Ita, Maura, Dorothy and Jean
Print Friendly Version| On the Road to Peace by John Dear S.J. | Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2006 |
| Vol. 1, No. 17 |
Dec. 2 was the 26th anniversary of the death of four North American churchwomen, killed in El Salvador in 1980 by U.S.-trained death squads. I remember exactly where I was when I heard the news. I was in my frat house at Duke University, bright and early. I stepped out of my room and reached down for the Durham Morning Herald and blanched at the headline: "Four churchwomen killed in El Salvador." Their bodies had been found in a shallow grave in a barren region some 15 miles from the San Salvador airport.
Three were nuns: Sr. Ita Ford of Maryknoll had spent years in Chile; Sr. Maura Clarke also of Maryknoll had spent years in Nicaragua; and Sr. Dorothy Kazel, an Ursuline nun from Cleveland worked in El Salvador. The fourth, a young laywoman, Jean Donovan, had volunteered to go to El Salvador through a church mission program.
Sr. Ita Ford stands, to my mind, as one of the church's giants. She was targeted specifically by U.S.-backed Salvadoran death squads because she stood up to them in defense of the disappeared. "You say you don't want anything to happen to me," she wrote her sister in 1980. "I'd prefer it that way myself -- but I don't see that we have control over the forces of madness, and if you could choose to enter into other people's suffering, or to love others, you at least have to consent in some way to the possible consequences. Actually what I've learned here is that death is not the worst evil. We look death in the face every day. But the cause of the death is evil. That's what we have to wrestle and fight against."
Sr. Maura Clarke spent 17 years in Nicaragua working against the U.S.-backed Somozoa dictatorship, before moving to El Salvador only months before her death. "If we leave the people when they suffer the cross, how credible is our word to them?" she wrote only weeks before her death. "The church's role is to accompany those who suffer the most, and to witness our hope in the resurrection."
Sr. Dorothy Kazel joined the Cleveland Mission Team in El Salvador and was assigned to work in the parish of La Libertad with Jean Donovan. Dorothy was beloved by one and all. She was feisty, lively and sweet.
Jean grew up in upper-middle-class Westport, Conn., attended the University of Mary Washington in Virginia, spent a life-changing year in Ireland, and tried to become an accountant. Instead, she joined the Cleveland diocese and Maryknoll Lay Mission programs to serve in El Salvador. After several years, she found herself in the center of a war zone. And more often than not, she and the others spent their days picking up murdered bodies left along the road.
"People are being killed daily," she wrote a friend in May 1980. "We just found out that three people from our area have been taken, tortured and hacked to death. Two were young men and one was an older man. The man had been in a government death squad, had a fight with them and quit. So that's probably why they got him. We had done a mission out there recently and they were coming to the celebrations. Everything is really hitting so close now."
That summer, Jean's two closest friends were assassinated after they had taken her to a movie and walked her home. Their deaths devastated her.
"The Peace Corps left today and my heart sank low," she wrote later that fall. "The danger is extreme and they were right to leave. Now I must assess my own position, because I am not up for suicide. Several times I have decided to leave El Salvador. I almost could, except for the children, the poor, bruised victims of this insanity. Who would care for them? Whose heart could be so staunch as to favor the reasonable thing in a sea of their tears and loneliness? Not mine, dear friend, not mine."
A few weeks before her death, she wrote of her efforts and her spiritual journey. "The situation is bad and believe it or not, at times I'm actually helpful. I also was trying to deal with some close friends who had been killed the last week of August. We are still plugging along. Life continues with many interruptions. I don't know how the poor survive. People in our positions really have to die to ourselves and our wealth to gain the spirituality of the poor and oppressed. I have a long way to go on that score. They can teach you so much with their patience and their wanting eyes. We are all so inadequate in our help. I am trying now more and more to deal with the social sin of the First World."
On the evening of Dec. 2, Jean and Dorothy drove to the airport to meet Ita and Maura, who were returning from Managua. The four women were last seen driving from the airport down the main road. Two days later their bodies were discovered. They had been raped and shot at close range Jean was only 27.
I carried the newspaper into my room and laid it on my desk and trembled over the words. The news pierced my complacency, their deaths changed my life. I was by now a senior, with plans already to enter the Jesuits. But the martyrdom of the four instilled in me something new -- the resolve and courage to follow Jesus like them, all the way to the cross.
I later befriended Jean's parents, Pat and Ray Donovan. Former Republicans and Reagan supporters, they went through a change of heart and publicly denounced U.S. militarism in Central America. I took up the task of organizing speaking events for them around the country. They urged me finally to go to El Salvador myself. So in 1985 I went to work there in a church-run refugee camp under the guidance of several Jesuits, who some four years later themselves were assassinated.
Towards the end of my stay, I traveled to the lonely remote spot where the four women were killed. A simple stone cross stood witness to their martyrdom. A plaque said: "Ita Ford, Maura Clarke, Dorothy Kazel and Jean Donovan gave their lives on December 2, 1980. Receive them Lord, into your kingdom." I lingered a good long time in silence.
Twenty-six years later, in a wild contagion of U.S. warmaking, Iraq has become El Salvador. Afghanistan has become El Salvador. So have Haiti and Colombia -- indeed, nearly the entire world. The United States has spread its malignancy across the planet. The United States, according to one general, trotted out the same strategies for Iraq as it employed in El Salvador.
In El Salvador, we trained death squads, rewarded bloodthirsty generals, financed juntas. We adopted a handful of millionaires who expropriated the nation's resources. We blessed the torture and rape of thousands. We fostered the killing of some 75,000 Salvadorans, including Archbishop Oscar Romero and six renowned Jesuits at the University of Central America. Such a dark litany cries out for sackcloth and ashes. Instead, our government ransacks our malevolent history and extends its "successes" to turn the world into the killing fields of El Salvador.
Despite all, I take heart, in part because I keep vivid the memory of Ita, Maura, Dorothy and Jean. They renounced First-World nationalism, the social sin of greed. They entered the world of the marginalized and destitute, and shared their powerlessness and pain. They stood in defense of the poor and gave their lives for them. To put the matter shortly, they showed us what it means to follow Jesus -- they give us a glimpse of the incarnation. My Jesuit friend Jon Sobrino put it this way: "In Ita, Maura, Dorothy and Jean, God visited El Salvador."
In such dark times as these, the four churchwomen call us to solidarity with the victims of our government. They call us to give our lives so that the killing will stop. Embrace their memory. Let their lives suffuse your life. Make their example your Advent meditation as we prepare for “Peace on Earth.”
| Archives | Signup for Weekly E-mail |
John Dear, S.J. is the author/editor of 20 books. His booklet, “Jean Donovan and the Call to Discipleship” is available from www.paxchristiusa.org. His latest book, You Will Be My Witnesses, (Orbis Books) features an icon and essay about Jean Donovan. For further info, see: www.fatherjohndear.org.
Katherine, my fellow
Katherine, my fellow Coloradan, I need much mote info about this subject and it seems you are my neighbor! :) Could you please contact me offlist (my e-mail is available) so we can meet at Foothills Hosp for a quick lunch? They have a great cafeteria near the thrift shop... Thanks, Star
Katharine Star, I'm sorry,
Katharine
Star, I'm sorry, but I have no idea how to contact you "off list." So, I'm going to give you one of my private mail boxes. kfw37@yahoo.com
I look forward to hearing from you.
kw
If you click on the blue
If you click on the blue user name, 'Shootingstar' , you'll get to the page for her personal info. On that page click the , ' Contact ' , button and you will get an e-mail form all ready to fill in and send.
Humans Grow In Virtue Not By Being Forced To Repeat Virtuous Actions But By Freely Choosing Such Actions
Katharine Corinne, I am so
Katharine
Corinne, I am so sorry, I called you Connie. I did not have my glasses on.
Now, just as I posted my message, I see that Shootingstar has posted a response to Pat. I don't want to take that on, but most recently it has been the "Coffee Barrons." Now that the large plantations owners have also abandoned many of the old plantations, it is now the Maquiladoras (Google it) that "own" Central America.
Katharine, Thanks for the
Katharine, Thanks for the info and also the first-hand account of your work with the pueblo in Central America. Please don't get me wrong. I am very concerned about the lives of the people there. Are the factory owners building factories on the plantations or do the people have to go to the cities where they have no place to live and work for very little? How do our trade policies affect them? Are the "indios" still being exploited and looked down upon or is there a different class system in place now? It has been quite awhile since my little sister came back from Central America just shocked at the way the village people were being treated.
Can you shed a little light for your fellow Coloradan of your own experiences? A "War/Peace" debate is the farthest thing from my mind. I just don't like "absolutes". But, that aside, I would like so much to hear more about your work if we can leave the other things aside.
Best, Star
Katharine, Star, thanks so
Katharine,
Star, thanks so much for your reply and your thoughtful questions.
No, the maquiladoras are not convenient to the rural areas. Thus, rather as in the Asian compounds, the girls (and I do mean girls) are housed in dorms, if they come from any distance. Most of the maquiladoras are located on "private" land encircling the capital city of San Salvador.
"Girls" are young women of 13 through 17 or 18 years of age. It is at this age that a young woman's hand eye coordination is at its greatest accuracy. All of the young women are forced to work towards a quota each day and if that is not met, they may not leave to go home or to the dormitory until it is met. This means many 18 hour days. They are not allowed to bring their lunches and must eat only food and drink provided by the factory managers. (Which is deducted from their wages.) They are not allowed to go to school, even if they had the time or energy.
For reasons of distancing the companies such as Wal-Mart, Cherokee (Target,) Nike, Jockey, and many others, from the abuse,the factories are mostly managed by hired Korean nationals. Thusly, when we do manage to see a video of what is going on inside these places, what we see are "foreigners victimizing foreigners."
The young women are forced to swallow, at the hands of the male bosses a birth control pill each morning. (Cost also deducted from their wages.) Some of the young women become ill on those pills. If they "cheek" the pill and spit it out later, and then they do become pregnant they are given shots to force a "miscarriage." Read abortion. (And guess whose wages!)
Only one family member at a time may work at any one factory. That means that these young women are the sole financial support of their families. Their fathers are often absent. (And don't just think abandonment, think killed.) The mother, old before her time, bent nearly double from osteoporosis by age 45, with several younger children at home, can only make a little money selling roadside foods she can make or grow on a tiny, worn out plot of land.
Are our policies at fault here. Yes. The tee shirt we may have just have paid Wal-Mart $19.95 for paid that girl 20 cents. Even accounting for shipping, which is done in huge, inexpensive lots: cost of materials which is nominal, wages to the person in the States who markets the product, I still wonder who is getting the $19.75 for that shirt. Well, I don't really wonder, I know who.
Many of these young women "disappear." Others are worn out and left with no energy for families of their own. So, they have babies and drink, leaving another generation of "street children," whom you see by the thousands in San Salvador, and by the dozens in the smaller pueblos.
Even in my own pueblo, the biggest danger I faced every time I walked into town, was to pass the cemetary, with its huge, beautiful headstones. Street boys were often behind the stones and would jump out at people. I walked quickly by on the far side of the street, looking straight ahead, never carrying anything that looked like a purse or any visible sign of money, jewelry, anything. One one notable occasion, a family who did not even have a child in the convent school where I was teaching, walked over and surrounded me with smiles and words of "Peligro, peligro," (Danger, danger.) The man gave me a tough lecture that even old women (I'm 70) could be hurt. The family sent two of their older children with me to finish my erands and then we all met at the edge of the center of town and they walked me back to the convent as a family. Smiles and cheerful conversation and hugs all around when we got back.
Wow, this is the first time I've written about my experiences and I see I have more feeling about it all than I thought. I have much more to tell, but will round up some referrences to some very excellent documentaries about the machinations within and behind the maquiladoras. In the meanwhile, keep in this im mind. One year there was an advertisement in a job finding publication. It shows an attractive, healthy looking matron of about 40 and the text says "Rosa Gonzales is a very colorful woman. (She is dressed in a nice colorful native costume, which no one ever wears except at important feasts.) You can hire for $0.50 cents and hour." One year later, the same publication, the same picture reads that you can hire her for $0.36 cents an hour.
I shall try to get the documentary references to you later this evening or tomorrow. I promise to keep my responses shorter. Oh and no absolutes. They have the nastiest habit of developing shades of grey.
Katherine, This is all so
Katherine, This is all so sad, but so neccessary to hear. Thank you for sharing all of this with us. You have given me so much to think about tonight. I would like very much to see the documentaries. I cannot believe these children cannot go to school and have to live in fear for their family lives and that WE are materially BENEFITTING fro THEIR suffering is too much to imagine! Now I can see why the boys would jump on the "railway of death" and risk almost anything to get to this country to work
. I don't see how we will solve the immigration issues in this country until conditions are better for people as those you have seen. Please do not apologize for your writing or the length of it. Every word was so worthwhile!
Katharine I'm with you
Katharine
I'm with you Connie on what being a (pilgrim) Catholic means. If I listened to many of the bishops these days I would think the only things the church was about were abortion and homosexuality. The Catholic Church I felt called to enter some 4 years ago is about Love, and Forgiveness, and Transformation. In short it invites us all to include all at the Table of our Lord.
I spent this past summer in El Salvador, (as a volunteer)teaching English in a small rural, very poor, village, (they call them pueblos.) Coming from high and dry Colorado, the heat and humidity were difficult. Other than that, I immediately felt at home with the people. Returning to the States is like coming "home" to a foreign country. As soon as I can get a year long renewable visa, I hope to return either to the same pueblo or one nearby, again as a volunteer, to teach English.
There are still dangers down there, but not like the ones faced daily by those four nuns and all religious at that time. I saw photos of their bodies at the gravesite,and also visited and attended mass at the "Hospitalita de la Divina Providencia," where Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero was shot whilst celebrating the Mass. He has been nominated for sainthood. He surely should get it.
'In the past century?" Pat?
'In the past century?" Pat? I know you are a history major, but what kind of revisionists are you reading? Have you forgotten the Rape of Nanking by the Japanese?
Should we have let the Japanese take over Hawaii, is that what you are suggesting? Do you remeber they bombed and killed 2,000 in the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941? And during WWII, the Germans had taken over France, intended to take over most of Europe, and had systematically "murdered" 11 or 12 million people in the concerntration camps, not to memtion whatever slaughter happened on the Russian front?
We should have stayed out of it and let the Nazis take over Europe and Tojo have all of Asia and the Pacific, you say?
I think that's carrying pacifism a bit too far. But of course you were not alive then (I doubt it) and you didn't live through it. You cannot imagine what it was like.
As for the rest of the wars, well, the South Koreans have a thriving democracy, thanks to the blood of our American servicemen. Otherwise China would own the peninsula. Would that be so bad? I don't know. They would "own" Taiwan, too, and they probably wouldn't have any hope of democracy anywhere there. Would that be so bad? As for the other involvements, I agree with you, but don't forget, every one of them looked like Darfur, to start with, with a group of people being opressed. Except Central America, where it seems the interests of the Banana Barons have always come first. (Google Smedley Butler on that one.)
By the way, John Dear's column was wonderful. But IF Jesus said, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's" (many sayings that are attributed to Jesus He may not have actually said, according to the Jesus Seminar, which is carefully researching them--I forget if this is one or not.) It was a recognition of the fact that life is complex and not easily settled by drawing black and white distinctions. Peace is always to be sought, and especially with this travesty in Iraq there is no question we have an "immoral, pre-emptive War", but that has not always been the case, regardless of whatever cartoons NCR may publish, or how devoted John Dear, S.J. and Sister Joan are to their cause (and I am personally very glad they are.)
Write on, Pat, I am sorry to have to take issue with you this time; usually I agree with most everything you write, but not this time.
Certainly many, many other
Certainly many, many other nations have also done evil in this past century and continue to do so. No sane person would deny that. As for Korea, that was a U.N.- sponsored war and many other nations contributed their blood as well to the cause -- for nothing. It started with approximately the same borders as today, and it never ended -- it's still a stalemate. Only a much stronger U.N. could be the solution there, I think, and in so many other areas of strife today.
The column was primarily about Central American issues, and I was not referring to anything having to do with WWII in my post. I was referring to the endless entanglements, usually in this hemisphere, that we have gotten into unnecessarily -- the Spanish American War (begun in the 1800's), the endless incursions into Central and South America, Grenada, Haiti, the Bay of Pigs, and on and on and on. And especially now the new atrocities in Colombia. We have to take ownership of these things and atone for them and try to ensure they do not happen again.
As far as the "render unto" verse goes, I do believe he said it and I don't believe any kind of seminar today is going to be able to determine that one way or another, but I hope they have fun trying! Anyway, Jesus made many, many uncompromising, "black and white" statements in his lifetime ("Love your enemies", etc., etc.)and never negotiated anything (even with the Pharisees, for example). He was referring to paying taxes, which he said should be done. He said in effect, fine, give your coins, with their idolatrous image of the emperor, back to the emperor. Everything else in the world belongs to God. He was saying this to a priest of some kind who was in the Temple at the time who was holding one of these coins with the idolatrous image, which was illegal to have in the Temple. So I believe (as we learned from Fr. Dear himself, ironically!) the entire exchange is a dig at the hypocritical priest with the idolatrous images in his pockets.
Thanks, Pat for taking the
Thanks, Pat for taking the time to respond. Yes, I won't get into the Gospel quotations thing now. You can google the Jesus Seminar thing if you want, composed of many Biblical Scholars, including prominent Catholics. It's based on the issue that the Gospels were written quite a few years after Christ actually lived, "form criticism", translated into Greek, then into other languages, then some books were thrown out while others survived, then pious monks may have added pius words, etc. while transcribing---in other words, what has come down to us is not necessarily the "purest" form of what Christ "actually" said. So it's not "fun". It's a very serious. scholarly endeavor, which has taken these scholars quite a few years. They are known as "The Jesus Group".
Joseph M. Coming right after
Joseph M.
Coming right after my pilgrimage to SOA Watch, this is a very poignant reflection on the death, destruction and pathos we have sown in El Slavador and so many other countries. The "Presente!" chant is still ringing in my ears. Would that I had the courage to be with the poor like these valiant martyrs (= witnesses).
As I write, it appears that the Senate will readily confirm Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense. I wonder if any senator or anyone else for that matter will question his role in the Iran-Contra affair? The beat goes on!
I listened to the hearings
I listened to the hearings and they did, and he answered rather noncomittally; then it was glossed over. They also asked him about George Shultz's remarks in his book about being Secretary of Sate, where he had dissed the info he had gotten from CIA where Gates was #2 to Casey at the CIA at the time (of course Casey is dead now, so is Shultz, I think.) Gates answered forthrightly; said the quote surprised him; said he always had a good relationship "in real time" with Schultz when he was briefing him weekly, but Shultz was suspicious that the CIA was manipulating intel, which Gatessaid they were not. He said Shultz did not get along with Casey, but he and Shultz got along. It's hard to read Gates over TV (his face.) But Warner certainly seems to like him; Levin is a little more suspicious; he asked the Contra question.
A friend of mine from long ago wrote a book about the Contra Affair called "October Surprise". Have you read it, by any chance? Just wondering.
This is the Catholic Church
This is the Catholic Church I long for, the one that struggles for peace and justice. The Church that lives the life of Christ in their everyday actions, not the one that merely parrots His words. Not the church that closes schools in the inner city, not the church that blesses missiles and endorses war. Not the church of exclusion.
Katharine, Corinne, I
Katharine,
Corinne, I commented twice in some other part of this. Once I miscalled you Connie. I really liked your comments.
The unfortunate thing is that the Magisterium just doesn't get it. In El Salvador, and all across at least Central America, if not also Mexico and South America, and also right here in our own back yard, more and more priests are being spread more and more thinly. While I shall always believe that celibacy should be an honored and respected part of the call to a religious life, we must start to allow priests to be married.
In El Salvador, not once in any of several small and large churches and catherdrals where I attended mass, did the presider step outside to mingle with the congregation. He had always to rush to the next little place for the next mass. The (biological) sister of one of the nuns I was living with commented as we past the filled to overflowing grounds of an Evangelical denomination that the evangelicals were taking over. (They still hold only 5%.) Of course! They have way more preachers and can spend time with their congregations. They talk with their paritioners. The Catholic priests have no time for such luxuries. There are not enough of them.
God bless all the brave
God bless all the brave priests and nuns who put their lives on the line for peace, and the memory of these saints and martyrs who died doing the work of God. It is so hard to grasp all the evil that the US government has done in the past century in the name of greed and power. Our country has truly lost its way... we need to "think about reality" as the Jesuits say, although it may be painful. It is time to do all we can to bring the ongoing evils to light and ensure our country acts as a force of good in this world.
Katharine, Star, I'm sorry
Katharine,
Star, I'm sorry it has taken me so long to get back to you with this information. I am terribly self-indulgent at times. I get on the internet to look for something and inevitably end up "just having to look at" 31.5 other interesting things on the way.
SWEATING FOR A TEE SHIRT
by Global Exchange
2017 Mission St. # 303
San Francisco, CA 94110 www.globalexchange.org
ZONED FOR SLAVERY: The Child Behind the Label
National Labor Relations Commission
275 - 7th AV 15th floor
NY,NY 10001 www.nlcnet.org
I was not able to access their archive. Much of their material now is focussed upon Bangladesh, Jordan and other parts of Central America.
Other websites: http:mhrsn.igc.org
www.hrw.org click Americas, click el Salvador or other CA country, or Mexico.
americanpolicy.net and click on Guatemala.
Try to find the Central America Health and Safety Report.
Be sure to go to nlcnet.org's home page and it you do nothing else follow the slide shows you will see there and check on the Jordanian website. It is the same as the sweatshops in Central America.
By the way, don't become too pained about all of this. It is not right, but there are things we can all do. With the exception of undergarments and shoes, I buy all my clothing at second hand stores. I am fortunate to live near Boulder, so I have good pickings at both the thrift shop that supports the Humane Society, and the one half a block west that supports Hospice. There are many others.
As a parish, my church switched our (necessary) "big box" purchases from Wal-Mart, based upon the fact that within the US,at least, ShopCo gave their employees better health insurance and working conditions.
Oh yes, be sure to check out the Robert Greenwald Films site www.bravenewfilms.org or www.robertgreenwald.org. Find a way to rent or borrow WAL-MART: The High Cost of Low Price.
Another excellent little film is DYING TO LIVE: A Migrant's Journey produced by Groody River Films and The Center for Latino Spirituality adn Culture at the University of Notre Dame. www.nd.edu and go to Latino/units/clsc.htm. Since it is for educational purposes only and not for sale, you may have to approach the office of your local Archdiocese.
Blessings, Katharine