UCA Martyrs
Opening
On November 16, 1989, six prominent Jesuits at the Central America University (UCA) in San Salvador, and two women who had asked to stay on the campus that night for their own safety, were brutally assassinated by Salvadoran soldiers.
Their names are a litany in the martyrology of Latin America and of the church of El Salvador: Ignacio
Ellacuría, Segundo Montes, Amando López, Joaquín López y López, Juan Ramón Moreno, Ignacio
Martín-Baró, Elba Ramos, Celina Ramos.
For hundreds, even thousands of North Americans, these murders once again brought the Salvadoran reality close. Many people had visited these Jesuits at the UCA, had heard them speak in their communities, had read their books and their reports, had learned to count on them for the truth about El
Salvador.
Each of these martyrs witnessed to God's promise of the fullness of life and the content of that promise -- lives of dignity, peace and joy for every human being, created as they are in God's image. Each witnessed the cruel violence and injustice that destroys that promise for the majority of people in our world.
Ignacio Ellacuría, S.J.
Native of Spain, rector of the José Simeón Cañas Central America University for over 10 years, theologian and philosopher, a gifted intellectual with a fierce commitment to human rights. Outspokenly critical of El Salvador's extreme right and of the military which was using repression to crush its political enemies. Became a strong advocate of a negotiated solution to the war, which won him the enmity of the military and rightist political sectors that supported a strategy of total war. For the last 20 years of his life, was also involved in pastoral work with the poor.
“Today in our situation the authenticity of the people of God goes by way of poverty and justice: they are the touchstone of the truth of the faith that is professed and of the genuineness of life as it is lived out: poverty, which involves incarnating all our efforts and incarnating ourselves in the reality of the oppressed majorities, and that will necessarily entail a voluntary impoverishment and abnegation on the part of those who wield power; justice, which involves giving to the people what belongs to the people and struggling to uproot injustice and exploitation, and to establish a new earth, wherein the life of the new human may be possible.”

Amando López Quintana S.J.
Professor of theology and former rector of the seminary in the San Salvador archdiocese, a close associate of Archbishop Oscar Romero. Former rector of the UCA in Managua, Nicaragua, just following the fall of the Somoza dictatorship and the triumph of the Sandinista revolution in 1979. Was known to be a gifted counselor and did pastoral work in a semirural parish at Tierra Virgen.
“The root cause of the fighting here is wealth distribution. If the real wealth of our country were distributed equally rather than the few having so much more than the many, then there would be enough for all. But the government kills its own people when they cry for bread. They are called 'communists' when they organize because they have no food.
The American economic solution to our problems is good for America, but not for us. El Salvador cannot go on like this. The reason is the immense population and lack of resources.... A free-market, trickledown, privatized economy like that of the USA will not work under these circumstances.”
Juan Ramón Moreno Pardo, S.J
Another native of Spain, librarian at the UCA's Center of Theological Reflection and assistant director of the Oscar Romero Center at the UCA, was especially grounded in Ignatian spirituality -- the spirituality of the founder of the Society of Jesus. He gave many retreats for religious and was known as a gifted preacher
“This change in the situation of the poor has to take place in a context where there is a causal, dialectical relationship between poverty and wealth. Basically the poor are impoverished due to hoarding and exploitation by the rich; and the rich are enriched at the cost of the impoverishment and misery of the masses. To free the poor by giving them access to living conditions consonant with their dignity as human beings and children of God entails sacrificing the privileges of wealthy oppressors...
Our world is an overdeveloped world with an impressive supply of consumer goods and services, but one in which there are more poor than ever... Our world is marked by the lack of solidarity and the mistrust of people toward each other... And alongside all this there is a new awareness of the dignity and rights of the poor... God does not want things to go on as they are...”

Celina Ramos
Elba's only daughter, 16 years old and in her first year of high school at the time of her death. Had worked as a catechist and participated in activities such as band and basketball. Celina's boyfriend of two years was a classmate and player on the school basketball team. They had planned to approach Elba in
December to ask for permission to marry.
Joaquín López y López, S.J.
Native of El Salvador, 71-years-old at the time of his death, director of Fe y Alegría, a religious education program that organizes schools for primary-age children in poor communities. Fr. López y López helped found the UCA in 1964, though he only taught there a few years. He joined the Jesuit university community in 1988
“Throughout his life he was exemplary in his self-denial and fondness for secondhand things -- never a trace of luxury... Lolo was a man already condemned -- not by any death squad but by prostate cancer. He did not know how long he had. Meanwhile he kept working tirelessly, until, without his suspecting it would be this way, the enemies of his poor people did the Reaper's business.”

Segundo Montes Mozo, S.J.
Spanish-born, director of the UCA's Institute of Human Rights and professor of sociology and political science. Conducted surveys in the countryside, studying social classes and landholding patterns. Also wrote prodigiously about refugees and human rights. On Sundays he did pastoral work among the poor in
Santa Tecla. Was well-known internationally because of his many presentations abroad based on his institute's human rights documentation.
“With a history of killing our population at random, now they can terrorize persons and threaten them, and the threats are taken seriously, because the population knows that the army can really do it. Also, you have to remember that for a time there were simply fewer persons to kill. The Treasury Police and the death squads, which are clearly related to the government, took much of the strength out of the popular movements in the early 1980s by killing and having so many persons disappear. It has taken time for new ones to get the courage to replace them. There were many more mouths here in those days, when a thousand or fifteen hundred persons each month were being killed or were disappearing. You cannot continue that level of killing of innocent persons indefinitely. There are not that many to kill.”
Elba Ramos
Born in 1947, her mother was a fruit-seller and her father a plantation boss. Worked as a domestic and coffee-picker. Met her common law husband while working on a coffee plantation. From 1976, was employed by the Jesuits to cook and clean at their theologate. Moved with her husband and two children to the guardhouse at the UCA in 1989. Her husband was hired that year to be the guard at the UCA's main gate.
She is remembered as a woman sensitive to others' needs, intuitive, "an exceptional person," according to
Jesuit Fr. Jon Sobrino. He wrote that on the day she was killed, she washed her best dress so that she could give it the next day to a woman "who had taken refuge in the theologate from the bombing."

Ignacio Martín-Baró, S.J.
Born in Spain, vice academic rector at the UCA, director of the psychology department; described as intense, a workaholic. A highly acclaimed researcher, carried out pioneering studies on the effects of war and repression on the human psyche. Did pastoral work among campesinos in the community of Jayaque, surrounded by coffee plantations. He was known for his goodness and generosity, as well as his passion for justice.
“Above all, this is a society that is more than poor -- it is impoverished; a society that is not just divided -- it is violently torn apart. It is a society in which the most basic human rights of the majority are structurally and systematically denied -- such fundamental rights as having a place to live, a job in which to fulfill oneself as a human being, or a school in which to educate one's children. This situation demonstrates how arbitrary and deceptive it can be to distinguish between 'economic' and 'political' refugees: in El Salvador to demand the satisfaction of the basic needs of the poor majority is, in itself, a
'subversive' proposition since it attacks the very bases of a discriminatory system.”