1980-2015: Memory of El Salvador's church martyrs lives on

Participants prepared to process into the San Salvador cathedral for a Dec. 3, 2005 Mass for the four women. (NCR archive photo/Linda Panetta)
Participants prepared to process into the San Salvador cathedral for a Dec. 3, 2005 Mass for the four women. (NCR archive photo/Linda Panetta)

by J. Malcolm Garcia

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Judy Ress won't forget Dorothy Kazel.

After Archbishop Oscar Romera was killed in El Salvador by Salvadoran death squads suspected of ties with the government in March 1980, Ress and Kazel saw one another at a Mass in Santiago, Chile, celebrating his life.

"I asked her, 'Are you still going to go?'" said Ress, 70, a retired Maryknoll lay missionary in Santiago, as she recalled asking Kazel of her plans to work in El Salvador.

"Of course," Kazel told her.

Nine months later, members of the National Guard of El Salvador abducted, raped and executed four American churchwomen including Kazel, 40, an Ursuline sister from Cleveland; Maryknoll Srs. Maura Clarke, 49, and Ita Ford, 40, from New York;  and Jean Donovan, 27, a lay missionary who was engaged to be married, also from Cleveland.

Read the full story at Global Sisters Report.

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