25 Years Later: Four Churchwomen Continue to Inspire
Friday, December 2, 2005

Today marks the 25th Anniversary of the martyrdom of four American Churchwomen in El Salvador on December 2, 1980. In
El Salvador, and in communities around the world, people are gathering to remember their example and their sacrifice.
The news of the brutal killings of the four American women shocked their communities back home. Furthermore, the revelation that those responsible were agents of a government with whom the U.S. had friendly ties caused many Americans, specifically people of faith, to question and speak out against sending military aid to the Salvadoran government. Twenty five years later, the memory of these four courageous women continues to inspire others to work for peace and justice.
In his sister's name
Click here to read a touching newspaper account on how one person’s life was changed by the four Churchwomen.
Ita Ford was a Brooklyn-born nun working in violent, impoverished El Salvador. Her older brother, Bill Ford, was living a very different life in 1980, practicing law on Wall Street and raising a family in Montclair.
"I wasn't really thinking about Central America at all," he said. That changed in an instant. Read More

CRISPAZ is currently hosting a delegation comprised of students from two Cleveland high schools, Beaumont and Villa Angela St. Joseph’s. Sister Dorothy Kazel once worked as a couselor at Beaumont. Today, along with CRISPAZ staffers, the delegation will attend a Memorial Mass in Chaletenango, where Ita Ford and Maura Clarke worked and were buried. On Sunday, another Mass will be held in Santiago Nonualco, where the four women’s bodies were found. Click here to see a schedule of events in
El Salvador and the United States.
The American Churchwomen
From the Maryknoll Sisters website:
On December 2, 1980, members of the National Guard of El Salvador intercepted the van carrying four American churchwomen as they were leaving the international airport in San Salvador. Maryknoll Sisters Ita Ford and Maura Clark, Ursuline Sister Dorothy Kazel, and lay missioner Jean Donovan were taken to an isolated spot where they were shot dead at close range.
Ita Ford and Maura Clark worked in Chalatenango and were returning from a Maryknoll Sisters meeting in Nicaragua. Dorothy Kazel and Jean Donovan had come from La Libertad to pick up their missioner friends at the airport. All were working in the country on behalf of the Archdiocese of San Salvador, helping refugees flee the violence of the erupting war.
The U.N.-sponsored report of the Commission on the Truth for El Salvador concluded that the abductions were planned in advance and the men responsible had carried out the murders on orders from above. It further stated that the head of the National Guard and two officers assigned to investigate the case had concealed the facts to harm the judicial process. The murder of the women, along with attempts by the Salvadoran military and some American officials to cover it up, generated a grass-roots opposition in the U.S., as well as ignited intense debate over the Administration’s policy in El Salvador.
In 1984, the defendants were found guilty and sentenced to 30 years in prison. The Truth Commission noted that this was the first time in Salvadoran history that a judge had found a member of the military guilty of assassination. In 1998, three of the soldiers were released for good behavior. Two of the men remain in prison and have petitioned the Salvadoran government for pardons.
The families of the four churchwomen continue to pursue a lawsuit in U.S. federal court against the former Salvadoran generals retired in Florida, who were senior government officials in El Salvador at the time of the killings.
The deaths of these women intensified a movement for social justice in Central America that continues today.
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