Scranton Remembers Martyrs of El Salvador

Portraits of the Martyrs of El Salvador grace a wall on a busy staircase leading to the third-floor dining area for University of Scranton students. On more secluded part of campus, the University dedicated Martyrs Grove as a place for quiet prayer and reflection. Both serve as reminders throughout the year of the six Jesuits, their housekeeper and her daughter who were brutally murdered Nov. 16, 1989.

“As you walk up the staircase in the DeNaples Center, either to eat with your friends on the third floor, or on your way to a special event in the Ballroom or auditorium, you are encountered on the wall by a monument to some saintly figures in our Church: nine portraits of people who were killed because of their heroic witness to the cause of justice in El Salvador,” wrote Daniel Cosacchi, Ph.D., vice president for mission and ministry, in a message to the University community on the 24^th anniversary of the murders in El Salvador. “Prominent among them is Saint Óscar Romero, who was gunned down while celebrating the Eucharist on March 24, 1980. The other eight portraits depict holy women and men who were massacred on this day, November 16, 1989, on the campus of the Universidad Centroamericano José Simeon Cañas (UCA). Those murdered were six Jesuit priests, Ignacio Ellacuría, Ignacio Martín Baró, Segundo Montes, Amando López, Joaquín López y López, and Juan Ramón Moreno, along with their longtime colleague Julia Elba Ramos, and her fifteen-year-old daughter, Celina Ramos.”

Pictured below is Martyrs Grove, located in front of Campion Hall near the Scranton Estate, commemorates the lives of six Jesuits, their housekeeper, and their housekeeper's daughter, who were murdered in 1989 on the campus of Central American University in San Salvador, El Salvador.