30 Years Ago--The Martyrdom of Six Jesuits of El Salvador
The murder of six Jesuits of El Salvador 30 years ago last Saturday--a reflection by Mgr Peter Magee, Vatican diplomat to El Salvador at the time. "It was an experience I will never forget. I became sick at the sight of the carnage. There was something else, though. While I could feel the terror of the moment (I wondered if I myself might be shot, too, at some point in the ensuing days if a persecution of the Church was underway), I also felt something that I can only describe as holiness. Not holiness as a moral or spiritual state, but a holiness ‘out there’ in front of me, covering the slain and covering those of us there. If I can put it this way, it was an ‘objective’ holiness, something I touched as if touching the breeze or as if I were being touched by it. On reflection, I think it fair to say that we were touched by God in that horrible, terrifying place and time, because those who had been slain had been slain for putting the gospel into practice. They had quite simply...