Cardinal Rodríguez

Oscar Andrés Cardinal Rodríguez Maradiaga, SDB, is Archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduras and the past president of the Conference of Latin American Bishops. He served as the Vatican spokesperson to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank on the issue of Third World debt, and he is one of the authors of Ecclesia in America, the 1999 Papal Exhortation based on the Special Synod for America. Cardinal Rodriguez has tirelessly campaigned for human rights, brokered numerous peace accords, and led rebuilding efforts following earthquakes and hurricanes—endeavors that continue the work of Archbishop Romero. In November of 2002, he will be awarded the Notre Dame Prize for Distinguished Service in Latin America.

Archbishop Mendes

The Most Reverend Luciano Mendes de Almeida, S.J., is Archbishop of Mariana, Brazil, and President of the Brazilian Conference of Catholic Bishops. Throughout four decades as a Jesuit priest, as Auxiliary Bishop of São Paulo, and now as Archbishop of Mariana, he has lived and ministered in the Romero tradition by relentlessly striving to improve an unjust society, especially in his work with the impoverished street children of Sao Paulo.

Dr. Zamora

Dr. Rubén Zamora is a prominent Salvadoran political leader, a former professor at the Universidad Centroamerica, and one of Latin America’s foremost champions of peace and social justice. While serving as Speaker of the National Assembly during and after El Salvador’s twelve-year-long civil war and as the presidential candidate of the Democratic Convergence party in 1994 and 1999, he steadfastly championed the God-given rights of the poor, the oppressed, and the marginalized majority of his country’s citizens. He lost the presidential elections to the extreme-rightist ARENA candidates in elections “supervised” by heavily-armed paramilitary forces who openly intimidated campesino and blue-collar voters. Nevertheless, he has seen his Democratic Convergence Party and the allied Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front win half the seats in the National Assembly less than a decade after its supporters were being machine-gunned by military death squads. Dr. Zamora remains active in Salvadoran politics, serving as a voice of moderation and reconciliation in a nation that is still dangerously polarized.

Roberto Cuéllar

Roberto Cuéllar is the Executive Director of the Interamerican Institute of Human Rights (IIHR). A native Salvadoran, Mr. Cuéllar began his career defending human rights in 1975 in El Salvador by helping to form Socorro Jurídico, an organization providing legal assistance to the victims of human rights abuses. As a close collaborator and legal advisor of Archbishop Oscar Romero, he was forced to flee El Salvador after Romero was assassinated in 1980. From exile, he documented more than 1,000 cases of gross human rights violations in his homeland and the surrounding region, and he submitted his evidence to the United Nations and the Interamerican Commission on Human Rights. In 1985 he began to work for the IIHR, providing human rights training to Latin American organizations and other professional services to electoral bodies, courts, religious groups, and social justice organizations throughout Central America. In the 1990s Mr. Cuéllar was an active participant in the UN-brokered Salvadoran and Guatemalan peace processes. He is the recipient of numerous human rights awards, including the Letelier Moffitt Human Rights Prize.

Margaret Swedish

Margaret Swedish is the Director of the Religious Task Force on Central America and Mexico (RTFCAM), and the author of Oscar Arnulfo Romero: Prophet to the Americas and of A Message Too Precious to Be Silenced. The Religious Task Force on Central America and Mexico was founded in March 1980, two weeks before the assassination of Archbishop Romero. It was created by U.S. Catholic religious leaders in response to Romero’s call for international solidarity with his persecuted people who were suffering under the weight of military dictatorship, government repression, and horrendous social and economic inequities. For over two decades, RTFCAM has helped thousands of North Americans walk in faith-based solidarity with our sisters and brothers of Central America and Mexico. Both its mission and the interpersonal relationships it helps to foster are based on shared commitment to social justice, peaceful resolution of conflict, and faith reflections deeply rooted in the aspiration for justice, freedom from oppression, human dignity, and God-given human rights.

Margaret Hebblethwaite

Margaret Hebblethwaite is the author of numerous books including Motherhood and God; Finding God in all Things: The Way of St Ignatius; and Six New Gospels: New Testament Women Tell Their Stories. She was Assistant Editor at The Tablet, a prominent international Catholic weekly, from 1991 - 2000. Following a visit to Paraguay, she resigned this prestigious job to live and work in a Small Christian Community in Santa María de Fe, a former Jesuit mission. Her years in the Third World have given her an opportunity to share the “good news to the poor,” as well as countless opportunities to listen to the voices from the margins and to learn how the indigenous Guarani people of Santa María live out their conviction: ñamba'apo oñondivepa (we must all work together.)