Last week marked the 45th anniversary of the murder of four churchwomen in El Salvador: Maryknoll Sisters Maura Clarke and Ita Ford, Ursuline Sister Dorothy Kazel, and lay missionary Jean Donovan.
Why it matters: Donovan and Kazel were members of the Diocese of Cleveland’s mission team, and they remain a source of inspiration and models of courage for a number of local Catholics — and for me personally.
Flashback: I went to Urban Community School, which was run for decades by the Ursulines, and was exposed at a young age to the Salvadoran civil war.
- The local mission team’s work with the poor, in the face of U.S.-sponsored military violence as detailed by the Center for Justice & Accountability, shaped my own politics and definition of heroism.
What she said: “Several times I have decided to leave El Salvador. I almost could, except for the children, the poor, bruised victims of this insanity,” Donovan wrote to a friend in the weeks before her death.
- “Who would care for them? Whose heart could be so staunch as to favor the reasonable thing in a sea of their tears and helplessness? Not mine, dear friend, not mine.”
Zoom out: Cleveland’s InterReligious Task Force on Central America (IRTF) was formed in the aftermath of the murders, to live out the legacy of the churchwomen: “standing in solidarity with oppressed peoples as they struggle for peace, dignity and justice.”…