10/21/2026
In a recent National Catholic Reporter op-ed, Congressman Jim McGovern, a longtime friend of the Ignatian Solidarity Network (ISN), shared that the Universidad Centroamericana (UCA) martyrs of El Salvador shaped both his politics and his faith.
McGovern, who has been a member of Congress since 1997 and serves Massachusetts' 2nd district, described drifting from the church as a young man. Then, as a staffer for Rep. Joe Moakley in the 1980s, he traveled to El Salvador and met Jesuit priests and Maryknoll sisters who stood with the poor at great personal risk. “Most importantly, [the religious priests and sisters in El Salvador] taught me that faith requires action. It demands something of us,” McGovern writes. That conviction runs through McGovern’s history with ISN. He played a key role in the congressional investigation into the 1989 murders of six Jesuits, Elba Ramos, a Jesuit community housekeeper, and her 15-year old daughter, Celina Ramos, and offered a keynote address at ISN’s Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice in 2005.
As a young congressional aide, he spoke with Fr. Ignacio Martín-Baró, one of the Jesuits martyred on November 16, 1989. Asking Fr. Martín-Baró whether there was anything he could bring back to Washington, Martín-Baró responded, "tell them to remember one thing: remember we are human beings, too." Recalling his encounters with various Jesuits who were eventually assassinated by the Salvadoran military for their outspokenness about the rights of the poor and the military's violence against Salvadorans, McGovern mentioned that "with all of the Jesuits, especially with [Fr. Ignacio] Ellacuría, they would always think of new and imaginative ways to get to peace."
On November 13, 2014, ISN presented Rep. McGovern with its Legacy of the Martyrs Award for championing human rights-oriented U.S. policy in El Salvador. Accepting it, he said the martyrs “inspired me to continue working for the poor” in his work in Congress.
Read Rep. McGovern's op-ed here: https://www.ncronline.org/opinion/guest-voices/congressman-jim-mcgovern-im-progressive-democrat-because-im-catholic
