Jean Marie Donovan (April 10, 1953 – December 2, 1980) was an American lay

missionary A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being ...

who was beaten, raped, and murdered along with three fellow missionaries— Ita Ford,

Maura Clarke Maura Clarke (January 13, 1931 – December 2, 1980), was an American Catholic Maryknoll sister who served as a missionary in Nicaragua and El Salvador. She worked with the poor and refugees in Central America from 1959 until her murder in 1980. ...

and

Dorothy Kazel Dorothy Kazel (June 30, 1939 – December 2, 1980), was an American Ursuline religious sister and missionary to El Salvador. On December 2, 1980, she was beaten, raped, and murdered along with three fellow missionaries – Maryknoll Sisters ...

—by members of the

military of El Salvador The Armed Forces of El Salvador ( es, Fuerza Armada de El Salvador) are the official governmental military forces of El Salvador. The Forces have three branches: the Salvadoran Army, the Salvadoran Air Force and the Navy of El Salvador. Histor ...

Early life

Jean Donovan was born to Patricia and Raymond Donovan, who raised her in an upper middle-class home in

Westport, Connecticut Westport is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, along the Long Island Sound within Connecticut's Gold Coast. It is northeast of New York City. The town had a population of 27,141 according to the 2020 U.S. Census. History ...

. She had an older brother, Michael.Martyrs of Central America & Colombia
published by the Inter-Religious Task Force of Cleveland; accessed online December 9, 2006. She attended Mary Washington College in Virginia (now the University of Mary Washington), and spent a year as an exchange student in Ireland at

University College Cork University College Cork – National University of Ireland, Cork (UCC) ( ga, Coláiste na hOllscoile Corcaigh) is a constituent university of the National University of Ireland, and located in Cork. The university was founded in 1845 as one o ...

, deepening her

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

faith through her contact with a priest there who had been a missionary in

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = National seal , national_motto = "Firm and Happy f ...

. Upon the completion of her

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

business Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or buying and selling products (such as goods and services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for profit." Having a business name does not sepa ...

from

Case Western Reserve University Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a Private university, private research university in Cleveland, Cleveland, Ohio. Case Western Reserve was established in 1967, when Western Reserve University, founded in 1826 and named for its location i ...

, she accepted a position as a management consultant for the

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U ...

branch of the nationwide accounting firm,

Arthur Andersen Arthur Andersen was an American accounting firm based in Chicago that provided auditing, tax advising, consulting and other professional services to large corporations. By 2001, it had become one of the world's largest multinational corpora ...

. The Life and Example of Jean Donovan
by Rev. John Dear, December 2, 2005; accessed online December 9, 2006. Donovan was engaged to a young physician, Douglas Cable, and felt a strong call to motherhood as well as her call to do mission work: "I sit there and talk to God and say 'Why are you doing this to me? Why can't I just be your little suburban housewife?' While volunteering in the Cleveland Diocese Youth Ministry with the poor, she decided to join the Diocesan Mission Project in El Salvador. She was accepted into and completed the lay-missionary training course at

Maryknoll Maryknoll is a name shared by a number of related Catholic organizations, including the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers (also known as the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America or the Maryknoll Society), the Maryknoll Sisters, and the Mary ...

in New York State. Donovan traveled to El Salvador in July 1977, where she worked as a lay missioner in La Libertad, along with

, an Ursuline nun. The pair worked in the parish of the Church of the Immaculate Conception in La Libertad, providing help to refugees of the

Salvadoran Civil War The Salvadoran Civil War ( es, guerra civil de El Salvador) was a twelve year period of civil war in El Salvador that was fought between the government of El Salvador and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), a coalition or ...

and the poor. They provided shelter, food, transportation to medical care, and they buried the bodies of the dead left behind by the death squads. Donovan was a follower of Archbishop

Óscar Romero Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez (15 August 1917 – 24 March 1980) was a prelate of the Catholic Church in El Salvador. He served as Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of San Salvador, the Titular Bishop of Tambeae, as Bishop of Santiag ...

, and often went to his

cathedral A cathedral is a church that contains the ''cathedra'' () of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denominat ...

, the

Catedral Metropolitana de San Salvador Catedral may refer to: * Catedral (Buenos Aires Underground), a station * Catedral (district), a district of the San José canton, in the San José province of Costa Rica * Cerro Catedral, a mountain and ski resort in Argentina * Cerro Catedral (U ...

, to hear him preach. After his assassination on March 24, 1980, about eight months before their own murders, she and Sister

stood beside his coffin during the night-long vigil of his wake. In the weeks before she died, Donovan wrote a friend: Advent Reflections on the El Salvador Murders
accessed online December 9, 2006.

Murder

References

External links

supporting material for documentary first aired on

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educati ...

. Accessed October 7, 2005.
Plant a Tree in Jean Donovan's Memory
El Salvador memorial project in honor of the four churchwomen; accessed online December 9, 2006.
Report of the Commission on the Truth for El Salvador
(1993) accessed online June 27, 2012. {{DEFAULTSORT:Donovan, Jean 1953 births 1980 deaths People from Westport, Connecticut People from Fredericksburg, Virginia University of Mary Washington alumni Roman Catholic activists American Roman Catholic missionaries Female Roman Catholic missionaries Catholic martyrs of El Salvador Roman Catholic missionaries in El Salvador Assassinated American activists American people murdered abroad People murdered in El Salvador People of the Salvadoran Civil War 20th-century Roman Catholic martyrs Deaths by firearm in El Salvador Burials in Florida 1980 murders of U.S. missionaries in El Salvador Catholics from Virginia Catholics from Connecticut

Early life

Murder

References

Further reading

External links