Testimony Tuesdays

 
Bishop Anthony Pilla’s first official act as spiritual leader of the Diocese of Cleveland was to meet the body of slain missionary Dorothy Kazel at the Cleveland airport.  Sister Dorothy, a member of the Cleveland Latin American Mission Team in El Salvador, was assulated and murdered by Army assassins on December 2, 1980 along with lay missionary Jean Donovan and two Maryknoll Sisters, Ita Ford and Maura Clark. 

Dorothy L. Kazel was born in Cleveland in 1939.  After entering the Ursuline Sisters of Cleveland in 1960, she was given the religious name Sister Laurentine, an Ursuline nun martyred in the French Revolution.  Her evolution from Dorothy to Sister Laurentine to Madre Dorthea reflects her life’s journey as one of passion, joy, service and commitment to the poor in every ministry endeavor she embraced.  One of Dorothy’s life themes was reaching out to those marginalized within our schools, our city, our nation and those at-risk from violence and war.  In 1967 Dorothy wrote to her superior expressing her desire to help people, especially the Spanish and Indian people to whom she felt a deep calling.

Archbishop James Hickey established a Cleveland mission in El Salvador asking local clergy, religious and laity to serve.  Dorothy joined the mission team in 1974.  She came to know and love the faith-filled Salvadoran people who lived in extreme poverty and oppression.  Dorothy showed women how to care for and nourish their children, taught native men and women to read and write, and trained lay leaders to teach religion as she shared faith and life with them.  When the civil war broke out in 1977, professional death squads murdered campesinos, catechists and priests as they destroyed homes, villages and crops.  Dorothy worked with the victims and refugees of war.  She said, “I could not leave Salvador now…I am committed to the persecuted Church here.”  That commitment cost her life. 

As she and Jean were returning from the airport with the two Maryknoll sisters, they were all abducted, interrogated, abused and shot by five National Guardsmen.  A milk truck driver discovered their bodies in a ditch on the side of the road.  He and other villagers clothes and buried their bodies in a common grave marked by a cross made of twigs.  On December 4th, the women’s bodies were drawn from the burial site as co-workers and villagers stood watch.  

At a funeral mass in San Salvador, Jean and Dorothy’s co-workers lifted their caskets to carry them from the church.  As the caskets passed from hand to hand, shoulder to shoulder, the villagers climbed on the benches and started to applaud.  A crowd lining the streets leading to the airport greeted the funeral cortege with thunderous, triumphant applause.  Likewise, as Bishop Pilla concluded the Mass of Christian burial for Sister Dorothy at St. John Cathedral in Cleveland, her casket was flanked by an honor guard of more than 100 priests while thunderous applause burst forth from the 1500 people who attended the funeral.

Dorothy’s ordinary life as a women with the title of Sister was revealed through the tragic impact of her death to have been extraordinary.  Her death has been a catalyst for many groups of diverse people to join together to advocate for social justice at local, national and international levels.  The Ursuline Sisters continue to serve the people of El Salvador through the Cleveland Diocese’s mission team.  Ursuline College established the Sister Dorothy Kazel Center for Global Awareness of Peace and Justice Issues.  All religious communities of women were inspired to action on behalf of women as victims of violence.  After the murder of another Cleveland Ursuline in 1995, the congregation initiated Women Watch, an annual event commemorating women and children who were victims of violence in Cuyahoga County within the past year.

Death couldn’t stop Sister Dorothy’s influence.  Continuing the work of social justice and commitment to the poor is the legacy she has left us.  She was a role model living the Gospel to the fullest.  Each of us is called to be that too.  Dorothy would tell us to rejoice; she has fulfilled her dream to become “An Alleluia from head to toe!”