PODCAST: Jesuit Martyrs – Reflections & Justice Served
Don MacMillan, S.J.
BY CHRIS KERR | January 11, 2013
Fr. Don MacMillan, S.J., a campus minister at Boston College, reflects on the sentencing hearing of Inocente Orlando Montano and his personal experience of the loss of the Salvadoran Jesuit martyrs and their companions in 1989. Fr. MacMillan joins us from his office at Boston College.
In 2012, retired Salvadoran colonel Inocente Orlando Montano has was indicted on federal criminal immigration fraud and perjury charges. The indictment includes three counts of making false statements on his application for Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a humanitarian immigration benefit for Salvadorans unable to return safely to their home country during and after the Salvadoran civil war. The indictment also includes two federal counts of perjury. If convicted on all counts, he faces as many as 40 years in U.S. federal prison and over one million dollars in fines.
Montano is also one of the indicted defendants in a case pending before the Spanish National Court for the 1989 murder of six Jesuit priests at the Jesuit University of Central America in San Salvador, El Salvador. He will be sentenced in the John Joseph Moakley U.S. Federal Courthouse downtown Boston on Tuesday, January 15, 2013, at 9 AM.
PODCAST with Fr. MacMillan:
Chris joined the Ignatian Solidarity Network (ISN) as executive director in 2011. He has over fifteen years of experience in social justice advocacy and leadership in Catholic education and ministry. Prior to ISN he served in multiple roles at John Carroll University, including coordinating international immersion experience and social justice education programming as an inaugural co-director of John Carroll’s Arrupe Scholars Program for Social Action. Prior to his time at John Carroll he served as a teacher and administrator at the elementary and secondary levels in Catholic Diocese of Cleveland. Chris speaks regularly at campuses and parishes about social justice education and advocacy, Jesuit mission, and a broad range of social justice issues. He currently serves on the board of directors for Christians for Peace in El Salvador (CRISPAZ). Chris earned a B.A. and M.A. from John Carroll University in University Heights, Ohio. He and his family reside in Shaker Heights, Ohio.
Thanks for forwarding this. As the sister of a late Jesuit, I remember the 1989 incident well! To this day I don’t buy Folgers coffee! Don MacMillan continues to make a difference!
Martha,
You are too kind!
Don
Father Don,
What political work were the six Jesuits conducting that would lead to such measures that Catholic men would kill Catholic priests? There are published accounts of individual Jesuits on their own running guns and other weapons to guerrilla operations in Central/South America. Could the six been in a way guilty by association to rogue Jesuits? Could the six be victims of liberation theology instead of martyrs?
Steve