Martyred Missionaries: The Lives and Legacies of Maura Clarke, Jean Donovan, Ita Ford, and Dorothy K [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

DECEMBER 4, 2020
Martyred Missionaries: The Lives and Legacies of Maura Clarke, Jean Donovan, Ita Ford, and Dorothy Kazel
BY BRETT WILKINS

On the night of December 2, 1980, Maura Clarke, Jean Donovan, Ita Ford, and Dorothy Kazel, Catholic missionaries from the United States, were kidnapped, beaten, raped, and murdered by a U.S.-backed death squad while working to help the poor and oppressed people of El Salvador.

In their lives, work, and tragic, untimely deaths, the women inspired people in El Salvador who, deeply moved by their ultimate sacrifice, would at long last prevail in their freedom struggle.

Four Women, One Calling

Maura, Jean, Ita, and Dorothy were four very different women united in their common calling to serve their God and the suffering Salvadoran people. Maura, who was 49 when she was killed, was the oldest and most experienced missionary of the group. She grew up in an Irish American family in Queens, New York and joined the Maryknoll Sisters, an order of nuns dedicated to helping needy people overseas, when she was 19.

Ita, 40 at the time of her murder, was from Brooklyn and had wanted to be a Maryknoll sister since she was just 15. Initially rejected for health reasons, she worked as an editor at a publishing company before finally being accepted into the order when she was 31. Ita loved to dance and sing and among her sisters was known for her “twinkling eyes and elfin grin.”

Dorothy, a Cleveland native, was born in 1939 and joined the Ursuline Sisters, a 16th century order devoted to teaching the poor, when she was 21. By the time she left for El Salvador in 1974 she had already taught in a women’s prison and to poor and critically ill people in the United States.

More:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/12/04/martyred-missionaries-the-lives-and-legacies-of-maura-clarke-jean-donovan-ita-ford-and-dorothy-kazel/