Epilogue

This chapter analyses health-care disagreements that reveal the continuing debates over women's role in the church but lacked the focus on Maryknoll. It discusses the Vatican's response to Central America and liberation theology that showed a marked changed from the 1980s just as U.S. domestic debates focused less on Maryknoll. It also recounts how Miguel d'Escoto successfully petitioned Pope Francis to reinstate him as an active priest in 2014 after being suspended in 1985 for refusing to give up his post as Nicaragua's foreign minister. The chapter mentions Maryknoller Roy Bourgeois that remained excommunicated for participating in a ceremony in which a woman was ordained. It investigates how the United States repudiated the human rights abuses of the Salvadoran civil war under Barack Obama.

U.S. Guns Kill U.S. Nuns

This chapter examines the murders of the churchwomen and how Reagan officials' critiques, which revealed that intra-Catholic conflict had become an integral part of United States–Central America policy with Reagan's ascension to the White House. It looks at remarks that bolster the Salvadoran junta's reputation or diminish the murders' impact on the protest movement against U.S. policy. It also discusses that the murdered churchwomen symbolized the church's championing of the poor and a U.S. foreign policy that was morally corrupt and politically unsound for training and arming their killers. The chapter cites that two murdered Maryknollers were members of a Catholic order and represented a dangerous trajectory for U.S. foreign policy and the church. It elaborates how the U.S. government aligned with conservative U.S. and Central American Catholics and amplified their perspective.

Introduction

This chapter reviews the Reagan administration's linkage of Nicaragua to El Salvador and its critiques of Maryknollers' influence on Tip O'Neill in the Contra aid debate. It brings together the most scandalous comments made about the murdered women, especially Alexander Haig's false charge that the women died in a shoot-out. It also stresses how entangled Catholic debates are about the meaning of Catholic identity about U.S.–Central America policy. The chapter analyses the image of a nun as a violent revolutionary that challenged the murdered churchwomen's status as victims. It reveals the conservative Catholics' objections to nuns' and priests' social activism.

Reagan and the White House’s Maryknoll Nun

This chapter explains how Ronald Reagan's public diplomacy campaign reflected conservative Nicaraguan and U.S. Catholic viewpoints and language. It talks about the officials who worked with Catholic allies, including a former Maryknoll sister, that critique the Maryknoll and liberation theology in the United States, Latin America, and Europe. It also recounts Reagan's promotion as defender of the Nicaraguan Catholic Church to win support among conservative Catholics for U.S. policy and his reelection bid. The chapter discusses the White House's attempt to move the public focus from human rights in El Salvador to Nicaragua by alleging that the Sandinista government persecuted religion and was trying to create a fake church. It describes the public diplomacy campaign that involved cooperation with religious conservatives, including its design and execution that reflected conservative Catholic viewpoints and language.

Real Catholics versus Maryknollers

This chapter refers to Ronald Reagan and his supporters that questioned both Tip O'Neill's authenticity as a Catholic and his masculinity because he followed Maryknoll sisters' advice in opposing the Contras. It discusses how the Reagan administration interjected itself into Nicaraguan Catholic debates by promoting Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo as a true Catholic in contrast to Nicaragua's foreign minister, Maryknoll priest Miguel d'Escoto. It also sketches Reagan's portrayal of himself as defender of the pope during the 1984 campaign as he and his allies attacked Catholics for not defending their church after his reelection. The chapter mentions non-Catholics, who argued that true Catholics backed Reagan's Contra policy because the pope supported U.S. policy. It emphasizes how Reagan and his allies promoted the stereotype that Catholics should fall in line behind the pope.

Religious or Political Activists for Nicaragua?

This chapter shows how the Maryknollers' leadership that oppose Nicaraguan president Somoza led conservative American non-Catholics to adopt conservative Catholics' concerns about Maryknoll by the late 1970s. It talks about conservative U.S. Catholics that bemoaned some Maryknollers' opposition to Latin American governments and support for socialist ideas. It also marks the shift from the 1960s and early 1970s when the Melvilles or Charles Curry took controversial stances. The chapter explores the Maryknollers' involvement in Nicaragua debates that reflected larger shifts in what it meant to be a Catholic missionary and showed the growing strength of religious witness in the name of human rights. It refers to Father Miguel d'Escoto who proposed the creation of Maryknoll's Orbis Books, which are the bane of conservative U.S. Catholics.

Subversives in El Salvador

This chapter clarifies how the Maryknollers and San Salvador's Archbishop, Óscar Romero, unsuccessfully tried to persuade Jimmy Carter to accentuate human rights in U.S.–El Salvador policy. It recounts El Salvador as a major conflict between the White House and the religious community by 1980. It also discusses the Salvadoran government that accused Maryknoll priests John Halbert and Ron Michaels of being “subversives.” The chapter describes priests, brothers, and nuns in El Salvador and the United States that played a crucial role in aiding Salvadorans' push for societal change. It talks about how Maryknollers approached the situation from a faith-based perspective, but their decision to side with the poor had political implications.

Déjà Vu

This chapter analyses intra-Catholic debates that no longer held the same political significance for U.S.–Central America relations despite the constant comparisons between the murders of the churchwomen in 1980 and the Jesuits in 1989. It illustrates the conservative Catholics' imprint on U.S.–Central America policy that reached its height with Ronald Reagan but began to disintegrate with the Iran-Contra revelations. It also talks about the minority of conservative Catholics that suggested the murdered Jesuits were Marxist collaborators, which was unlike the attacks on the churchwomen's victimhood. The chapter emphasizes how the conservative Catholics' concerns about liberation theology, the church's direction, and Maryknoll were muted. It cites that the George H. W. Bush administration did not reflect conservative Catholic views or seek to insert itself into intra-Catholic debates over U.S.–Central America relations.

From Senator McCarthy’s Darlings to Marxist Maryknollers

This chapter points out how Maryknollers' evolving sense of mission and experiences in Latin America transformed them from allies in the 1950s to critics of the U.S. Cold War policy in the late 1960s and 1970s. It looks at the new church teachings from Vatican II and Medellín, the effects of U.S. policy, and living in Right-wing military dictatorships that influenced the Maryknollers' shift. It also identifies missioners located in Guatemala and Chile that found themselves in conflict with Latin American governments and conservative U.S. Catholics. The chapter focuses on Maryknoll's shift that challenged the meaning of U.S. Catholic missionary activity. It details how Maryknoll revisited the model that saw evangelization as missionaries' purpose and communism as the primary adversary after the Vatican II.

Maryknoll and Iran-Contra

This chapter highlights how the conservative U.S. Catholics held up catholic William Casey and former catholic Oliver North as symbols of true Catholics and patriots, not Maryknollers, whom they blamed for Iran-Contra. It talks about missionaries that condemned the Contras' human rights abuses and argued it was U.S. influence Nicaraguans needed saving from. It also mentions Henry Hyde, who was part of the joint Senate House congressional efforts to investigate Iran-Contra. The chapter investigates Iran-Contra as the scheme to sell arms to Iran in exchange for U.S. hostages and to transfer the excess funds to the Contras. It recounts how the Reagan administration still pursued a take-no-prisoners approach when it came to its Contra policy despite the Iran-Contra revelations.