The Jesuit Martyrs of El Salvador
20 years ago, on 16th November 1989, 6 Jesuits, their housekeeper and her daughter were murdered in El Salvador.
Over the next few days, all round the world they will all be remembered in Masses and in prayer services. We will all have the chance to reflect on the witness of their martyrdom. Perhaps it might stir you to think further as to whether God is calling you to the kind of life that they led, a life founded on a companionship with Jesus present in the suffering of the poorest of our world.
All the Jesuits who died that day, Ignacio Ellacuria, Segundo Montes, Ignacio Martin-Baro, Amando Lopez, Juan Ramon Moreno, and Joaquin Lopez y Lopez, knew the risks they ran in working for a more just society in El Salvador. Like the Jesuit Rutillo Grande, assassinated in March 1977, they knew the truth of the statement: ‘It is dangerous to be truly Catholic. It is almost illegal to be an authentic Christian in our society, in our country’ (Grande).
At their funeral the then Provincial of El Salvador, Fr. “Chema” Tojeira said, ‘Our Jesuits were working for peace built on the rights of the poor. In death they have shared the fate of so many poor Salvadorans, assassinated because they sought liberation through peaceful means. We have no doubt that the reason for this assassination is the commitment to peace and justice made by our priests’.
It is now thought that it was perhaps Ignacio Ellacuria that the authorities sought to silence and that the others were killed because the soldiers were told not to leave any witnesses. What is certain is that this atrocity helped open the eyes of so many to the cost of the brutal civil war that was afflicting the country.
After the murders many Jesuits from around the whole volunteered to come to El Salvador to continue the work of those who died. Let’s pray ourselves, through the intercession of the 6 Jesuits and their house keeper, Julia Elba Ramos and her daughter Celina Ramos, that there will be more men entering our novitiates who in the years to come will be able to make a similarly generous offer. Lord Jesus, may we not be deaf to your call.
