Maryknoll, NY  —  Thirty-five years ago, four Churchwomen, two of them Maryknoll Sisters, joined the ranks of some 70,000 people in El Salvador slaughtered by their own militia during that nation’s civil war.  Maryknoll Sisters Ita Ford and Maura Clarke, along with Ursuline Sister Dorothy Kazel and lay missioner Jean Donovan, were killed on a roadside, then buried in a shallow grave, on December 2, 1980.

These women, along with the more than 70,000 others who perished during that war, will be remembered and honored at a Mass to be broadcast via livestream from the Main Chapel at Maryknoll Sisters Center, 10 Pinesbridge Road, Ossining, NY, on Sunday, November 29, 2015, at 10:30 a.m.  The broadcast can be viewed at www.maryknollsisters.org/livestream.

Members of the public interested in honoring the women are invited to attend a special vespers service, also being held at the Center’s Main Chapel, on Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2015, at 7 p.m. in the evening.

The two celebrations are part of a five-week-long celebration of the lives of these four courageous women, which includes five weeks of social media on the congregation’s Facebook page and Twitter newsfeeds throughout the month of November.

Founded in 1912, Maryknoll Sisters is the first US-based congregation of women religious dedicated to foreign mission. Working primarily among the poor and marginalized in 24 countries around the world, they now number nearly 430 members from both the US and overseas.