By Sr. Melinda Roper and Fr. James Noonan, on the murder of the four U.S. Churchwomen in El Salvador, December 1980
Our sisters were killed because they had lived as the Gospel of Jesus directed them to live. That Gospel illuminates and touches all aspects of human life and is never separated from it. It proclaims total freedom for all persons and societies from the slavery of selfishness, hatred and fear. This Gospel judges the proud and powerful who put their trust in the idols of money, power, and status. It lifts up the needy and the poor who put their trust in God and in God's love. To those who are blind to the message of that Gospel, our sisters and countless others who daily witness to it by their lives are dangerous! They threaten political structures which promote false idols and destroy the image of God in the human person. Ita, Maura, Dorothy and Jean were committed to the Gospel and thus gave their lives in love with and for the poor. That and that alone is why they died.
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