After the killing of Oscar Romero on 24 March 1980, all who challenged the repressive government of El Salvador were at risk. Four women missionaries decided to remain. Eight months later they, too, were brutally murdered

“El Salvador is such a beautiful country! Where else would you find roses in December?” – Jean Donovan

It’s been forty years since four United States Catholic women were assassinated in El Salvador. Sr Ita Ford, 40, and Sr Maura Clarke, 49, both Maryknoll Sisters from New York; Sr Dorothy Kazel, 40, an Ursuline Sister from Cleveland; and Jean Donovan, 27, a lay missionary who was engaged to be married, also from Cleveland, were killed by the US-trained Salvadoran military, four of over 75,000 civilians butchered by a right-wing government intent on eliminating opposition.

Next Wednesday, 2 December, Salvadorans in the small mountain town of Chalatenango will gather in the morning and process down lanes to their central plaza, carrying aloft the portraits of these four women who are beloved as martyrs and patronesses of the community. They will lay flowers on the graves of Sr Maura and Sr Ita, who are buried in the town’s crowded cemetery among the people they served. Later, in the cathedral, Bishop Oswaldo Escobar OCD of Chalatenango will celebrate a Mass to remember these four foreign women who adopted the joys and struggles, the hopes and horrors of the Salvadoran people.