The Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia

On November 29, we went to El Salvador with a 50-person delegation from SHARE to honor the 30^th anniversary of the martyrdom of Maryknoll Missionaries Maura Clark and Ita Ford, Ursuline Sister Dorothy Kazel, and lay volunteer Jean Donovan. Our first stop was Divina Providencia where Archbishop Oscar Romero lived and where he was killed while saying Mass. We laid our hands on the altar and united in solidarity with the people of El Salvador. It was fitting to go there first because his conversion and commitment to the poor inspired and strengthened the commitment of these four women. 

On the anniversary of the rape and murder of the four women, we traveled to

Srs. Julie and Jean (middle of 3rd row from bottom) gather with the SHARE delegation outside the small chapel erected at the site where the bodies of the four churchwomen were found.

San Pedro Nonhualco which is where their bodies were found. We traveled in sacred silence on the road that the women traveled that night, pondering what might have happened and what they must have felt. At the site hundreds of people gathered around a memorial that the people of the town had erected. In a small chapel which the people built, we celebrated a joy-filled Mass honoring the women. Another time we traveled to Chalatenango—about 2 kilometers from San Antonio los Ranchos which is where Maura and Ita worked—and stopped at their grave site, aware that we were standing on holy ground.

There and at several other locations we listened to inspiring women leaders who spoke of their experiences before, during, and after the revolution. Their

Srs. Jean Rupertus (pictured) and Julia Keegan visited La Pequena Comunidad, one of several sites commemorating the lives and death of the four churchwomen in El Salvador.

stories were both sad and inspiring. They are a people who have suffered much but who work day in and day out with great energy to support their families with minimal resources. Finding work is difficult. For those who do find work, the average salary is about $90 per month—not enough to provide for the basic needs of food, shelter, and education for their children. SHARE has supported the women in working together on community gardens and provided loans, community banks, and micro-credits that enable women to start small projects to help support their families. We heard stories of hope but we also heard of the memories of the revolution which they shared freely with us. We learned of their husbands and children being murdered and of the massacres of whole towns. It is painful to know that our government trained these schools at the SOA and supported the Salvadoran government and army—the same army responsible for the rape and murder of the four churchwomen, the massacres in many villages, and the death of thousands.  

We learned that the pain did not stop with the revolution. Coffee, sugar, and cotton were their main crops but the prices are so low for these crops that people can no longer earn a living from them. Since it is so difficult to find work, men are leaving their families and making their way to America to try to get any type of work to provide for their families. However, our immigration policies make it impossible for them to do this and the separation weakens the family structure even more.

To add insult to injury, U.S. companies are doing gold and silver mining in El Salvador—polluting the water, destroying villages, and impairing the environment. Ordinary villagers in remote areas of the country have joined with religious groups, research centers, and others to take on the powerful international mining companies that are seeking to plunder their country’s gold. This past August, however, these activists suffered a setback—not from their own government but from an obscure tribunal in Washington, DC. Two transnational mining companies have used rules in the “free trade” agreement between the U. S. and six countries in the region to sue the government of El Salvador. They are demanding hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation for the denial of mining permits. The first company to file suit, Pacific Rim, has just won the first stage of the proceedings by overcoming the Salvadoran government’s effort to get the case thrown out on jurisdictional grounds. We have learned that the Lord hears the cry of the poor through our hearts and our commitment to speak for them.

We also spent time with Salvadoran women from ORMUSA (Organization of Salvadoran Women for Peace) which is one of SHARE’s counterparts. They organized a forum to celebrate the legacy of the four churchwomen. We learned about the reality of femicide and abuse in a machismo culture that did not even prosecute violence against women. They told us about their antifemicide campaign which, after a long journey, finally resulted in a law protecting women from violence. 

We were treated to a performance by a folkloric ballet which presented a history of El Salvador and persecuted communities. We met a group of young women who were given high school scholarships by SHARE and who formed the first women’s drummer group.   The freshness, the hope, the love, and the pride of these young women and their desire to get an education and become strong productive women nourishing their families and their communities was very moving. The hope of their college education is slim because of their great poverty but their determination and God’s goodness makes each of us believe that it can happen. 

No words can ever describe the experience of walking with the El Salvadoran people for one week. It is transforming. They are a people who experienced so much tragedy and so much pain but they are a people of great hope who keep their martyrs alive in their heart every day. Their faith and their love have touched our hearts in a way that will never let us forget them.

- Sr. Julie Keegan
  Sr. Jean Rupertus