Photo: Sister Anita Cleary, far right, with Sisters Judith Hilbing (l) and Adele Human, ahead of a trip to Peru, spring 2025.

Springfield Dominican Sister Anita Cleary will be among pilgrims traveling to Central America this month in solidarity with women deported from the United States. The group will also mark the 45^th anniversary of the martyrdom of four U.S. churchwomen in El Salvador in 1980.

About 30 pilgrims will be in El Salvador Nov. 28-Dec. 6. On Dec. 2 they will participate in observances of the 45^th anniversary of the martyrdom of Maryknoll Sisters Maura Clarke and Ita Ford, Ursuline Sister Dorothy Kazel, and Maryknoll lay missioner Jean Donovan. A smaller group will travel to Honduras Dec. 6-10. Sister Anita will participate in both pilgrimages.

Sister Anita, who is a bilingual spiritual and retreat director, lived in Lima and Jarpa, Peru, 2003-2005.

“I feel as though this journey began many years ago in a Marian Catholic High School religion classroom in Chicago Heights,” she said. “Forty-five years ago, I was student there when these four women were killed. To this day, I remember how profound the connection was to the women and how deeply moved our sisters were in sharing the stories from El Salvador.

“Having journeyed with immigrants in the U.S. as well as at the border with Mexico, it is imperative for me to hear the stories of those who have been deported in order to have a more complete perspective on what is happening to families and to the land which has caused so many to leave their homes.”

The pilgrimage is cosponsored by the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and the SHARE Foundation, a US-based organization that strengthens mutual accompaniment with Salvadoran people in the US, El Salvador, and Honduras.

According to SHARE executive director Jose Artiga, one of the purposes of the pilgrimage is to accompany the women and families served by SHARE who have been deported from the United States after decades of living here. In collaboration with the Houston-based Sisters of the Incarnate Word, SHARE welcomes the deportees with a number of programs including health care, psychological attention, job training, and organizational skills, he said.

Having journeyed with immigrants in the U.S. as well as at the border with Mexico, it is imperative for me to hear the stories of those who have been deported.

During this trip pilgrims will visit the site of the assassination of the church women, as well as sites where St. Oscar Romero and six Jesuits were killed. St. Oscar Romero was assassinated while saying mass in San Salvador, March 24, 1980. The Jesuits, their housekeeper and her daughter were gunned down by a Salvadoran military squad at the University of Central America in San Salvador on Nov. 16, 1989. They will also visit El Mozote, in 1981 the site of a horrific massacre of more than 1,000 women and children.

The United States government was providing military aid, training, and political support to the Salvadoran military and right-wing death squads who carried out the atrocities.

Other planned events include a visit to a women’s health and cancer prevention project; and accompaniment of women deported from the US to El Salvador and Honduras during the Trump administrations purge.