WBUR, Boston’s NPR news station, reported from San Salvador, El Salvador, during the commemoration of six Jesuit priests murdered by the Salvadoran army 25 years ago in the country. The Jesuits were killed in response to their firm defense of the poor and the oppressed. Their murders were part of a decade-long civil war that provoked outrage around the world.
According to WBUR, thousands of Salvadorans and hundreds of priests from around the world gathered at the University of Central America to honor the six dead who have become known as the “Martyrs for Justice.”
Rev. Philip L. Boroughs, S.J., president of the College of the Holy Cross, traveled to San Salvador with U.S. Rep. James McGovern, D-Worcester, who helped lead the investigation into the murders 25 years ago.
WBUR Senior Reporter David Boeri interviewed Fr. Boroughs while in San Salvador. “They were trying to walk a very careful line between social change and the needs of the poor — and not violent revolution,” said Fr. Boroughs, recalling his fellow Jesuits. “But they, in the minds of others, were seen as fomenting a violent revolution, which was not their stance at all.”
The Holy Cross community marked the anniversary with numerous events on campus to honor the six Jesuits, the community's cook, and her daughter.
Fr. Boroughs commented in the two reports Boeri filed from San Salvador.
- WBUR, Nov. 17: “Remembering The Jesuits Whose Murders Brought An End To Salvadoran Civil War”
- WBUR, Nov. 16: “25 Years Later, Murders Of Jesuit Priests In El Salvador Resonate In Massachusetts”
This "Holy Cross in the News" item by Cristal Steuer.
