Abstract
Christine Rody is a sister in the Vincentian Sisters of Charity order in Cincinnati, Ohio. She served on the Cleveland Latin American Mission team to El Salvador with Sr. Martha Owen and Sr. Dorothy Kazel. In this interview, she discusses her decision to enter the convent and her time in El Salvador. Sr. Christine reflects on the work she helped perform and the impact that work has had on the Salvadoran people. She also describes the situation in El Salvador both before and after the escalation of hostilities between the guerillas and the military junta in the late 1970s, including the murders of the four church women in 1980. Sr. Christine Rody was at the Thanksgiving dinner held at Ambassador Robert White's house the night before Srs. Dorothy, Ita, Maura, and Jean Donovan were killed. She also talks about the reaction and involvement of the Cleveland people in relation to El Salvador and the work of the Cleveland mission team.
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Interviewee
Rody, Christine (interviewee)
Interviewer
Randt, Naomi A. (interviewer)
Project
Protest Voices
Date
7-30-2016
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
81 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Christine Rody interview, 30 July 2016" (2016). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 750009.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/772
Transcript
Sister Christine Rody [00:00:00] Oh, and by the way, there’s something in this same room at noon, so we absolutely have to be finished. Okay.
Naomi A. Randt [00:00:06] My name is [Naomi A. Randt]. I’m with Sister Christine Rody at St. Malachi’s Convent.
Sister Christine Rody [00:00:12] Sorry.
Naomi A. Randt [00:00:13] That’s okay. It is the 30th of July 2016. Could you please state your name for the record?
Sister Christine Rody [00:00:20] I’m sister Christine Rody, R-O-D-Y.
Naomi A. Randt [00:00:27] When and where were you born?
Sister Christine Rody [00:00:30] I was born in Bedford, Ohio, September … 1942.
Naomi A. Randt [00:00:38] What was Bedford like growing up? [phone rings]
Sister Christine Rody [00:00:41] A nice little suburb, I guess you’d call it. I always, when I give my talks and so on, I use as my life history. I was born in Bedford, raised in Bedford, went to school in Bedford, entered a community in Bedford, taught in Bedford, went to Salvador to get away from Bedford. [laughs] I went other places and did other things, too, but that’s kind of a fun thing to say.
Naomi A. Randt [00:01:08] Did you have any siblings?
Sister Christine Rody [00:01:10] Yes, I’m the oldest of five. After me are two boys and then my sister and then another boy. There are three boys and two girls.
Naomi A. Randt [00:01:19] What was- What were your parents like? What did they do?
Sister Christine Rody [00:01:25] My mom and dad were very, what I define as practical Catholic people. They made their faith a part of their life. It wasn’t some tacked-on thing. And they raised us in that same tradition. My father was a crane operator on Lake Erie. He worked for Cleveland Stevedore, and my mom was a housewife. My dad kind of had us be aware of the world because of his job. And on occasion, he would take us down to the docks, and we were, if the captain of the ship was amenable to it, we would be able to see, we’d be able to walk on the ship and meet the sailors who we were fascinated because they didn’t speak English. And so he exposed us to the world scene, and our mom was very interested in anything that you could be interested in. So it was kind of a wide open experience of growing up.
Naomi A. Randt [00:02:24] Where did you go to school?
Sister Christine Rody [00:02:25] I went the first six years of my educational life at St. Mary’s in Bedford, and then St. Mary’s Parish got too large and was split. And I was part, we geographically lived in the area that was part of St. Pius X. So then I finished 7th and 8th grade at St. Pius X, and then I went to Hoban Dominican High School for my freshman and sophomore year. And then I decided when I was in the 8th grade, I thought I really wanted to be a sister. And my best friend entered the community at the time, and I wanted to go then, but my parents said I wasn’t old enough and wasn’t, didn’t have enough life experience to make that decision. So when I was finished my sophomore year, I said to them, I really want to be a sister. And when you’re a junior, this is back in 1958. So I said to them that I really want to be a sister. And most of your junior, senior year are spent. That time is spent looking for a boyfriend or planning for a career or, you know, that kind of thing. I’m not interested in that. I want to be a sister. Why can’t I get started? So they said yes. And so then I entered the community, and I finished my education in high school at Marymount, which is now Trinity High School. I did my junior, senior year together in that school year and the summer, and then I became what’s called a canonical novice, which is the year that religious study, the life of the community and the rule and all that sort of thing. And you don’t go to school or, you know, you just kind of concentrate on becoming a sister. And then when that year was finished, when I was a second year novice, I started at St. John College in Cleveland to get ready to be a teacher. And then I had two full years of college. And at that time, the cadet program was still in place in the state of Ohio, and so we could start teaching and then finish our college work in summers and Saturdays. And so I finished in four more years of summers and Saturdays and got my bachelor’s degree in 1966. And then I taught grade school at St. Mary’s in Bedford for a year, and then I was at St. Barnabas in Northfield for six years. And then they asked me to teach at the high school, Lumen Cordium High School. So then I prepared for that in summers while I was teaching. And I taught religion full-time at Lumen Cordium, but I carried a certificate for state certification in mathematics, and I got all those credits at John Carroll. And to do the religion teaching, I started a summer program at St. John’s University and Collegeville, Minnesota, and got a master’s degree in theology there. And then I taught. The summer that I got my master’s degree, that was 1975, I got my master’s degree. Well, I finished all the work in 75. That summer, I left the country to go study Spanish in Bolivia so that I could go to the missions. And the push there was at the time, there was an age limit on being a missionary, and you had to do it under the age of 35, and I was 33 at the time. So I thought, oh, gosh, I better get cracking on this too, if I’m really going to do this. So then I asked my religious community about becoming a missionary. They said, well, investigate it. So I did, and I went to Salvador to see what I was getting into. Holy Week, I think it was holy week of 1976. No, it was 1975. And then I left the country in August of ’75 to go to Bolivia. And then I went to Salvador in February of ’76. Now, the point of becoming, I mean, of going to be a missionary wasn’t. At the time, I wasn’t focused on being a missionary. I was focused on helping the kids at Lumen Cordium High School understand the world situation and that the church was interested. The church was a world organization out for the world, and I wanted to make that real to the girls I was teaching. And so I was teaching sophomores and seniors and the sophomores. This was in the sophomore course on the church. And again, this was in the seventies, right after the Second Vatican Council. And the textbooks weren’t very well written at the time, and it was kind of chaotic in the realm of religion teaching. So I reflected on how did I as a child, have a world sense? And part of it was my father’s job. The other part of it was I had a pen pal in India. And so anything that happened in India was very much important to me. So I thought, oh, if these girls knew somebody in a foreign country, they would be at least interested in that country. So I was thinking, okay, if I go to the missions- And at the time, the commitment for the mission was three years upfront and then a possible two years renewal. I thought, well, if I go to the missions, those kids that are freshmen will still be in school, so they would know me, and then I can connect them with at least El Salvador. So that was my motivation for going to the missions. And then once I was there, I arranged my vacations to be during school time. And then I would go and I would come back to Lumen and to all of our grades. We had 14 grade schools at the time. The community sponsored or, you know, we taught at 14 grade schools. So I made the rounds and did, you know, a dog and pony show, basically with slides. And I taught them a simple Spanish song. And so that all the kids that we as a congregation were connected with had a sense of the mission in El Salvador that the diocese had. So that’s how all that fits together. That’s probably much more than you wanted to hear.
Naomi A. Randt [00:08:21] That’s really perfect. I wonder if I could just back up a little bit. What was your underlying motivation to enter the convent? Why did you want to be a sister so-?
Sister Christine Rody [00:08:35] Strongly? Passionately? I think because I wanted to help people and I wanted to- I think that’s basically it. I wanted to help people. I truly wasn’t interested in getting married at that age and stage of life. This is going to sound awful, but I thought it was too confining. You know, once you got married, you had responsibilities to your husband, you had responsibilities to your children. You were extremely focused on a very nugget kind of situation, and that didn’t interest me. I wanted this bigger perception. In fact, when I started high school, everybody at Hoban had to take Latin, and I was fascinated with another language. I thought, isn’t this amazing that you can rearrange the letters of the alphabet in a different way and it’s a language and it speaks just like English does. I mean, I was a kid, so I was talking to my mother one day about this, and she said, well, maybe you could be a translator for the United Nations. Well, it was something I had never dreamt of as an ambition. And I thought, gee, that might be an interesting occupation. So from the time I was a child, my vision was focused bigger than the requirements at the time for women. You could be a wife, a mother, a secretary or a teacher at that time, in the fifties. And maybe I’m a late bloomer, too. So all that women’s rights and all that sort of stuff that began in the fifties was not part of my focus at that time. So I wanted a bigger scene. And in order to do that, I didn’t think you could be married because it would compromise your, I mean, it certainly is able, look at the candidate for president, it is possible, but at that time, I didn’t think that way. So for this bigger work, that was, I think, why I wanted to be a sister.
Naomi A. Randt [00:10:41] And your parents were ultimately supportive of that?
Sister Christine Rody [00:10:43] Oh, yes, they were always supportive of that. My mother, when she was a child, thought about becoming a sister, and as it turned out, we used to laugh and tease her because she didn’t become a sister, but her two daughters did. [laughs] And it wasn’t something that she pushed down our throats or anything. It was just something that happened, under God’s grace, I suppose.
Naomi A. Randt [00:11:11] What was the connection with El Salvador? Why was that sort of like the country that-?
Sister Christine Rody [00:11:16] Well, the connection with El Salvador was I was in a religious community from the Diocese of Cleveland. And in the sixties, the Pope asked for- He asked for help with the- He said if Europe would take care of Africa and North America would take care of South America, then we would be able to get the gospel out in. In a better way. Well, the diocese of Cleveland in the early sixties took this on as a commitment and said, well, where can we go? What can we do? And it was Bishop Whalen who did the investigation, and he helped Archbishop Hoban, at the time, focus on El Salvador for a couple of reasons. One, there was only one language to learn, and that was Spanish. There were Indian dialects in Salvador, but because of the. The war situation, prior to that, people would not speak their Indian dialect in public. So as a church, the only language we would have to, you know, learn would be Spanish. That was one reason, another reason it was close enough that you could. You could get there and back without a whole lot of trouble. Actually, it’s closer, Salvador is closer to Cleveland than some of the places in California, you know, so it was close. It was practical. We also had a cooperative bishop in Salvador who was looking for some assistance. So the sixties decision of Cleveland to choose El Salvador influenced my decision, because I was not looking to be a full time lifetime missionary as my career. I was looking at it as a temporary thing to help the kids at Lumen Cordium High School. And it was something. The commitment was short. It was not for life, like a religious congregation dedicated to missionary work would be, and my community would not be responsible for my replacement. That was a big concern for me, too. The diocese sponsored the mission, not the community. So we just assisted with the community, with the diocese service in El Salvador. And as you know, the mission in El Salvador was staffed by diocesan priests and religious from the Ursuline, the Ursuline Humility of Mary Vincentians, Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine. You know, a whole bunch of people who are centered in Cleveland took on this responsibility. Now, I think part of the reason that it was so vivid in the minds of the Clevelanders was the fact that from Salvador, every week in the diocesan newspaper at the time, the Universe Bulletin that came out weekly, the people in Salvador would write a letter, and it was called Dear Folks Back Home. You can track all of those letters, and they were very interesting. The people who were on the mission team at that time were good writers and were very committed to helping the people of Cleveland understand why we were in El Salvador. And so those Dear Folks Back Home letters I read as a kid, you know, and I would say, oh, isn’t this interesting? You know, like, we couldn’t get to the mission because the cows were in the street, and you know, all kinds of. All kinds of interesting little remarks that the missionaries made. So it kept it alive in the minds of Clevelanders. And that’s probably why when the nuns were murdered, the outpouring of love and support and so on was so strong, because it was our mission, the diocese, and I think it still is in the minds of a lot of people. The Diocese of Cleveland is in El Salvador because the people of Cleveland support it, and it’s Cleveland’s way of being committed to the world church.
Naomi A. Randt [00:15:01] Was there a lot of, for people who weren’t part of the Catholic Diocese in Cleveland, was that sort of that connection to El Salvador there for them to open? Did they know about that as well?
Sister Christine Rody [00:15:15] I think that depended on the people in Cleveland, how well they publicized what was going on in El Salvador to the bigger church. Until Salvador became a national issue, I think Clevelanders in general knew about what the diocese was doing because the people in Cleveland were talking about it, and other people than Catholics read the Universe Bulletin, you know. So, yes, it was a wider issue than just the Cleveland commitment, but the commitment was from the diocese. Yeah. If you’re not careful, I’m gonna fill the gap. [laughs]
Naomi A. Randt [00:16:06] I have a question for you. So when did you go down to El Salvador? That was 1976?
Sister Christine Rody [00:16:19] Well, I started work in Salvador in 1970- February of 1976. Yeah, that’s when I began work. I went to Salvador, the Holy Week of ’75, just to see what I was getting into. I also wanted to see, can I sustain the heat? I was a little concerned about that, but it was not a problem. And then I came back, finished teaching, finished my last graduate paper for my theology degree 12 hours before I left the country to go to Salvador, I mean to Bolivia, to study Spanish. I mean, crazy, but in your thirties, you got lots of energy, and you could do this. So, in fact, I didn’t even finish typing the paper. I gave it to my friend who finished the typing, and I said, take care of it. If there are any corrections to be made, would you please make them and send them back and so on. And the interesting thing, when I was home in 76 for my first vacation in the spring, my degree from Collegeville came in the mail, and I thought, boy, was this a different part of my life. [laughs] So then I left August of ’75 to go to language school. I spent five months in Bolivia, in Cochabamba, studying Spanish at the Maryknoll Language School, which is a highly intense program. It’s one on one with a tutor every- And you can sign up for at least four hours of tutoring. Fifty minutes of every hour was with this tutorial. The next hour you got a new tutor who would pick up where the last tutor left off and continue. And one of the things I learned the very first day I was there is if you are so well prepared that you know the lesson, they’ll go to the next lesson. So I prepared for my. Well, at that time, the first two weeks, you can take two, two hours of Spanish grammar and then two hours of face-to-face Spanish study. And the grammar teacher spoke English so you could ask questions in English. The tutor did not- They deliberately chose people who didn’t speak English because it forced you to put everything in Spanish, even your questions. So it was a real pressure cooker situation. So I figured, two classes, I’ll prepare the first three lessons. That ought to do it. Well, I had the two classes of grammar, then I had the two one on ones. Well, I had prepared those first three lessons so well that the first tutor went through the first three lessons, told the next tutor that I was ready for the fourth lesson, which I hadn’t even looked at. So I didn’t even know where the words began or ended. I remember the title of the lesson was “Me a pria ta mucho los zapatos,” which means “My shoes are too tight.” I didn’t know where the words were. And the first part of the lesson was the teacher would ask you about the lesson. There was like a little paragraph at the beginning, and then they developed the vocabulary and so on and so forth. Every lesson was the same. So I think that’s why they chose the method. It was the ALM method of Spanish study back in ’75, whatever that was at the time. So when he started the, it was the most agonizing hour of my life because I had no idea what he was asking. I had no idea what the words were. Finally, when he opened the book, then at least I could see where the words began and ended. So I thought, oh, my goodness, this is not- I mean, I could really, you know, I could zip through this book in no time if I could make my brain hold all this information. So anyway, that’s my little side story. [laughs]
Naomi A. Randt [00:20:02] Did you find that your latin background from-?
Sister Christine Rody [00:20:05] From high school? It got in the way. I had. I also had had, when I was going into the 9th grade, a friend of mine was going to the Case Western Reserve summer language school for high school students, and she invited me to join her because she didn’t want to go alone. I mean, we were 14-year-old kids, and it was French the study of French. And I remember the, the professor’s name was Mademoiselle Rogoff, and she started the very first part of the class. She spoke to us in English, and then she said, I’m going to talk to you in French and you’re going to have to pay strict attention. And this is the best way to learn French. So when I was studying Spanish, my French and my Latin got in the way because it was the other than English language that I knew, which came more quickly to my brain than the Spanish I was studying. So at the beginning it was getting rid of the Spanish, I mean, getting rid of the Latin and the French so that I could concentrate on the Spanish. So it was- But in terms of grammar and word formation and so on, the Latin really helped later on, once I had cleared away the, you know, your first response was Latin and French.
Naomi A. Randt [00:21:17] Did you feel very prepared to go into El Salvador, those five minutes of language?
Sister Christine Rody [00:21:23] Did I feel very prepared? No, I did not. I felt like, well, I guess I have enough to get started. And once I got to the mission, people there assured me that for the whole first year, you’re gonna feel like you don’t know a thing, just put up with it. After the year, you’ll have enough practice, you’ll have enough security, you’ll be fine. And don’t worry about the grammar because the people don’t care about the grammar. They just want, they want to be friends with you and learn about the church and learn about things and be helped and so on. So don’t worry about it. So I didn’t. And I ended up speaking in the progressive tense rather than the straightforward present tense for the most part, because it was the easier form to form, because the verb is star is the thing that changes, and then the ending piece just stays the same. I, to this day, speak in the progressive tense, which is hardly- They don’t use it in Spanish, so they know I’m a gringa [laughs], but I made myself understood. And people are very, very kind. You find around the world people are very kind in the sense that if you’re trying to speak their language, they’ll put up with a whole lot of stuff because they want you to, to speak their language if you can, you know. So I was not embarrassed or hard-pressed. I, you know, some, there were days when I thought, boy, I’m really making progress in this language. And then there were other days like, I don’t understand a word they said today. So it fluctuated.
Naomi A. Randt [00:23:00] What was your impression of the Salvadoran people?
Sister Christine Rody [00:23:03] Oh, they’re wonderful. The Salvadoran people are great. First of all, we worked in- The Diocese of Cleveland at that time had three parishes, which they do today, but they’re different. At the time, we were in La Unión, La Libertad, and Chirilagua. Those were the three areas. And I spent two and a half years in La Unión and then two and a half years in the Zaragoza piece of the La Libertad Parish. And so we’re talking about people who are common people that was not upper-class people who had permanent jobs and so on. These were people who were either farmers or storekeepers or street vendors, you know, people trying to eke out a living and raise their families and so on. That was the kind of clientele that we worked with, the average Salvadoran person. And they were very kind and very- I’ve said to people many, many times, I have never felt so appreciated for doing so little in my whole life. All you had to do was show up, and they were glad.
Naomi A. Randt [00:24:12] What was some of the work that you did with them?
Sister Christine Rody [00:24:15] The work of the women on the mission team primarily was support work, like we had- We trained catechists. Everybody trained catechists because every parish of the three had at least 50 villages attached to it. And people would, for the most part, stay in their village. They would only come to the main church for big fiestas, big celebrations. So part of the Cleveland plan was to go to the villages and help these people understand about their faith. And so in order for that to happen, we had to train people of the village who could do that. So one of our first jobs was to find people who could read and write. And then, at the time, there was a program that the Cleveland team instituted for training catechists, and the center was called El Castaño. It was a cement building that, very plain, very simple, that we would draw people who could read and write, who were interested in helping their neighbors learn the faith. And then we would bring them together so that they could learn about the faith, learn how to teach about the faith, and then go back to their village. The other side effect of that was they learned about people in other villages who had that same interest and intent and so on. So that’s why it became dangerous to the government, because what it was doing is creating a base of people to share. And that’s why we got labeled subversives. It had nothing to do with what we were teaching. We were not teaching anything about the government. In fact, we purposely stayed away from anything like that because we felt- Not that we were trying to avoid it or were cowardly, but we felt that political things were the work of the people themselves. It had nothing to do with us. So we were teaching people how to teach about the faith, how to teach reading and writing to adults who hadn’t gone to school. We also had programs for food assistance for pregnant and nursing mothers and children under five. It was a combination of the government of El Salvador with the Caritas program. And so we would be- The women primarily did work with those Caritas groups, like in Zaragoza. I think we had, like 27 of these different caritas groups around the area. And one of our jobs was to go and to train the women of the directiva, the coordinating group, about something so that they could teach the women. So in order for the women to receive the food assistance, they had to come to a class. And then it cost them 75 centavos for the food. And it was milk and a wheat soy blend of flour and oil and powdered milk and tree gore. I think there were, like, five things- Oil. There were five different things that we would. And then they would get those on a monthly basis. And it was our job to make sure that the food got to the village and, you know, all that kind of stuff. And then we also taught- We did a lot of the teaching of the people to teach how to read and write. We used the program developed in Costa Rica called Alphalet. And it was a way of teaching adults how to read in Spanish. And we use that as our text. So that kind of was the work that we did. And then before the war got real serious, we would go to these different villages on a weekly basis. We would go, like, in the evening for a week to a village. And we had, like, a theme. One time it was the sacraments. Another time it was the laws of the commandments. Another time it was liturgy. Depending on what we thought the people needed, we would go there in the evening for a set of classes. And then we would have the classes en masse at that village.
Naomi A. Randt [00:28:07] What was your favorite part about all that work?
Sister Christine Rody [00:28:10] Oh, gosh, my favorite part. It was all fun. It was all a favorite part. I think when I first got to La Unión, one of the things I did was tutor a lady in Alphalet so that I would learn and be able to explain things. And I remember that at that point was my favorite because I felt useful. You know, I was doing something that had meaning and so on. So that was good. And then later on, I think just that ability to go to these villages and meet with these people and people who are so committed to their faith. It was wonderful to watch these people walk around with the Bible and the document from the bishops of Latin America that came out tucked under their arm. And we’re talking about campesino people, you know, who maybe had a 6th grade education or maybe didn’t even have that. And maybe, de vez en cuando, once in a while, somebody who had a high school education walking around with these official documents that they were studying. That to me was a marvelous thing, you know, that it mattered to them what their church said on these issues. That’s why it got so dangerous.
Naomi A. Randt [00:29:20] What kind of things were in those official documents?
Sister Christine Rody [00:29:23] Well, you know, that people have dignity, that everybody has a right to speak. Everybody has a right to be listened to. Whether you agree with them or not, that’s your choice, but that you should hear them, you know. I’ll never forget this. One catechist from a village came to us, the nuns. I don’t know why we were there to check on Caritas or something. He came up to us and he was so excited. He said he had just come back from Castaño and he said, you know what, Sisters? He said, I learned something. My wife is equal to me, you know, we share a partnership. And that was an exciting revelation to him that she wasn’t less than he was, which kind of is the macho perception. And of course, he didn’t have any education, so where would he have learned that? So anyway, it was fun. It was fun to see that. The fun part for me was to see how people can develop if you help them.
Naomi A. Randt [00:30:26] Where did they get their documents-?
Sister Christine Rody [00:30:29] They got them from us, basically, in the sense that the people would, back in the days when they were still permitted to congregate and be together, they would form, like, study clubs and, you know, like, what do we want to study? And of course, these documents were just coming out at the time. So they said, well, let’s study these. And then, of course, there’s always those Bible study booklets in any language, you know, study this passage. These are the questions, what do you come to understand? And how does this deepen your faith and all that kind of stuff. So they were interested, and we’re talking about people who at the time only had, like, if they had electricity, radios, very few people at that time- Now we’re talking the early ’70, you know, ’75 to ’80 period of time. So there weren’t that many televisions, particularly out in the villages, they wouldn’t have television. So what did they do in their evenings? So to study was, in a sense, a recreation as well. And then, of course, the bishops, Archbishop Romero broadcast his homilies. The whole mass was broadcast throughout the diocese. Well, people beyond the Diocese of San Salvador could get this radio transmission. So we used to laugh and say, you could walk down the street and not miss a word of the sermon because everybody listened to the bishop, whether you were in his diocese or not. And then when the situation got so tense, his homilies would include the events of the week. Whether they were leftist misdemeanors or government misdemeanors, it showed up in the homily. And that, of course, made him enemy number one to the government. And we all know what happened to him.
Naomi A. Randt [00:32:20] What was your impression of Archbishop Romero?
Sister Christine Rody [00:32:23] Oh, gosh. Well, the two and a half years I was in La Unión, I was in the Diocese of San Miguel, which is a different bishop. When we turned the La Unión over to the Salvadoran, back to the Salvadoran diocese, back to San Miguel, part of the reason for that was we- The parochia, the parish, was to the point where we had over 200 catechists trained. We had all kinds of, you know, people knew what they were doing in terms of the faith. We felt that it was the end of missionaries’ commitment there, that they could do it themselves. So we were in the process of changing from North American support of this parish and all of its cantons to a Salvadoran priest taking over. So we had two Salvadoran priests on the mission team with an American and then the three of us nuns, Sister Dorothy Kazel, Martha Owen, and myself. And at that point, the situation in the country got bad. So Father Miguel Montesinos lost his voice and he was going to the doctor and going to the doctor and going to the doctor. And finally the doctor told him that he would not get his voice back until he was out of the tension he was living in. So he decided that he was gonna go to Costa Rica either temporarily or whatever. At the time, I think he was thinking temporarily. So he left the mission team and went to Costa Rica, just to get away from it. Then Father Lionel Cruz, who was with Father Jim McCreight, the other Salvadoran priest. We don’t know how involved he was with the leftist activities because we didn’t want to know, because we didn’t want to be able to answer any questions. But he was a very good priest and committed to the parish and so on. What he did in his personal time was none of our business. So he was- His best friend was up in Chalatenango and he was picked up by the government. The sacristan up in his parish was able to sneak out of the town because they surrounded the town and wouldn’t let anybody in or out. They picked up Lionel’s friend and the sacristan snuck out and went to the neighboring parish where there were Franciscan priests from Ireland, I think. The priests were from Ireland and the nuns were from England or vice versa, I can’t remember. Anyway, he told the Franciscans. And then the Franciscans got the word out to the missionary community that this priest had been picked up. And, you know, it was at the time when priests were being murdered and all that sort of stuff. So we were quite concerned. And our priests then did what they could to find out where he was and what was going on. Anyway, he got released and he went back to his parish. But the people wanted to tell him how good he was and all this sort of stuff. So they wouldn’t let him alone, wouldn’t let him rest. So he came down to La Unión to be with Lionel. And then there’s a whole bunch of more details to this story. But anyway, the two of them left the country and came to the states because their names weren’t both on a hit list. So then that left Jim McCreight. But Jim McCreight had come back to the United States for vacation and was in the states at the time that his name appeared on a hit list. So Bishop Pilla at the time, talked to him, I think, and said, let’s not let you go back to Salvador because this is getting bad. So poor Jim was never allowed or never came back to the country to be able to say goodbye to people, collect his stuff, all of that stuff. And so that left the three of us nuns in the parish. And the bishop said, I think you better move over to La Libertad. So Bishop Pilla talked to the Bishop of San Miguel Diocese and they arranged that Father Campos would take over the parish. And so Campos came to take care over the parish. And we prepared to leave. And then we all went to Zaragoza because Father Ken Myers and Paul Schindler decided that why put everybody in La Libertad and have this big religious presence? Why not split it up? So Ken already had lived in Zaragoza, which is a piece of the La Libertad Parish. Ken lived in Saragossa. He found a house near to the parish where the nuns could stay. And so the three of us, Martha, Dorothy, and I, moved into Zaragoza so that, in a sense, there were two cent. You know, there was a center in Zaragoza and a center in La Libertad. So then that’s. We lived in Zaragoza and worked out of there.
Naomi A. Randt [00:37:25] What was Saragossa like?
Sister Christine Rody [00:37:28] Typical little town, you know, I think two or three main streets and all, all the other side streets. At that time, the streets were cobblestones. Now, I was back about two years ago, and they’re all paved and, you know, there’s a beautiful town square, and it’s very different from when we were there. Very nice. Very nice. Very developed. So. But that’s what we did, and we were in Zaragoza. Was there a second question? I don’t remember.
Naomi A. Randt [00:37:53] No. But what year was that?
Sister Christine Rody [00:37:58] Hmm, ’78 or ’79, if you check what’s her name’s book, Sister Cindy Glavac’s book on Dorothy Kazel, she has all the dates and stuff accurately in there. You can get them from there.
Naomi A. Randt [00:38:17] So that was near the end of your initial three-year commitment? Did you decide to stay on? What happened then?
Sister Christine Rody [00:38:25] Well, again, the three years were finished and you could renew for two years. And I felt at that point that the diocese hadn’t gotten its money out of me in terms of- I mean, they paid for my language training. You know, they supported me while I was on the mission, and so I felt I owed them the two other years. And my community was, my religious community was okay with that happening. So I was going to stay the five years. Well, the five years were up in February of ’81, and the nuns were murdered in December of ’80. So my last two and a half years, I was in Zaragoza. So I was getting- I was, you know, fully involved and so on, but knowing that my time was going to end, and then we were- The team was working on a transition, and that’s when Jean Donovan came down, because both Dorothy and I were scheduled. Dorothy and Martha were scheduled to leave the year before I left because they had come the year before I came. And again, it was the five-year commitment. So at five years, Martha - I think you probably got this story from her - Martha left and came home, and then the two, Martha and Dorothy, had decided that Dorothy would be the one to stay on. So she was there a sixth year. So Dorothy and I, in our evenings, when we couldn’t go out and it was raining or whatever, we were planning how we were going to come home, you know, and we were talking about a trip through Canada before we actually came to Cleveland. I mean, all these vacations and whatever, that became our evening entertainment. That’s how we figured stuff out, so we were already talking about coming back at that point in time.
Naomi A. Randt [00:40:01] What was Sister Dorothy like?
Sister Christine Rody [00:40:02] Oh, my gosh. She was absolutely wonderful. My description of her, and I think Sister Cindy put this in her book, my description of her was she’s the kind of person who was so well grounded that she could go from the sublime to the ridiculous in the same sentence, and it made sense. [laughs] She was just absolutely marvelous. She was so well grounded, so based in faith, so free with her love of the people, so giving that she was very attractive to everybody. Besides the fact that she was pretty, I mean, she was a very pretty- If you see her pictures, she’s a very pretty woman. And that didn’t mean a thing to her. I mean, she was who she was, and this is what God gave me, and this is what I’m using, you know. Ha ha ha. She was just an absolutely marvelous lady. [laughs] We had a lot of fun together. A lot of fun. In fact, after the tragedy and so on, Martha and I took a day in December after, you know, after Christmas, and we went to a cottage someplace and just reflected on our time together as a threesome. And when we finished that day, the only regret we had is that there was no shared future. You know, that Dorothy was gone. We certainly had a shared future together with our ministries in various places. But the third person was gonna be missing, and that was the sorrow of it all. But she was a marvelous gal. Just marvelous. There’s a couple of funny stories. When people would come from Cleveland to visit us, they would bring us gifts, you know, stuff that we didn’t normally have. And we were all chocoholics at the time, and so they would bring us chocolate. And at the time, my superior, who was Sister Mary Ann Flannery at the time, and sister Mary Petronilla came down for a visit. Lumen Cordium High School was having a candy drive. So they put up a sign in the dining room at the mother house and said, you know, if you want to send chocolate candy to the nuns down in, you know, to the team in El, not just the nuns, but the team down in El Salvador, make your donations here or buy a bar, whatever. Well, they came down with over 50 pounds of chocolate candy. [laughs] So this was a real boon. You know, we put it in our refrigerator because it was too hot to leave out. We put it in our refrigerator. And someplace in this whole story, we found out that when we came back, Dorothy, Martha, and I would come back from the states. When we’d bring stuff down, we would divvy it up in three parts, part for Chirilagua, part for La Unión, or part for La Libertad, and part for Zaragoza. Okay. We found out that the others who came, if you came to visit them while you were there, they would share it with you, but they didn’t set aside a third to give to you. So we were a little ticked at this. Talk about human nature. We were a little ticked at this. So we were deciding, what are we going to do about this chocolate? So Father Bill Gibbons, who was a chocoholic, was, I think Mary Ann Flannery and Petronilla were still there, and so they were gonna take us out to dinner. So they came over from Chirilagua and up from La Libertad to go out to dinner. So while we were waiting for everybody to gather, Dorothy broke up some of this chocolate, put it in a bowl and was serving it. And Father Bill Gibbons said, oh, chocolate candy. And Dorothy says, yes, we have some, never indicating how much or anything. And I just looked at her and I thought, oh, my. [laughs] But that became one of my favorite stories of Dorothy. Another favorite story of Dorothy was we had a cat, and his name was Boogers. And the reason his name was Boogers is he had a black streak on the end of his nose. I mean, talk about gross. But, you know, anyway. Well, in Spanish, Boogers is Boogers [spoken with an accent], you know. So Boogers was our cat, and he used to go out at night, as most cats do. And we had a little trap door that he could come in and out. Well, this one night, he came back covered in cement. He had fallen, I guess, into cement. I slept through this whole thing. So I got this in the morning. But jumping, he, covered in cement, jumps up on Dorothy’s bed, and of course, she wakes up and sees this poor kitty covered in cement, knowing that the poor thing’s gonna have to be washed off. So she woke up Martha, and the two of them went to wash the cat off in- A pila is a place where you get water, and basically it’s a cement tank, open cement tank, where the water, when there is water from the city, you could turn the spigot on and fill the tank, and then you can use it for cooking and not cooking, but washing and, you know, things like that, because it was not necessarily in the tank it wasn’t necessarily clear. Coming from the faucet it was good. But anyway, so this pila, and then it had a flat area where you could wash clothes or dishes or whatever. So Dorothy and Martha were washing the cat on that flat area. Well, Dorothy would not wash the cat in just that water, you know, room temperature. She put it- We had a little ceramic teapot that she put the water in to heat it up so that she wouldn’t wash the cat in cold water. You know, it had to be warm water. So, I mean, that kind of is the sensitivity that Dorothy had, not only to people but to animals. Just fun stories like that, you know, or she’d walk in, into Zaragoza. We used the back door. We didn’t use the front of the- The house where the street, the main doors were. We came in the back door, kind of like here. You used the back door. And she would come through this, it was a chicken wire and two by four gate that we had in the wall so that you could, you know, keep the animals out. And she’d come through the door and she’d say- And the cats would hear her coming. We had our cat Boogers, and we had Father Ken’s cat, Paha. And the two cats were in our yard. And so they would sense her coming and they’d go to greet her while she would say, Paha, Boogers, you know, and she’d make a big fuss about the cats, and we’d be sitting on the porch. So we used to tease her that the, you know, the cats were more important than we were. And she would just take it, you know, and she’d make some kind of crack back and all that sort of. I mean, that’s the kind of person she was just fun loving. And very serious at times, too. She wrote the letter to the president that says, you know, the Salvadoran people are being killed by the guns that we are giving to the Salvadoran government and, you know, that kind of stuff. Like I said, she could go from the sublime to the ridiculous in the same sentence, you know.
Naomi A. Randt [00:46:45] Can you talk a little bit more about that letter that she wrote? I wasn’t aware of that.
Sister Christine Rody [00:46:49] Oh, gosh, yeah. That’s something you need to investigate. When things started to escalate and the situation was getting bad, she wrote, you know, as an American citizen, she has a right. So she wrote a letter and to give her perspective as being a missionary in the country, this is what’s happening with what we’re doing at the national level. So she wrote this. I can’t quote from it because that’s too long ago, you know, but you can find it. I don’t even know if it- It might be in Cindy’s book.
Naomi A. Randt [00:47:22] Was that to Carter, or was this after Reagan was elected?
Sister Christine Rody [00:47:26] I think this was Carter. I think it was Carter. Yeah. What else? I don’t know. You need to ask questions, I guess. I mean, I can go on and on about this kind of stuff, but I don’t know if that’s what you want to hear.
Naomi A. Randt [00:47:45] While things were escalating, did you ever feel threatened from the government?
Sister Christine Rody [00:47:51] No. While things are escalating, we always felt, naively, that we were secure because we were gringos. You know, the priests were gringos, we were gringos. Gringas. And therefore they would not do anything to us because that’s who was funding what they were doing. So we were safe. That’s what we thought. As a matter of fact, when Lionel and Miguel, the two Salvadoran priests on our team, would go to the cantones, they might be in danger because they were killing Salvadoran priests. One of us would go with them, and particularly Dorothy and Jean, because they were blonde and blue-eyed, so they obviously weren’t Salvadoran. In fact, when we were talking to Ida Ford and Carla Pate, who were up in Chalatenango, Carla one time jokingly said she was gonna dye her hair blonde so she’d be safer. So, I mean, it was that kind of stuff. We just- We thought we were immune to any kind of trouble. So we were the protection for the people, basically. Well, obviously that didn’t work. So we didn’t feel threatened. But the impact it had on the mission, we could no longer go to the villages in the evening for these classes. We could no longer have training sessions for the catechists because their lives would be in danger. Some of the catechists were killed, not ours, I think. Yeah. When Paul’s sacristan was killed, this was just the summer before Dorothy and Jean were killed. They gunned down the sacristan from La Libertad in the streets of La Libertad, you know, and we didn’t know- I mean, again, we weren’t exactly thinking that they were out to get Paul for this, that maybe these two kids were involved with some of the leftist stuff and that’s why they were killed. Paul, at one point, the people- See, when somebody was murdered and the bodies were left, people were afraid to go near them because then they would be identified as leftist sympathizers. So a lot of times they would tell somebody official like a priest or whatever, that this is what happened. Well, one particular instance, they dumped I don’t remember how many bodies, but over the cliff in La Libertad, thinking that they were going to be washed out to sea and they probably did it at night and couldn’t see. So what happened was the bodies landed on land and somebody from that area came to Paul and said, there are these bodies in the hot sun rotting. I mean, this is gross and terrible, but it’s what happened. So Paul took some young men from the parish and they went and took the bodies to an undertaker to be buried with dignity and so on. And so that’s the kind of thing that, you know, once in a while that happened once. I’m not, you know, painting a scene that this daily, but the killings were daily, not necessarily in our area. So all of that escalated. I mean, it just escalated the troubles. And then, you know, these priests would be killed and Rutilio Grande was the first one. And then I think there were like twelve others after that. And so we were getting, we were cautious and then- But we weren’t exactly scared. We were scared, but not so scared that you were, you know, that you’d leave. And we certainly did not want to leave because we felt that this was the time when- Well, when we met with Bishop Pilla after the death of the women. One of the things that that was very important was the bishop asked, the bishop had been named Bishop of Cleveland, but he wasn’t installed just like Bishop Romero was when Rutilio Grande was killed. I mean, the parallel was, was phenomenal, the two life things. So Bishop Pilla invited us, all the missionaries who came home for the funerals, to a meeting the morning of Dorothy’s funeral. I just remember Jane was buried Tuesday night in Florida and then Dorothy was buried Tuesday morning in Florida, and Dorothy was buried Wednesday night in Cleveland so that the team, the mission team, could go to Florida for one funeral, then come back to Cleveland for the second funeral. Otherwise we would have had to choose whose funeral to go to. And how do you do? You know? I mean, it was awful. So anyway, that Wednesday morning, Bishop Pilla had all of us, the two religious superiors, Sister Mary Ann Flannery from my community and the Ursuline superior and the mission director. And he said, you know, if we knew what God’s will was in this situation, we would just do it, but we don’t know. So I need to hear from you two things. One, your own going back to Salvador, and secondly, what do you think about the teams going back? Because there was terrible pressure on him to pull us all home. Well, he went around the table and people responded to those two questions. And you talk about moments of grace. You know, I know this is not for a Catholic audience, but the moment of grace was so real, you could actually, you know, you felt like you could reach out and touch it. Because the responses were, you know, like there are, if we don’t go back, 50,000 people will not have the sacraments because the priest won’t be there to confect the sacraments. And then somebody else responded with, you know, when it’s like a child, when a child is sick and the parent has done absolutely everything that they can, you know, they use special dishes to feed them. They let them sleep on the couch in the living room. Whatever you do to make your child feel okay, you do. When all that’s done, what do you do? You sit with the child. So we felt like even though we couldn’t do anything for the people, we couldn’t have classes, we couldn’t do this. We could be there with them. Like I said before, we felt more appreciated for doing so little than ever before in our lives. So we knew that our presence was appreciated. So that was another response. So it was unanimous that we go back, but it was the bishop’s decision, so he let us go back. Well, when it came to my turn, it was like, oh, my God, what am I gonna do? And, you know, it’s one of those moments where you’re not sure of your motivation. And I was thinking to myself, you know, yeah, I am scared, but I do want to go back. But if they were killed because of their work with the refugees, I was working with refugees, so my name would be next on the list, and they wouldn’t- They wouldn’t just kill me. They’d kill everybody with me, you know, because you never traveled anywhere at that time and, you know, alone. And the evidence was that, you know, they were out to get maybe Ida, but they killed everybody who was with Ida, that kind of stuff. So I thought, and it would be the second murder from somebody from Cleveland, and that would truly be the end of the mission. So I said, I was supposed to come back in February anyway, so I’ll go back to say goodbye, but then I’ll come back, you know, but I still think we ought to go back to Salvador, but I think I might be a danger. So that’s what I did. So that was my response to that. And it’s interesting because my guilt of the survivor that you talk about wasn’t that why was I saved? My guilt was why wasn’t I ready to die? What was wrong with me? Why wasn’t I part of this whole thing? Because they were. Anyway, that’s another whole story. [laughs]
Naomi A. Randt [00:55:40] You talked about the pressure on the bishop to pull the team home. Where was that coming?
Sister Christine Rody [00:55:44] Well, everybody, you know, the people of the Diocese of Cleveland, I would think. I don’t know. I don’t know. You’d have to ask him, you know, where the pressure came from. By the way, he would be a wonderful person for this kind of stuff because he was in the thick of it all.
Naomi A. Randt [00:56:02] What was the reaction to their murders, both in El Salvador?
Sister Christine Rody [00:56:08] Oh, well, you’re too young to remember that. The reaction was overwhelming in the sense that, of support, not of negativity or anger or whatever. The people in Salvador, almost to a person when they were expressing their sorrow, said, oh, Madre, we are so sorry and we are so ashamed because you came down to help us and we, and our government, you know- See, at the time we didn’t know who did the killing. It could have been, one plausible theory was it could have been the leftists because it would create worldwide attention to El Salvador. The moment in history was they were actually killed the night before the seven leftists were murdered who had gotten together in San Salvador. The seven different, seven of the many different leftist groups, the seven major ones, their leadership got together to see if they could form a coalition against the government to change the structure. Well, as they were leaving the meeting, they were mowed down, basically. That’s why all of the international press was in the country, to cover their funerals. Well, that day is the day we reported that Dorothy and Jean were missing. Well, the news people said, this is gonna be an even bigger story than the death of these seven leftists. So they hung around to find out what was going on. And a couple of them came down to La Libertad where we were and said, can we stay with you because we know you’re gonna respond to whatever is going to happen. So we let- You know, one was from Mexico. And so they stayed with us in La Libertad. And then when the ambassador called and said that, that they had heard that they had found four women’s bodies, you know, and gave us the place and so on, and then they drove out. That’s why all those movie pieces are there, because those people were with us. And then of course, they contacted other people and they all went into the grave site and so on. Now, I can give you details on that and so can Father Paul Schindler on the grave site, and I don’t know if you want all that
Naomi A. Randt [00:58:23] If you feel comfortable sharing that.
Sister Christine Rody [00:58:25] Oh, sure. Well, as it turned out, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, Father Paul Schindler was slated to give a prayer service at the embassy. So he invited the rest of the team to come with him, you know, to support him and so on. So we went. Dorothy and I and Jean and Paul, the four of us went. And then while we were there, the ambassador came over, and we were teasing him about how much trouble it was to get a multiple visa to come and go in the country during that time. And he said, you know what? This is not the kind of conversation we want to have here. How about if you come to dinner? He said, talk to my wife about what’s available. So the following Monday after Thanksgiving was when we went. December the first or second. Yeah, December 1. We went that night to the ambassador’s house for dinner, and we were so excited, you know, going to the ambassador’s for dinner. Wow. And he invited us to stay the night because he was afraid of our leaving his house after dark and so on, because the situation was tight. So we stayed overnight at the ambassador’s even. So, the next morning, we were having breakfast with the ambassador’s wife, and he was with some men from the government of Salvador. So we didn’t- He came in at the end to say hello and so on. So we left there, and Dorothy and Jean dropped me off at the refugee center where I worked. And then they said they were taking the day off and going to, you know, gonna just visit the hotel and wash their hands in warm water instead of cold and, you know, maybe go to a movie or whatever, and then pick up the Maryknoll sisters that night. So that was the plan. And so then that’s what, I presume that’s what they did. At 4:00 they picked up one set of Maryknoll sisters who were coming from their meeting in Nicaragua. The Maryknoll sisters had had this meeting about, okay, this is what’s going on. What do we do about our sisters in Salvador, Nicaragua, and so on? Because they, the Maryknollers, had lived through the war in Nicaragua as well, so this was not anything new to their, you know, to their lifestyle, so to speak. They’ve been exposed to war before. So Dorothy and Jean picked up one set and brought them. And of course, you know, as anybody who’s vacationing or visiting other countries, you always brings something home for the other folks. So they brought stuff. And it was at the convent in the house in La Libertad. Then Dorothy and Jean went back to pick up Ida and Maura. That’s when the microbus was boarded by the soldiers, who then took them to Santiago Nonualco, questioned them, then took them off to San Francisco and killed them there. So all this happened, and we didn’t know anything about it. The plan had been that Dorothy and Jean were gonna go to pick up the nuns at the airport, and that was what it was. Well, then Jean and I had made a plan that she was going to- I had some women in the refugee center in San Roque where I was, who were part of the Plan de Padrinos from Germany. It’s a plan where the people of Germany give money to mission countries to help the people. And so these people were registered, and they were supposed to get money. Well, they were in the refugee center from August, this is December. They had not collected any of that money, and they were afraid. First of all, they were running out of money, and secondly, they were afraid of what was gonna happen to the money. So Jean and I had made arrangements that she was going to go up to Chala- She was going to take the nuns from the airport up to Chalatenango and bring my ladies back in the Jeep to San Roque on Tuesday. So none of us- I didn’t- In the refugee center, I didn’t think anything of it. But when my ladies didn’t show up on Tuesday morning at the refugee center, I thought, well, what the heck’s going on? And that was Wednesday morning. That was the third. Yeah, the third morning. So I thought, well, you know, there’s roadblocks and all this kind of stuff. Maybe she’s having trouble. So I didn’t do anything. About two in the clock in the afternoon, though, when they weren’t there, I thought, something’s screwy here. So I didn’t have a phone. This refugee center was a basement of an unfinished church, so there was no phone there, but there was a phone on the corner. So I went to the pay phone and called La Libertad and talked to Paul, and I said, Jean didn’t bring my ladies back. What’s going on? She said, well, Chris, he said, we don’t know where they are. And I said, what? And he said, yeah. He said, they haven’t- They didn’t show up for the meeting. The team meeting was that Wednesday morning. Jean and Dorothy didn’t show up for the team meeting. But again, it’s like maybe they got caught somewhere, you know, no big deal. But nobody seemed to know where they were, nor did they leave a message with anybody, which is what the normal process was. So we started to get a little worried. So then I said, well, I’ll call you back about 4:00. So when I called at 4:00, Paul said to me, he said, Chris, you better come to La Libertad because we don’t know where they are. We’ve informed the embassy. You know, the wheels are in motion to see what’s going on. So he sent some seminarians up to pick me up at the refugee center. I came to La Libertad and of course I left my refugees saying, well, I don’t know where your ladies are, but we’re going to find out. And, you know, whatever. So I kind of left them hanging and I went to La Libertad. And because Paul said, he said, you know, when we finally find out where they are, we’ll have to go get them and then we’ll have to come tell you. And he said, it’s much easier if you’re here with us. Still, we never thought that they were killed. We just thought that maybe they got picked up for questioning and that they were, you know, the government was trying to fabricate a story to make it all plausible. So that was Wednesday. And then Thursday morning we get this call from the ambassador saying that the Canadian delegation, I guess for the funeral of those leftist leaders, I’m not sure why they- Anyway, the Canadian delegation told them, told the ambassador that when they were leaving the country, soldiers got on the plane seemingly looking for or somebody. So then the ambassador thought, hmm, you know, so anyway, it all worked out that, yes, that all happened. They were probably looking for Ida, you know, and then that’s how the rest of the story went. All right, so we find, we hear this information. And so Paul then called the chancery to say, did they have any information? And they said that they were trying to get ahold of us, tell us that a farmer had reported to his parish priest, who had reported to the diocese that four women’s bodies had been reported and that they had been buried by the campesinos. So then that’s, he, you know, we made connections. And then we were all together in La Libertad. So we were talking, you know, about how we can, we’re all going to go out to the gravesite. And then Paul thought, he says, you know what? He said, we need somebody to stay here in La Libertad, Todd. So that when we get there and find out what’s really going on, we can call that person who can call Cleveland and call Maryknoll and give them the direct information. So I volunteered to stay behind. So I stayed in Libertad. And then once they got there and this was all true, they called me. And then I called the mission director, and I called Maryknoll to tell them that, yes, these were our women, and, yes, they had been murdered. And then I got on the phone with a Mexican reporter, I think it was, who said, you know what? We need some kind of vehicle to bring the bodies back. Well, Paul didn’t think of that, because he had called the undertaker from San Salvador to come and get the bodies. So I said, well, I could bring the truck. Oh, I was- Somebody told me to bring the truck, so I did. And then this reporter said, bring some sheets. Because, you know, when. When they left, they didn’t think of anything like that. So if you notice the pictures, some- This is my claim to fame. Some of the bodies, some of the pictures, they’re covered in palm branches. And then some of them, they’re covered with sheets. So that’s before and after Christine arrived pictures. [laughs] So. So then that’s what I did after I made, you know, I made the connections and told them and so on. Then I took the truck and the sheets and drove out to the gravesite. And I met the ambassador, who was just leaving the site to what he was going to do. And he. I’ll never forget his words. He said, those bastards aren’t going to get away with this. That’s what he said to me as he was leaving. So then I went over to where everybody was standing, and it was one of those moments when the difference between life and death is so real. I was looking at Paul, and, you know, he was talking with the people, and I said, Paul, where are they? I want to see them. He said, now, Christine, settle down. You know, they’ve gone to God, and, you know, these are just their bodies. And I said, Paul, I want to see them. I was getting real upset. And he said, they’re right here. And I had been looking at the faces of everybody. I hadn’t been looking at the ground, so I didn’t even see the bodies until after he had said that to me. I mean, it was just so stark, you know, so stark to me. So then we were just kind of milling around, and there wasn’t anything we could do. They were kind of waiting for the undertaker, but we had the truck in case- The undertaker actually never did show up. So it was getting dark, and we were, you know, it was like, okay, what’s gonna happen next? Who did this? Are we in trouble standing here? So Paul and John Spain and Sister Elizabeth Kocik stayed there with the bodies, and the rest of us went back to La Libertad. And I was thinking, all this is going to hit the 6:00 news. And, you know, like the families were going to be told by the bishops or somebody from official about their daughters, you know, and family members. But what about, like, we had mission, some people from the mission team who were in Costa Rica on the holiday. Father Bill Gibbons was in Brazil. There were people back in the United States who were their very dear friends and who were going to get this on the 6:00 news. So I got on the telephone and then called as many people. I kept praying, you know, who do I need to call to tell this information to directly? And I got a very good international operator who connected me to Father Bill Gibbons, who connected me to Costa Rica, you know, all these other- I don’t even know how many phone calls I made, but I tried, I really prayed like mad so that I would know who to call. And I called them and told them, you know— [shows emotion] It’s 30 years later and it still brings tears. Anyway, so that’s that part of the story. And so then Paul and John brought the bodies back to San Salvador, took them to the undertaker, and Paul had asked that autopsies be performed. And he got a hassle from the coroner saying, first of all, we don’t do autopsies on the weekend. You’ll have to wait till Monday, blah, blah, blah, blah. And Paul said, you know, they’re dead. Why do we need to know more than that? So he relinquished that request. And then the next morning, Father Ken Myers went to make arrangements to bring the bodies. See, the Maryknolls’ rule of thumb is that if their sisters or priests die in a foreign country, they’re buried there because they’re a missionary community and it would be a lot of money just to bring bodies home to bury in Maryknoll, New York. So, I mean, that was a given. And Carla had already been killed or died in a river accident. That’s another whole interesting piece of the story. So the two Maryknollers were going to be buried in Chalatenango, but Jean and Dorothy were going to come to the United States. So Ken went to arrange for their coming to the states on the plane, and Paul went to Santiago Nonualco to get the bodies released, get all the paperwork done so that we wouldn’t have trouble that way. So the two of them were gone. Elizabeth went to do something. No, Elizabeth, I forgot. Elizabeth went to do something. So I was the only one there in La Libertad to answer phone calls and do all that kind of stuff. So, you know. And then that afternoon was going to be a mass at San José de la Montagne, the seminary chapel, for the four women. And then Jean and Dorothy were gonna come down to La Libertad for a funeral mass there. And then the next morning. Morning, eventually, it turned out that we were going to take them to the States. Well, Ken’s hassle with the airplane was, A, they don’t ship bodies on passenger planes. B, they wouldn’t ship both bodies on the same plane, you know, so it took him, I don’t know how many hours to figure that all out. So it happened that Jean was shipped directly to Sarasota, where her parents lived, and Dorothy went to Cleveland. And we divided the team up, and half of us went with Dorothy’s body, and half of us went with Jean’s body. And then the part of the team that was in Cleveland flew down to Florida for Jean’s funeral. Then we all flew back to Cleveland for Dorothy’s funeral, and then we went back to Salvador. So.
Naomi A. Randt [01:11:54] What was the reaction like in Cleveland?
Sister Christine Rody [01:11:59] Oh, my. Well, you can read it in the newspaper. It made the front page for a couple of days, I think, and the outpouring of love. There was a mass on Sunday after we found the bodies on Friday. And one of the days there was a mass at the cathedral that was packed to the gills of people who wanted to show their support. Well, then the funeral mass was packed to the gills as well. And one of the most beautiful things of the funeral mass was kind of spontaneously, the priests lined up in the aisle like they do for a priest’s funeral, for the taking of the body out of the church. They lined up in the aisle and were bringing the body down the aisle, and the people broke into, oh, the funeral mass in La Libertad. At the end, when we were taking the two bodies out to put in the hearse to take to the airport, the people broke into spontaneous applause, and the two women were applauded [shows emotion] all the way down the street out of the city. The same thing happened in Cleveland. This lineup of priests were taking the body, Dorothy’s body, out of the church, and the people again broke into spontaneous applause. It was one of those alleluia moments, you know, like death and tragedy turned into, not exactly joy but into a fulfillment kind of thing. So. And then, of course, we took him to the cemetery and so on. But again, moments of faith, you know, not just tragedy, but faith. So that kind of- That’s the answer to your question in terms of reaction of Cleveland was tremendous support, and I think primarily because of the connection of the- I mean, it was what I had to hope for as a teacher, the connection with the world community and a sense of responsibility for what goes on in the world and so on. What can we do? What’s our part in this picture? Okay, what else?
Naomi A. Randt [01:14:06] I think I just have two more things. What was, you mentioned how they might have been looking for Ida.
Sister Christine Rody [01:14:15] The reason that we think- We still don’t know really why they were murdered because the people who’d know the answer to those questions were murdered. We think that. See, Ida and, Ida and her companion lived up in Chalatenango. And Maura, I couldn’t think of her name. Ida and Maura lived in Chalatenango and were working with refugees up there. And Ida, being a New Yorker, you know, when injustice was happening and so on, she would confront it. So she- When the- Chalatenango was also a base of the National Guard, so when they would go out to do some kind of a raid in some village, she would go over to them and to the commandante and say, you know, you’re killing your countrymen. Aren’t you listening to the archbishop? Do you know this isn’t the way peace will come about? This isn’t the way change will happen. Whatever she would say to them. Well, this is our theory. It has, you know, it’s not proved. It’s a theory that they were sick and tired of hearing this, so they were out to get her. And again, because Maura was with her, they killed Maura, too. And then, of course, they burned out the van. Elizabeth and I found the van, you know, on the side of the road by the airport. That’s a piece of the earlier part of the story. But that’s why we think that she was murdered. They were out to get her.
Naomi A. Randt [01:15:42] You talked about Sister Dorothy earlier and who she was. I wonder if we could end with just, if you could speak about Jean and what she was like.
Sister Christine Rody [01:15:53] Yeah. Well, Jean, again, had only been on the team a short, much shorter period of time. I don’t even know if it was a year or something. You can check the dates when she came down and so on. But she was 27 years old and very much a 27-year-old who had a very good heart and who wanted to be of help and service, who also was very self-confident. And Dorothy and I used to have conversations about her all the time because it was like, we don’t want to bridle the enthusiasm that she exhibits, but there are some things that she needs to learn. And so how do we help her learn these lessons? There are, in the movie Roses in December, there are clips of some of her escapades as a young college student and so on, which are true. You know, like, there’s a story that she poured gin on her cereal because she didn’t have any milk, and that’s true. You know, things like that. [laughs] I mean, she was this 27-year-old who was free and clear and came from a very good family, and her dad was a designer of aircraft for Sikorsky. So, I mean, they were well to do. So her commitment to social justice and to serving the poor was exceptional for somebody coming from her background, in the sense that, I think more than anything, it came from her Catholic values, you know, Catholic tradition. So she had a sense that she could play guitar very well. Well, she could play guitar, but not really very well. She could, you know, so she was in charge of the choir in La Libertad, did a very good job. She lived with us in Zaragoza for a time, but living with nuns, if you’re 27 years old, kind of cramps your style. So she moved down to La Libertad and lived above the school by herself. Well, when the situation got kind of sticky, particularly after the sacristan was killed, Dorothy Kazel moved down to live with Jean. So Dorothy and Jean lived together above the school, and Dorothy would come up for some nun life [laughs] for a while every now and then, because Jean, you know, and Jean wanted to get to know the younger people of the. Of the community and so on. And so, you know, it worked out very well. She was very dedicated to the mission. There’s the book Roses, the movie Roses in December, there’s also the book Salvador Witness by Ana Carrigan. And that Ana is A-N-A K-E-R-R-I-G-A-N [sic], which are very accurate portrayals of Dorothy - I mean of Jean - and her commitment, her connection to Ireland, her generous heart. You know, she’s the one. Her friends were writing to her because situation was getting worse and worse. You know, why don’t you come home? And she said, I can’t because of the children. And she says, and where else in the world would you see roses blooming in December? That’s where the title of that book comes from, or that movie comes from. Just, I didn’t get to know her really well because of her, you know, just being recent. But she had a boyfriend who was an internist from California who came down to visit. And there again, Dorothy Kazel was funny as heck because the two of them wanted to go and talk about getting married and so on. So they went to the hotel in San Salvador for, you know, some conversation, and Dorothy said she was going to go as chaperone, [laughs] so they were laughing, you know. But anyway, it was fun. And I don’t know what the. I mean, we never asked Jean about the visit of her fiancée, I guess we could call him a fiance. And then, of course, after she was murdered, I’m not sure what- He is still a doctor in California, I think, I’m not sure if it was, what do you call that medicine, whether he switched fields or something, I’m not sure. I didn’t keep in touch with him after that.
Naomi A. Randt [01:19:55] I think that’s all I have is there.
Sister Christine Rody [01:19:57] Okay, good. Well, I just hope people are, when they listen to things like this or see, read the books or watch the movie or whatever, that their commitment to the bigger reality of what we’re all about is people from the United States who are so blessed, no matter what our faith tradition is, creates not an obligation in the sense of, oh, God, I got an obligation, but in the sense of, you know, I’ve been blessed. I need to share that blessing. And I think that’s part of the whole deal. Blessings are given to be shared. Gifts are given to be given. So I hope that’s how people look at this.
Naomi A. Randt [01:20:36] Thank you.
Sister Christine Rody [01:20:37] You’re very welcome.
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