VATICAN CITY — Remembering the three U.S. religious women
and a laywoman brutally murdered during El Salvador's civil war, Pope Francis
hailed them as examples of faith and missionary discipleship.
Before concluding his weekly general audience Dec. 2, the
pope commemorated the 40th anniversary of the death of the four American
missionaries: Maryknoll Sisters Maura Clarke and Ita Ford, Ursuline Sister
Dorothy Kazel and lay missionary Jean Donovan.
"With evangelical commitment and taking great risks,
they brought food and medicine to displaced people and helped the poorest
families," he said. "These women lived their faith with great
generosity. They are an example for all to become faithful missionary
disciples."
The December 1980 murder of the four missionaries capped a
deadly year for the Catholic Church in El Salvador. In March of that same year,
St. Oscar Romero, then-archbishop of San Salvador and a critic of the
right-wing government's use of violence and torture in the country, was
murdered while celebrating Mass.
Donovan and Sisters Clarke, Ford and Kazel were returning
from El Salvador International Airport when their vehicle was stopped by
military guardsmen. They were subsequently abducted, raped and shot to death.
Their deaths drew outrage in the United States, prompting
the government, which at the time was allied to the Salvadoran right-wing regime,
to call for an investigation.
According to a 1998 report by the New York Times, the
four guardsmen, who were convicted in 1984 for the brutal killing, admitted
that they were ordered by Salvadoran government authorities to carry out the
murders.
Commemorations of the four women's deaths were being held in
El Salvador, in the United States and in Rome.