Salvadorans help mark anniversary of U.S. missionaries' deaths

Published: 2005-12-06

SAN SALVADOR (CNS) -- A parade of Salvadoran youths, carrying banners with pictures of four murdered U.S. missionaries, processed into the San Salvador cathedral in one of several events to commemorate the women's 1980 deaths. San Salvador Archbishop Fernando Saenz Lacalle celebrated the Mass to remember Maryknoll Sisters Maura Clarke and Ita Ford, Ursuline Sister Dorothy Kazel and lay missioner Jean Donovan, who were raped and shot Dec. 2, 1980, by members of the Salvadoran military. Their deaths, months after the murder of Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar A. Romero, came near the beginning of a 12-year civil war in which 75,000 people were killed. Among those at the Dec. 3 Mass were an estimated 400 Salvadorans and family of Sisters Clarke and Ford, as well as U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern, D-Mass., and former Sen. George McGovern, a close friend of the congressman and the Democratic presidential candidate in 1972. "What you see in all this is a reminder of the four women and the six Jesuits and Archbishop Romero who all were killed a quarter century ago," James McGovern told Catholic News Service. "Their memories are still very much alive."

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