans recall slayings in 1980 of missionaries
Catholic san Francisco Northern California’s Weekly Catholic Newspaper
NONHUALCO, El Salvador (CNS) — As the yellow American school buses made the turn off the old San Salvador-airport road, the U.S. passengers fell silent, reflecting on the final moments of four American missionaries killed in 1980. More than 100 delegates, including priests and nuns, tried to imagine what is was like as Maryknoll Sisters Maura Clarke and Ita Ford, Ursuline Sister Dorothy Kazel and lay missioner Jean Donovan were waylaid by members of the Salvadoran military at a roadblock just outside the country’s primary airport. “When the soldiers with them turned their van down this dirt road, these women had to have known they were facing their last few minutes on earth. It was so very moving,” said Sister Marie Lucey, a member of the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia and associate director for social mission with the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. The four missionaries, working mostly with poor peasants in war-torn El Salvador at the beginning of a 12-year conflict that would result in the deaths of more than 75,000, were tortured, raped and murdered at a remote rural enclave surrounded by cornfields and small farms. The site is now one of the country’s holiest sites and has become the focal point of annual pilgrimages for those remembering their service to the disenfranchised people of this tiny Central American nation. The SHARE Foundation, an ecumenical organization that promotes twinning between U.S. and Salvadoran faith organizations, was one of about a dozen North American groups in El Salvador to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the women’s deaths. Dozens of Salvadorans greeted and prayed with the North Americans under a tarp that added to the shade of the small grove where a chapel and a concrete monument mark the place where the women were killed and subsequently buried the night of Dec. 2, 1980. “I was most moved by the people of El Salvador who were there to greet us, who told us about their memories of Ita, Dorothy, Maura and Jean, how they influenced their lives and how they were devastated when they learned they had been killed,” Sister Lucey said. “I had last been to the site in December 1990 at a commemoration then,” Sister Lucey said. “But we weren’t allowed to visit the site by the EL SALVADOR, page 6
(CNS PHOTO BY LINDA PANETTA)
By Dennis P. O’Connor
Salvadorans process into the San Salvador Cathedral for a commemorative Mass Dec. 2 for four U.S. missionary women who were murdered by members of the Salvadoran military in 1980.
At City Hall, Bishop John Wester joins in call for moratorium on death penalty By Jack Smith As the number of persons executed since the 1976 reinstatement of the death penalty approached one thousand last week, Bishop John C. Wester, Apostolic Administrator for the Archdiocese of San Francisco, joined anti-death penalty advocates at a City Hall rally in calling for a moratorium on what he called “a deeply flawed” practice. The San Francisco rally Nov. 30 brought together disparate groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, United Farm Workers, representatives of major faith traditions, as well as a large con-
tingent of “Save Tookie” activists. Stanley “Tookie” Williams, a convicted quadruple-murderer, and cofounder of the Los Angeles based Crips gang is scheduled to be executed Dec.13 at San Quentin. Bishop Wester addressed the crowd representing the sentiments of California’s Catholic Bishops. The bishops, he said, strongly support “an end to the death penalty,” and call on all Californians to reflect on “what good comes from state-sanctioned killing.” While recognizing the “profound pain of those MORATORIUM, page 6
INSIDE THIS WEEK’S EDITION Trade talks and poor. . . . . . . 3 Terrorism and Iraq . . . . . . . . 5
Third Sunday of Advent
Scripture and essay . . . . 10-11
Dec. 11
Datebook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
December 9, 2005
Jubilarians, Part II . . . . . 12-14 Death penalty . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Vatican II Anniversary
‘Narnia’ review
Classified ads. . . . . . . . . . . 19
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No. 38