Staff members of the Community of St. Oscar Romero, also known as COAR, and two former missionaries coordinated their travel plans so they were able to greet Bishop Edward Malesic and Father Steve Vellenga during their visit to El Salvador this week. (See photo gallery above.)
COAR has been sheltering, healing and educating children in El Salvador since 1980. It consists of COAR Children’s Village, a home; COAR school and COAR’s community.
Mary Stevenson, executive director of COAR Peace Mission Inc., and Susan Barnish, COAR program director, are spending a week in El Salvador. Also visiting this week are Ursuline Sister Rose Elizabeth Terrell, who served 2004-2014 as a member of the Cleveland Latin American Mission Team in Chitiupan, El Salvador, Father Rob Reidy, retired pastor of La Sagrada Familia Parish in Cleveland and a former CLAM Team member, and a parishioner from Sacred Heart Chapel in Lorain.
The bishop and Father Vellenga, director of the diocesan Missions Office and pastor of St. Mary Parish in Painesville, were accompanied by Father Paul Schindler and Father John Ostrowksi, diocesan priests ministering as CLAM Team members in El Salvador.
Sister Terrell knew Ursuline Sister Dorothy Kazel and visited her in El Salvador. Sister Kazel and Jean Donovan, a lay missionary, were among the CLAM Team members in 1980. They were murdered on Dec. 2, 1980, at the beginning of the civil war in El Salvador, along with two Maryknoll sisters, Ita Ford and Maura Clarke. The bishop and members of his group visited the murder site and celebrated Mass in a chapel built in memory of the women at the site of their murder.
Sister Terrell gave a presentation about the church women to the bishop and his group, setting the context of their service to the people of El Salvador and how their ministry led to their deaths. She also brought reflections written in their own words to share their feelings about the Salvadoran people.
Stevenson said the group noticed two small children playing outside the chapel near a monument dedicated to the church women.
“In the light of the setting sun, the small children giggling as they played around the chapel filled us all with hope and optimism that their memories and legacies of service would be remembered,” she said.
The group also traveled to COAR, where they met with some of the COAR children in front of a vehicle nicknamed the “Pilla Mobile.” Stevenson said they were able to purchase the van with funds raised during a 2017 COAR benefit that honored the late Bishop Anthony Pilla.
She said the children were on their way to a special Mass for peace at the Metropolitan Cathedral of San Salvador for Archbishop Jose Luis Escobar Alas. They were specially selected to make a presentation. Stevenson noted that Bishop Malesic met with Archbishop Escobar.
“It’s kind of nice that the children go from our bishop to their bishop today,” she added.
During Bishop Malesic’s visit to COAR, he met fourth-graders who were coming out of the computer center and chatted with about 30 of the students, learning about them, their school, families and community.
He shared a story about a Salvadoran man who has a shop near one of the West Side parishes in bishop told the students that the man could have seen the tires as trash, but like Jesus taking up his cross – as we are all asked to do – he embraced the challenge and transformed the tires into things that are useful and beautiful. We are asked to trust in the transformation that will happen through the Resurrection, the bishop told the students.
One of the students presented Bishop Malesic with a hand-painted picture of the COAR logo.
Stevenson said about half of the COAR students walk to school; about one-fourth are driven by their parents and about one-fourth travel by bus. About two-thirds live in Zaragoza, El Salvador and most of the rest live in San Jose Villanueva, a nearby city.
She said the sacrifices the students and their families make so they can attend the Catholic school “shows their dedication to getting a good education.”
COAR will have its St. Oscar Romero Day Prayer Service at 7 p.m. March 24 at Church of the Resurrection, 32001 Cannon Road, Solon. The event will be livestreamed. Call 440-248-0980 for more information. Click here to sign up for the prayer, to watch the livestream and to get email updates.
For more information on COAR, click here.