Abstract
The life of Maryknoll Sister Ita Ford, one of four U.S. churchwomen murdered by the El Salvadoran military in December 1980, underscores the complicated relationship between religion and left politics. Although largely overlooked in the historical scholarship on postwar American social movements, Catholic sisters such as Ford played important roles as participants in, and catalysts for, social justice efforts, whether in the 1960s U.S. civil rights movement or as practitioners of liberation theology in the 1970s and beyond. In Chile and El Salvador, Ford put her faith into action through the work of accompaniment: she advocated for human rights, engaged in grassroots community organizing, and aided refugees. Her life and work highlight how secular and sacred forces intertwined within postwar struggles for social and political change.
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Notes
- 1.
Several writers have explored Ford’s life and death , but none place her in the kind of historical context necessary to assess the greater significance of her life’s work. See: Judith M. Noone, MM, The Same Fate as the Poor (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1984; repr., 1995); Phyllis Zagano, Ita Ford: Missionary Martyr (New York: Paulist Press, 1996); Jeanne Evans (ed.), “Here I Am, Lord”: The Letters and Writings of Ita Ford (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2005).
- 2.
James Miller, Democracy is in the Streets: From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987); James J. Farrell, The Spirit of the Sixties (New York: Routledge, 1997); Doug Rossinow, The Politics of Authenticity: Liberalism, Christianity, and the New Left in America (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998); Murray Polner and Jim O’Grady, Disarmed and Dangerous: The Radical Lives and Times of Daniel and Philip Berrigan (New York: Basic Books, 1997); Anthony Giacchino, “The Camden 28” (First Run Features, 2007). “Women religious” is a commonly used term that refers to Catholic sisters and nuns.
- 3.
Amy Koehlinger, The New Nuns: Racial Justice and Religious Reform in the 1960s (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007); Kathleen Sprows Cummings, New Women of the Old Faith: Gender and American Catholicism in the Progressive Era (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009); Susan Marie Maloney, “The Choices Before Us: Anita M. Caspary and the Immaculate Heart Community,” in Impossible to Hold: Women and Culture in the 1960s, eds. Avital Bloch and Lauri Umansky (New York: New York University Press, 2005).
- 4.
Robert A. Orsi, “U.S. Catholics between Memory and Modernity: How Catholics Are American,” in Catholics in the American Century: Recasting Narratives of U.S. History, eds. R. Scott Appleby and Kathleen Sprows Cummings (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012), 23.
- 5.
Noone, The Same Fate as the Poor, 13–15; Evans, Here I Am, Lord, 1–5; James Rodechko, “An Irish-American Journalist and Catholicism: Patrick Ford of the Irish World,” Church History 39, no. 4 (1970); John F. Donovan, The Pagoda and the Cross: The Life of Bishop Ford of Maryknoll (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1967).
- 6.
Ruth Rosen, “The Female Generation Gap: Daughters of the Fifties and the Origins of Contemporary American Feminism,” in U.S. History as Women’s History, eds. Linda Kerber, Alice Kessler-Harris, and Kathryn Kish Sklar (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995); Babette Faehmel, College Women in the Nuclear Age: Cultural Literacy and Female Identity, 1940–1960 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2012). Mary J. Henold, Catholic and Feminist: The Surprising History of the American Catholic Feminist Movement (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008), 32–33. Re: the quest for agency and authenticity, see: Rossinow, The Politics of Authenticity; Farrell, The Spirit of the Sixties; Robert Cohen, Freedom’s Orator: Mario Savio and the Radical Legacy of the 1960s (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009); Sara Evans (ed.), Journeys That Opened up the World: Women, Student Christian Movements, and Social Justice, 1955–1975 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2003).
- 7.
Ita Ford to Jennifer Sullivan, August 16, 1980, mimeograph of original, Box 11, Same Fate as the Poor Manuscript Collection, Maryknoll Sisters Archive (hereafter cited as Same Fate as the Poor); Ita Ford to Jean Reardon Bauman, January 7, 1962, April 19, 1961, October 6, 1971, and August 27, 1962, Box 111, Creative Works and Personal Papers, Maryknoll Sisters Archive (hereafter cited as Creative Works and Personal Papers). Penny Lernoux, Hearts on Fire: The Story of the Maryknoll Sisters (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1995). Rossinow, The Politics of Authenticity; Farrell, The Spirit of the Sixties.
- 8.
Jay P. Dolan, The American Catholic Experience: A History from Colonial Times to the Present (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), 421. Patricia Byrne, “In the Parish but Not of It: Sisters,” in Transforming Parish Ministry: The Changing Roles of Catholic Clergy, Laity, and Women Religious, ed. Jay P. Dolan et al. (New York: Crossroad, 1989); Lora Ann Quiñonez, CDP and Mary Daniel Turner, SNDdeN, The Transformation of American Catholic Sisterhood (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992). John T. McGreevy, Parish Boundaries: The Catholic Encounter with Race in the Twentieth-Century Urban North (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 156–57; Koehlinger, The New Nuns.
- 9.
Koehlinger, The New Nuns, 145. Janice McLaughlin, MM, interview by author, tape recording, Maryknoll, NY, October 5, 2009; McGreevy, Parish Boundaries, 111–23; Sanford Horwitt, Let Them Call Me Rebel: Saul Alinsky and His Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989). Joan Chatfield, “The First Choice: Mission: The Maryknoll Sisters, 1912–1975” (Diss., Graduate Theological Union, 1984), 46. “Religion and Race,” Motherhouse News, XVIII.9 (1 March 1964), 1, Box 3, Diaries/Newsletters Manuscript Collection, Maryknoll Sisters Archive; Madeline Dorsey, MM, interview by author, tape recording, Maryknoll, NY, October 6, 2009; Bernice Kita, MM, “Reflections for family and friends from Bernice Kita (Sr. Rose Micheal) on her trip to Selma, Alabama for about a week, starting on March 11, 1965,” March 1965, Box 4, Penny Lernoux Book Collection, Maryknoll Sisters Archive (hereafter cited as Penny Lernoux Book Collection); Dorsey, interview; Lernoux, Hearts on Fire, 189–92.
- 10.
Kathleen Monahan Gregg, “Post-Communion Reflection—Memorial Service for Ita Ford—Marymount Manhattan College,” n.d. (Jan–Feb 1981), Box 11, Same Fate as the Poor; Mary Anne Ford, conversation with author, Montclair, NJ, May 12, 2009; Kathleen Gregg, conversation with author, Pearl River, NY, May 22, 2009; Kathleen Monahan Gregg, “Post-Communion Reflection”; Ita Ford to Sister Miriam (Mary) Galligan MM, December 2, 1964, Box 12, Same Fate as the Poor; Mildred Ford, quoted in Sr. Eve Gillcrist, OP, “The Maryknoll Daughter Read Signs of the Time,” Tablet (November 28, 1981), press clipping, El Salvador Martyrs Collection, Maryknoll Sisters Archive (hereafter cited as El Salvador Martyrs Collection); Ita Ford to Jean Reardon Bauman, October 6, 1971, Box 111, Creative Works and Personal Papers; Joe Petulla to Judy Noone, March 31, 1982, Box 11, Same Fate as the Poor; Ita Ford, “Annual Evaluation, Reflection Year,” May 24, 1979; Box 11, Same Fate as the Poor; Maryknoll Sisters Center, “CHILE: Research Background Paper,” November 1976, Box 13, Same Fate as the Poor.
- 11.
Joe Petulla to Judy Noone, March 31, 1982, Box 11, Same Fate as the Poor; Connie Pospisil, note from conversation with Judy Noone, April 22, 1982, Box 13, Same Fate as the Poor; Proceedings, Special Chapter of Affairs, 1968–1969, Box: Maryknoll Sisters Constitutions and Documents, Maryknoll Sisters Heritage, Maryknoll Sisters Archive (hereafter cited as Maryknoll Sisters Heritage); Ita Ford, “Thinking About Our Common Call,” 1973, Box 12, Same Fate as the Poor. On personalism, communitarianism, and prefigurative politics in 1960s-era social movements, see: Farrell, The Spirit of the Sixties, 6, 14. Wini Breines, Community and Organization in the New Left, 1962–1968: The Great Refusal (New York: Praeger, 1982); and Barbara Epstein, Political Protest and Cultural Revolution: Nonviolent Direct Action in the 1970s and 1980s (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991).
- 12.
Ita Ford, “Thinking About Our Common Call;” Excerpts from Rev. Thomas C. Clancy, “Prayer in the Formation Program,” reprinted in Formal Education, #6 (July 1970), Box 2, Formation Program Manuscript Collection, Maryknoll Sisters Archive; Robert A. Orsi, Between Heaven and Earth: The Religious Worlds People Make and the Scholars Who Study Them (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005), 10. Maryknoll Sisters, “Person in Community,” in “1974 General Chapter Proceedings,” 21, Box 28, General Chapters/Assemblies Manuscript Collection, Maryknoll Sisters Archive (hereafter cited as General Chapters/Assemblies); Kathleen Monahan Gregg, “Post-Communion Reflection”; Ita Ford to Mildred Ford, “Ita Ford on Carla’s accident,” cassette recorded September 6?, 1980, Box 12, Same Fate as the Poor; Ita Ford to Mildred Ford, April 2, 1980, Box 12, Same Fate as the Poor; Maryknoll Sisters, “1974 General Chapter Proceedings,” Box 28, General Chapters/Assemblies.
- 13.
Lars Schoutz, Beneath the United States: A History of U.S. Policy toward Latin America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998); Gilbert M. Joseph, “Latin America’s Long Cold War: A Century of Revolutionary Process and U.S. Power,” in A Century of Revolution: Insurgent and Counterinsurgent Violence During Latin America’s Long Cold War, eds. Greg Grandin and Gilbert M. Joseph (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010).
- 14.
Phillip Berryman, The Religious Roots of Rebellion: Christians in Central American Revolutions (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1984); Daniel H. Levine, Popular Voices in Latin American Catholicism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992); Christian Smith, The Emergence of Liberation Theology: Radical Religion and Social Movement Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991); John Frederick Schwaller, The History of the Catholic Church in Latin America: From Conquest to Revolution and Beyond (New York: New York University Press, 2011), 246–58; Smith, The Emergence of Liberation Theology; Gustavo Gutiérrez , A Theology of Liberation, trans. Caridad and John Eagleson Inda (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1973; repr., 1988).
- 15.
Louise Ahrens and Barbara Hendricks, “The Influence of Gustavo Gutierrez : A Theology of Liberation on the Maryknoll Sisters,” typescript, 1988, 1, Box 4, Penny Lernoux Book Collection; Maryknoll Sisters, Mission in a Changing World, 1978, 7, Box 4, Penny Lernoux Book Collection; Virginia Fabella, MM, “My Theology and Practice of Mission Ministry—Part II,” typescript, n.d., 2, Box 4, Penny Lernoux Book Collection; David J. Molineaux and Mary Judith Ress, Maryknoll in Chile: The First Fifty Years (Santiago, Chile: Mosquito Editores, 1993), 160–63.
- 16.
Kathleen Monahan Gregg, “Post-Communion Reflection;” Maryknoll Sisters Communications Department, “Fact Sheet: Maryknoll Sister Ita Catherine Ford,” December 1980, Box 8, Penny Lernoux Book Collection; Maryknoll Sisters in Chile, “Chile: R&P Background Report,” July 1979, typescript, Box 14, Research and Planning Department Manuscript Collection, Maryknoll Sisters Archive; Ita Ford, “La Bandera attacks mental health crisis,” Maryknoll, February 1980; Jessie Poynton, interview by author, tape recording, Maryknoll, NY, 5 Oct 2009.
- 17.
William M. LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard: The United States in Central America, 1977–1992 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998); Marvin E. Gettleman et al. (eds), El Salvador: Central America in the New Cold War (New York: Grove Press, 1981); Scott Wright, Oscar Romero and the Communion of the Saints (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2009).
- 18.
Maryknoll Sisters in El Salvador, “Reflections on the situation in El Salvador,” April 14, 1980, typescript, 2, Box 14, Same Fate as the Poor.
- 19.
On the Maryknoll Sisters’ insistence that their work was based on the Christian Gospel rather than politics, see: Melinda Roper MM, “Responses to Questions submitted in writing by Senator Jesse Helms at April 9, 1981 hearing on El Salvador before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,” 9, Box 6, El Salvador Martyrs Collection; Melinda Roper MM to Rev. Edward F. Spiers, Archdiocese of Washington, May 8, 1981, Box 5, El Salvador Martyrs collection.
- 20.
Maryknoll Sisters, “Global Mission,” in “1974 General Chapter Proceedings,” 1, Box 28, General Chapters/Assemblies; Quote from the Maryknoll Sisters 1978 General Assembly in Virginia Fabella, MM, “The Mission Charism of the Maryknoll Sisters, Part II,” typescript, n.d., 4, Box 4, Penny Lernoux Book Collection. See also: Maryknoll Sisters, Mission in a Changing World, 3–4; Maryknoll Sisters, Proceedings, Special Chapter of Affairs, 1968–1969, Maryknoll Sisters Heritage. The biblical concept of “principalities” and “powers” comes from the New Testament, Rom. 8:38–39. Walter Wink used this concept of “the Domination System” in his “Powers” trilogy. See: Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1992). Ita Ford to Jean Reardon Bauman, October 27, 1980, Box 111, Creative Works and Personal Papers.
- 21.
Walter Rauschenbusch , A Theology for the Social Gospel (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1917). Marlene Condon, interview by Judy Noone (with Joan Raterman), January 21, 1982, Box 13, Same Fate as the Poor; Ita Ford to Mildred Ford, April 2, 1980, Box 12, Same Fate as the Poor. Americas Watch Committee and American Civil Liberties Union , Report on Human Rights in El Salvador (New York: Vintage Books, 1982); Penny Lernoux, Cry of the People: The Struggle for Human Rights in Latin America – the Catholic Church in Conflict with U.S. Policy (New York: Penguin Books, 1980), 61–80.
- 22.
Peg Hanlon MM, “Talk Given at Sister Carla Piette’s Memorial Mass, Maryknoll Sisters Center House, Ossining, NY,” September 3, 1980, Box 139, Creative Works and Personal Papers; Sheila Cassidy, Audacity to Believe (London: William Collins Sons & Co, Ltd., 1977), 112. Terry Alexander, “I Have Seen So Much Hatred,” Catholic Telegraph (Cincinnati, OH), nd (ca. November 1980), Box 8, Penny Lernoux Book Collection; Maryknoll Sisters, Mission in a Changing World, 4. On the work of accompaniment , see: Michael Griffin and Jennie Weiss Block (eds), In the Company of the Poor: Conversations between Paul Farmer and Gustavo Gutierrez (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2013).
- 23.
Maria Serranon, interview by Judy Noone, June 5, 1981, Box 13, Same Fate as the Poor; Maryknoll Sisters in El Salvador, “Reflections on the situation in El Salvador,” April 14, 1980, typescript, 2, Box 14, Same Fate as the Poor; Ita Ford to Jean Reardon Bauman, May 4, 1980, Box 111, Creative Words and Personal Papers.
- 24.
Carla Piette to Connie, Mimi, Jessie, and Carolyn (Maryknoll Sisters in Chile), May 17, 1980, Box 14, Same Fate as the Poor; Ita Ford, interview by David Helvarg, transcript, Chaletenango, El Salvador, October 1980, Box 12, Same Fate as the Poor; “U.S. Missioners’ Deaths Shock, Repulse World,” The [Cincinnati] Catholic Telegraph, December 12, 1980, 1; Maddie Dorsey and Terry Alexander, handwritten notes to typed questions from Judy Noone, n.d. (December 1980), Box 15, Same Fate as the Poor; “A Tragic Nuns Tale,” by the Special Presidential Mission to El Salvador, and “Have You No Sense of Decency, Sir?” by Anthony Lewis, reprinted in Gettleman et al., El Salvador, 138–43.
- 25.
Jeanne Kirkpatrick , quoted in John Hall, “Ambassador Kirkpatrick: Reagan-Appointed Democrat Speaks Her Mind on World, Domestic Politics,” Tampa Tribune, December 25, 1980; LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard, 100–01. On the Sisters’ assertion that their actions were not political, see: Melinda Roper MM, “Responses to Questions submitted in writing by Senator Jesse Helms at April 9, 1981 hearing on El Salvador before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee;” and Josephine Kollmer, MM, to Thomas Enders, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, May 2, 1982, Box 6, El Salvador Martyrs. There is absolutely no evidence that the churchwomen ran a roadblock or were carrying weapons, as Haig suggested. On the contrary, court and witness testimonies indicate that guardsmen apprehended the women before they even left the airport, where they were disappeared. On U.S.–El Salvador relations during this time, see: Walter LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America, 2nd edn (New York: W.W. Norton, 1993), 254–55, 71–80; LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard, 52–64; Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 331–46.
- 26.
Ita Ford to Annette, June 11, 1980, Box 12, Same Fate as the Poor; Elizabeth Roach, MM, “The Cross: Sign for All Times,” Maryknoll Magazine (1978), 48–49, Box 8, Penny Lernoux Book Collection; Louise Ahrens, Marion Hughes, Betty Ann Maheu, Rae Ann O’Neill, Dolores Rosso, and Barbara Hendricks to Penny Lernoux, March 13, 1989, Box 3, Penny Lernoux Book Collection. See also: Maryknoll Sisters, Mission in a Changing World, 3–4, Box 4, Penny Lernoux Book Collection; Maryknoll Sisters, “Global Mission,” in “1974 General Chapter Proceedings;” Eileen Markey, A Radical Faith: The Assasination of Sister Maura (New York: Nation Books, 2016), 230–45.
- 27.
Carla Piette , “Lord of the Road,” tape recording of Piette and Ford singing, Tape 48, Audio Cassette Interviews, Same Fate as the Poor; Bernice Kita to “Dearest ones,” December 9, 1980, 5–6, Box 15, Same Fate as the Poor; Madeline Dorsey to Judy Noone, April 22, 1981, Box 15, Same Fate as the Poor; Melinda Roper and James P. Noonan, “Joint Statement Concerning the Recent Events in El Salvador,” December 1980, Box 1, El Salvador Martyrs Collection.
- 28.
Maryknoll Justice and Peace Office to Secretary of State Edmund Muskie and Richard Allen (Assistant to President-Elect Ronald Reagan ), telegram, December 4, 1980, Box 1, El Salvador Martyrs Collection; Maryknoll Sisters, “Statement on the Freedom of Information Lawsuit,” July 1, 1982, Box 5, El Salvador Martyrs Collection; Melinda Roper MM, “Responses to Questions submitted in writing by Senator Jesse Helms at April 9, 1981 hearing on El Salvador before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,” 4, Box 6, El Salvador Martyrs Collection.
- 29.
Christian Smith, Resisting Reagan: The U.S. Central America Peace Movement (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996); Van Gosse, “ʻThe North American Frontʼ: Central American Solidarity in the Reagan Era,” in Reshaping the U.S. Left: Popular Struggles in the 1980s, eds. Michael Sprinker and Mike Davis (New York: Verso, 1988); Sharon Erickson Nepstad, Convictions of the Soul: Religion, Culture and Agency in the Central American Solidarity Movement (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); James Hodge and Linda Cooper, Disturbing the Peace: The Story of Father Roy Bourgeois and the Movement to Close the School of the Americas (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2004).
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Mollin, M. (2018). Ita Ford and the Spirit of Social Change. In: Danielson, L., Mollin, M., Rossinow, D. (eds) The Religious Left in Modern America. Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73120-9_13
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