Remembering the Jesuit Martyrs of Central America
and Our Collective Search for Truth beyond Marquette

Web Posted: November 17, 2003

Universities are sometimes accused of being ivory towers where erudite discussions of important matters occur, but never quite reach the world for which they are intended. When students talk about their graduation from college and entry into the "real world," for example, or when particular studies are dismissed as being "just academic," there can appear to be a disconnect between the university and its worldly context.

November 16, 2003 marked the fourteenth anniversary the martyrs of Central America -- six Jesuit faculty members (along with their housekeeper and her daughter) who were in one sense doing nothing extraordinarily different than the very academic tasks that most faculty members do. They were teachers who encouraged their students to think for themselves and look beneath the veneer of their own assumptions. They were researchers who charted new territory in a variety of fields, particularly in the overlap of theology and the social sciences. And, like other faculty members, they published their work in both scholarly journals and popular form.

If there is a lasting legacy of the UCA martyrs, however, it is that the search for truth has real-life consequences, particularly when that search is fueled by a passion that finds its source in faith. The UCA martyrs were ordinary men, but they remained staunchly adherent to their dual vocation as academics and priests. Both dimensions of that vocation led them to face death, ordered by government officials who found their intellectual inquiry, preaching of the gospel and teaching to be a threat.

Knowledge is indeed power, and knowledge borne of loving and genuine faith is a powerful force for good in the world. When we memorialize the UCA martyrs and others who have given their lives in the search for truth, let us remember that to be an intellectual is more than being "just academic." It is a calling of the highest order and a vocation that finds its place very much in the real world.