Stations of the Cross: El Salvador

	Stations of the Cross: El Salvador The Stations of the Cross in the chapel at the University of Central America, a Jesuit college in San Salvador, El Salvador, are especially graphic. They portray in unflinching detail, the torture visited upon Salvadorans by right wing death squads and the U. S. backed government during that country's civil war in the 1980s. These stations serve as a reminder that many people walk the way of the cross every day, denied justice and dignity as Christ was, by powerful political forces. (For other mediations on the Stations go here or here.) The university was home to six Jesuits who spoke out on behalf of the Salvadoran poor, and advocated a negotiated settlement to the war. On November 16, 1989 , these men were dragged from their beds by Salvadoran soldiers and shot in the head with high-powered rifles. The Jesuits' housekeeper and her 15-year-old daughter were also shot to death. “They were assassinated with lavish barbarity,” said the Rev. Jose Maria Tojeira, the Jesuit Provincial for Central America told The New York Times . “For example they took out their brains.” A U.S. Congressional task force, headed by the late Rep. Joseph Moakley (D-MA), investigated the massacre and reported that those responsible were trained at the U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA), located at Fort Benning, Georgia. The 1993 report of the Truth Commission that investigated atrocities during the civil war confirmed that the murder of the rector of the university, the Rev. Ignacio Ellacuría, had been proposed at a meeting on November 15th by a general known as a close CIA collaborator and endorsed by the chief-of-staff (who was later minister of defense), the vice-minister of defense, and others. The Jesuits are now buried in a crypt in the chapel, beneath a portrait of Archbishop Oscar Romero, who had himself been assassinated in March, 1980. The text accompanying the images is taken from the sermon Romero gave on the weekend before he was killed. For further information: http://www.temple.edu/tempress/chapters/1139_ch1.pdf http://www.pbs.org/itvs/enemiesofwar/ http://www.companysj.com/v171/nowitnes.html

The Stations of the Cross in the chapel at the University of Central America, a Jesuit college in San Salvador, El Salvador, are especially graphic. They portray in unflinching detail, the torture visited upon Salvadorans by right wing death squads and the U. S. backed government during that country's civil war in the 1980s. These stations serve as a reminder that many people walk the way of the cross every day, denied justice and dignity as Christ was, by powerful political forces. (For other mediations on the Stations go here or here.)

The university was home to six Jesuits who spoke out on behalf of the Salvadoran poor, and advocated a negotiated settlement to the war. On November 16, 1989 , these men were dragged from their beds by Salvadoran soldiers and shot in the head with high-powered rifles. The Jesuits' housekeeper and her 15-year-old daughter were also shot to death.

“They were assassinated with lavish barbarity,” said the Rev. Jose Maria Tojeira, the Jesuit Provincial for Central America told The New York Times . “For example they took out their brains.”

A U.S. Congressional task force, headed by the late Rep. Joseph Moakley (D-MA), investigated the massacre and reported that those responsible were trained at the U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA), located at Fort Benning, Georgia.

The 1993 report of the Truth Commission that investigated atrocities during the civil war confirmed that the murder of the rector of the university, the Rev. Ignacio Ellacuría, had been proposed at a meeting on November 15th by a general known as a close CIA collaborator and endorsed by the chief-of-staff (who was later minister of defense), the vice-minister of defense, and others.

The Jesuits are now buried in a crypt in the chapel, beneath a portrait of Archbishop Oscar Romero, who had himself been assassinated in March, 1980. The text accompanying the images is taken from the sermon Romero gave on the weekend before he was killed.