Arkansas parish coping with murders, charges filed against mother

Published: 2006-02-20

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (CNS) -- A priest in the Diocese of Little Rock said he is trying to walk spiritually with his parishioners as they grieve the loss of three young members who were murdered. Father Salvador Marquez-Munoz, pastor of St. Barbara Church in De Queen, is also serving as a spiritual counselor to parishioner Eleazar Paula Mendez after she was arrested Jan. 29 for allegedly smothering and possibly poisoning her three children -- 7-year-old Elvis and 5-year-old twins, Samantha and Samuel. The priest said his appointment calendar is filled for several weeks with private meetings he has scheduled with parishioners who are grieving and wanting to express their own traumas. He said some members want to discuss "different wounds that were never closed completely. ... Many of them have mixed feelings." Mendez and her children relocated to De Queen last May but the children's father, Arturo Morales, remained in New York, where he was a construction worker. Father Marquez-Munoz also counseled Morales during his visit to De Queen for the children's funeral Feb. 2 and burial Feb. 8.

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