President Mauricio Funes of El Salvador paid homage to the six Jesuit religious murdered 20 years ago on Novmeber 16 in the Central American country. Funes gave posthumously to the six men the highest decoration the Central American republic can bestow in recognition of their “extraordinary support given to the country.” In 1989, El Salvador was in the midst of a fratricidal war that pitted Marxist militants, the Catholic Church and human rights activists and the government of El Salvador against each other, resulting in thousands of deaths and gross violations of human rights. The honor bestowed to the six murdered clerics, said Funes, serves to “lift the dark veil of darkness and lies so as to enter into the light of justice and truth,” adding “It means lifting up the dusty carpet of hypocrisy and getting a start on cleaning up the home of our recent history,” in a ceremony at the presidential mansion.
“We want this to be an act of recovering collective memory, a recognition of the work of those who were always on the side of human rights, of democracy, of the tireless quest for justice, of the poor,” noted Funes. The Salvadoran president said that “if the death of these men shows anything it is that history is not written by a handful of the enlightened nor by those who bear the most powerful weapons.”
Juan Antonio Ellacuria received from Funes a parchment and presentation case for the “José Matías Delgado” medal in the order of Great Golden Cross in memory of his brother, Father Ignacio Ellacuria S.J., the rector of the University of Central America who was murdered in 1989 with five companions. The Jesuit provincial for Central America Father Jesús Salguero received the medal on behalf of Juan Ramón Moreno, while the controversial Jesuit priest Father Jon Sobrino received the prize on behalf of Amado López. Other representative received the award on behalf of the other deceased Jesuit companions: Ignacio Martí Baró, Joaquín López y López, Segundo Montes. The current rector of the University of Central America, José María Tojeira, noted that this was the first time that the Salvadoran government had recognized “publicly and officially the courage, dignity, and the services of this group of academics men of faith had given.”
On November 16, 1989, the communist Farabundo Martí Front for National Liberation (FMLN) was engaged in an offensive campaign against government forces arrayed in the capital. It was then that elements of the army of El Salvador entered the university and killed the six above-named Jesuits along with their cook Elba Julia and her 16 year-old daughter Celina Julia. Ten soldiers were tried for the murder in 1991 but only two of them were incarcerated. These were to be freed in 1993 when the national law on amnesty was promulgated as part of the terms of the peace treaty were signed by the government and FMLN. A high court in Spain received a suit in January 2009 against 14 military men of El Salvador, charging them with terrorist murders and human rights violations.
In the United States, the Roman Catholic bishop of Albany NY, Howard Hubbard, also noted the anniversary. As President of the Committee on Justice and Peace, Bishop Hubbard recalled the deaths of the six murdered Jesuits and their two collaborators. Bishop Hubbard wrote letters to several U.S. Congressmen thanking them for sending letters thanking them for two resolutions that honored the fallen priests. The bishop praised the legacy of the work of the murdered Jesuits that is seen in the work of men and women “who continue looking for a world that is just, peceaful, and safe where life and human dignity are safeguarded.”
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