María Julia Hernández (January 30, 1939 – March 30, 2007) was a prominent human rights advocate who tried to speak for victims of the civil war in El Salvador. She was the founding director of Tutela Legal, the human rights office of the

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...

Archdiocese of San Salvador The Archdiocese of San Salvador is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or archdiocese of the Catholic Church in El Salvador. Its archepiscopal see is the Salvadoran capital, San Salvador, and the surrounding region. The current Archbishop ...

Hernández was born in San Francisco Morazán, Honduras, to Salvadoran parents. Her family returned to El Salvador shortly after her birth. She never married but dedicated her life to the

Catholic Church 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 ...

and its work among the people of El Salvador. She spent 30 years gathering evidence of massacres and individual killings, interviewing survivors, seeing that they stayed alive and compiling a book of the dead. The book of the dead grew into more of an encyclopedia of political violence. Hernández did her work in a sparsely furnished room decorated by a cross and two photographs 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 Santiago ...

, the church leader who was assassinated in 1980 by right-wing forces in El Salvador. Romero was killed while celebrating Mass, after calling upon the army to stop the death squads who were attacking real and imagined opponents of the status quo. The killing of the archbishop was among the opening shots of the civil war that lasted until 1992. It was a central event in the life of María Julia Hernández. Hernández worked with Romero, who was installed as bishop in 1977, at the start of a 15-year wave of violence that pitted a relative handful of left-wing guerillas against the ruling class, the armed forces and the government of El Salvador. Most of the 75,000 victims of the violence were peasants who were killed while passively resisting the powers of the state. In 1991 Hernández was awarded the

Pacem in Terris Award The ''Pacem in Terris'' Peace and Freedom Award is a Catholic peace award which has been given annually since 1964, in commemoration of the 1963 encyclical letter '' Pacem in terris'' (Peace on Earth) of Pope John XXIII. It is awarded "to honor a ...

. It was named after a 1963 encyclical letter by

Pope John XXIII Pope John XXIII ( la, Ioannes XXIII; it, Giovanni XXIII; born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, ; 25 November 18813 June 1963) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 28 October 1958 until his death in June 19 ...

that calls upon all people of good will to secure peace among all nations ('' Pacem in terris'' is

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

for 'Peace on Earth'.) María Julia Hernández died on March 30, 2007, of a heart attack in San Salvador at the age of 68.

External links

Washington Post: Human Rights Activist Maria Julia Hernandez dies
* ttp://www.economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?story_id=8998321&fsrc=RSS The Economist: María Julia Hernández obituary

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hernandez, Maria Julia 1939 births 2007 deaths Roman Catholic activists Salvadoran Roman Catholics Salvadoran human rights activists Honduran human rights activists Women human rights activists Honduran women activists Honduran Roman Catholics

See also

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