After 20 years, Jesuits' deaths still affect Saint Joseph's

In the outskirts of San Salvador two decades ago, a death squad of some 20 armed men entered the rectory of the University of Central America Jose Simeon Canas (UCA) in the dead of night, brutally murdering eight residents.

Though it happened a world away, it's an event that still has an impact on Saint Joseph's today.

The slaying of six Jesuits-Ignacio Ellacuria, Ignacio Martin Baro, Segundo Montes, Amano Lopez, Joaquin Lopez y Lopez, and Juan Ramon Moreno-along with their housekeeper, Elba Ramos, and her 15-year-old daughter, Celina, was a moment of great importance in both the history of El Salvador and the Jesuit order.

The initial reaction on campus was one of utter surprise and sadness, both at the victims' high profiles and the savage brutality with which the execution-style murders were carried out. For many Jesuits, the event is described as a seminal moment, the memory of which endures vividly to this day.

"The major reaction was one of stunned silence and shock," said Vincent Genovesi, S.J., a theology professor at St. Joe's. "Nothing had happened like that in our lifetime. We've had Jesuit martyrs way back in history, but nothing like this happened to us, so it was just a shock. It was difficult to accept that."

"My recollection would be that we were kind of dumb-founded," said James Moore, S.J., who served as the associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences in 1989 and has since retired from the university. "We weren't aware that what the Jesuits were doing at the UCA was so unacceptable to the government down there. It took us by surprise, just to imagine that something like that could ever happen."

The shock was especially profound for Robert McChesney, S.J., the director of Campus Ministry at St. Joe's at the time and current associate dean for administration at the Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University. He studied with Martin Baro in Chicago in the late 1970s, and was informed of the tragedy by the cover of a local newspaper.

"I was out to an early dinner the night of Nov. 16," he said. "I was driving home, and I stopped at a convenience store near the university, and I remember looking down at a stack of the Philadelphia Daily News. I remember just waiting in line to pay my bill for milk or whatever, and I remember on the cover of the paper was a picture, that famous picture of the Jesuits lying in a circle like the spokes of a wheel, and the one I could see was my friend. He was lying on his back, but I could see that it was him, and I could see the side of his face, and I could see the side and back of his head where blood was trickling down. I can still see it today."

The reaction from the Jesuit community at St. Joe's was swift, as a mass at the Loyola House chapel for residents was held on the evening of the 16th, just hours after the news had reached them that afternoon.

Several days later, a mass for the entire Philadelphia Jesuit community was held at Old St. Joe's in Society Hill. The homilist at that service, Simon Smith, S.J., had spent time at UCA and was well acquainted with the six Jesuits. It was a gathering that had a profound impact on Moore.

"The Jesuit who gave the homily said, 'They can kill seven Jesuits, but they cannot kill the University of Central America', and that got a huge ovation," Moore said. "That was a moment that was very inspiring. Of course we were paying tribute to those who were murdered, but it was a rallying cry, because those people were not going to beat us."

The response by students was slower and less direct. McChesney recalls church services held in remembrance of the departed, as well as other political activities such as letter-writing campaigns and petitions to elected officials.

Protests included a demonstration in which an ecumenical delegation of faculty and students knelt before the Federal Building several weeks after the incident to protest the American government's support of the Salvadoran regime that perpetrated these acts. McChesney and William Walsh, S.J., the rector at St. Joe's at the time, were among those arrested. McChesney and others also participated in a candlelight procession to the Liberty Bell to protest the U.S. government's stance.

Students acted by putting pressure on elected officials to influence change on U.S. foreign policy. Petitions to Sen. Arlen Specter and other elected officials were distributed.

Specter, who as a Republican staunchly supported the Reagan and Bush Administrations' military interventionist policies, appeared on campus for a panel discussion on the matter in 1990, and eventually changed his stance on the topic.

The ideas espoused by the Jesuits killed, most of whom were born in Spain, contributed to the school of thought known as liberation theology. Ellacuria, a philosopher, Martin Baro, a social anthropologist, and Montes, a social psychologist, were all eminent scholars in their fields and the development of advancement of liberation theology.

The aim of these ideas was to apply the Gospel to the impoverished and oppressed lives of Salvadoran peasants at the time. The nation lived under an oppressive, right-leaning, military dictatorship that was supported by over $7 billion of American aid over the 12-year civil war that engulfed the Central American nation from 1980-1992 and claimed over 75,000 lives. They utilized death squads and a national guard to root out dissidents and opponents.

"What the Jesuits we commemorate this month really did was that they looked at the problems of the country, and not just the civil war, but the reality of oppression on the part of the oppressive military and social structures, and they thought, 'What are the needs of the people in this country that we can fulfill in this university?" said Joseph Koczera, S.J, who specializes in Latin American studies. "Their contribution was to take that division between the people and the apostolate, and put at the service of the poor."