Pilgrims representing the Ignatian Solidarity Network travel to El Salvador from November 13 to 17 to join the commemoration of the 1989 Jesuit priest murders.

SAN SALVADOR, EL SALVADOR, November 12, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ -- From November 13 to 17, 2024, twenty-five pilgrims representing the Ignatian Solidarity Network (ISN) will join El Salvador’s faithful in commemorating the lives of Ignacio Ellacuría, S.J., Ignacio Martín-Baró, S.J., Segundo Montes, S.J., Juan Ramón Moreno, S.J., Joaquín López y López, S.J., Amando López, S.J., Elba Ramos, a housekeeper at a nearby Jesuit community, and her 15-year-old daughter, Celina Ramos, murdered on November 16, 1989, at the Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas (UCA) in San Salvador, El Salvador.

The ISN pilgrims come from eleven U.S. states and represent the breadth of ISN’s faith and justice mission, which reaches Catholic universities, high schools, parishes, and social ministries—especially those affiliated with the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits).

The final day of the pilgrimage will include participation in the annual commemoration ceremonies and Catholic mass at UCA, where the Jesuits and women were murdered. Additional activities include visits to the cities of other Catholic martyrs, such as Blessed Father Rutilio Grande, S.J. (murdered in 1977), Srs. Dorothy Kazel, O.S.U., Maura Clarke, M.M., Ita Ford, M.M., and laywoman Jean Donovan (murdered in 1980), and Saint Óscar Arnulfo Romero (murdered in 1980)—where the group will celebrate a Catholic mass. The group will also meet with community leaders in Guarjila and El Paisnal, communities with long connections to Jesuits murdered in 1989.

ISN’s pilgrimage will be coordinated by Christians for Peace in El Salvador (CRISPAZ), an El Salvador-based NGO that has worked to build bridges of solidarity between U.S. and Salvadoran communities for over thirty years.

“Commemorating the lives of the UCA martyrs is an opportunity to reflect on the ways their legacy lives on in the work of the Ignatian Solidarity Network,” Christopher Kerr, executive director of the Ignatian Solidarity Network. “We hope our presence in El Salvador demonstrates the ongoing solidarity of the U.S. Catholic Church with the Salvadoran people and serves as motivation for the Ignatian Solidarity Network’s continued work to educate, network, and mobilize people for the work of justice rooted in faith.”

Nineteen of the twenty-six soldiers who murdered the Jesuits and women in 1989 received training at the U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA), a military training school for Latin American soldiers known today as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. Hundreds of SOA graduates became associated with human rights abuses throughout Central and South America in the mid to late 20th century.

ISN was founded as an outgrowth of the efforts of people affiliated with Jesuit educational institutions to mobilize attendees at an annual vigil at the gates of the SOA, through the establishment of the Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice. The Teach-In evolved into ISN, established as an independent, lay-led organization that continues to mobilize Jesuit institutions and other Catholic universities, high schools, and parishes to engage in faith-based social justice education, networking, and advocacy.

MEDIA NOTE: Pilgrims are available for interview before, during, and after the pilgrimage. Photographs and video content from the pilgrimage will also be available upon request.

Andrew Hanson-Quintana
Ignatian Solidarity Network
+1 347-330-2901
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