This Lenten series features a different person each week. Nothing in particular connects these people, other than my desire to ask them a few questions. They may not be the questions you would have asked, but I hope you might appreciate their answers nonetheless. TL
Sister Madeline Dorsey is a Maryknoll Sister who was serving in El Salvador when four American churchwomen were killed by National Guardsmen on 2 Dec. 1980. Three of the four slain ministers — Sisters Maura Clarke and Ita Ford, and lay volunteer Jean Donovan — were members of the Maryknoll religious order. The fourth, Sister Dorothy Kazel, was an Ursuline. The four women were ambushed on a remote stretch of road, their vehicle was stripped and burned and the bodies buried. "We were not intended to find them," Sister Madeline says. But the women’s bodies were found because a campesino "risked his neck"' in telling his parish priest that he had been forced to bury four women. Sister Madeline and another sister had the job of getting the bodies uncovered. In the 25 years since their murders, the four women have been embraced as martyrs by the poor of Latin America, as well as by people in the United States in acknowledgment of their determined faithfulness in living out the gospel and their brutal demise. Those implicated in their deaths have been linked to the School of the Americas, a U.S. Army training facility located at Fort Benning, Ga.
Sister
Madeline Dorsey, MM
First of all, can you tell us about yourself?
I was born in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, NY, all of 87˝ years ago. I entered
Maryknoll 69˝ years ago and celebrated my 70th Jubilee on Feb. 12 along
with 14 Sisters celebrating their 60th or Diamond Jubilee — this in the
midst of a beautiful snowstorm or blizzard of 2006.
Briefly, my Maryknoll mission assignments have taken me to eight countries
on three continents: Panama, Bolivia, Sri Lanka, USA, Peru, El Salvador,
Guatemala and Mexico. In the first five mentioned my work was pioneering
in medical work, either nursing or administration. (For both professions I
was prepared by my Congregation.) In El Salvador I started out with a
combination of pastoral work and preventive medicine but had to drop the
latter when it was wrongly judged "subversive"! I’ve continued up
until today in some form of pastoral outreach. Presently I am
residing at our Centerhouse in Maryknoll, NY.
What do you recall about the situation in El Salvador in late 1980?
The atmosphere in El Salvador during the later half of the 1970s
leading up to the killing of our Sisters and friends was violent toward
the poor — simple farmers, laborers, catechists and then toward priests,
sisters, professionals and students who accompanied the "conscientisized"
poor. At first only Salvadorans were oppressed, tortured and killed
and then Archbishop Oscar Romero’s death (26 years ago March 24) shocked
the world, and our Sisters’ and friends’ death followed.
What did you do after the sisters were killed?
We loved our people. How could we even think of leaving? We
believed absolutely in the pastoral work of accompaniment, which was
taught and proclaimed by Archbishop Romero. Yes, we remained after
the deaths until six months later when a direct threat to Maryknoll
priests and sisters would have endanger-ed others had we stayed.
What memories linger from this tragic ordeal?
When their bodies were crudely pulled from that single hidden grave, I
could only think they are at home with a loving God — these are only their
lifeless bodies. We fell to our knees and prayed. Yes, I felt anger at
such a terrible crime against ours who only rendered love and caring
service. The complicity of it all: no doubt as to those responsible!
Images remaining from that day? Only of their smiling faces, which
never fade for us and those relatives, friends and church people who are
still inspired by their dedicated lives and martyrdom.
What is the legacy of these four martyrs?
Their total dedication to God and His little ones. No cost was too
great. They were happy in their service and solidarity. With
Archbishop Romero they are regarded as saints who worked for the good of
the poor. American religious and youth who knew of them were drawn to make
commitments. Some children were named for them, and now come here to look
in our archives and find out more about them. Works in their memory
continue to this day — 25 years later! They live. Presente!