Mahony Calls for End to Salvador Military Aid

In the wake of the brutal murders of six Jesuit priests and two lay persons in El Salvador, Roman Catholic Archbishop Roger Mahony has called for an end to U.S. military aid to that country.

Mahony, who heads the Los Angeles archdiocese, held a a special Mass for the slaying victims at the Sacred Heart Chapel of Loyola-Marymount University over the weekend. He appealed to both sides in El Salvador’s decade-old civil war to lay down their arms and negotiate peace, and to U.S. officials to foster negotiations.

“May we pray in a special way . . . that from the tremendous spilled blood that has so washed that landscape, that from that might spring the seeds of hope,” said Mahony.