'Padre Chema,' outspoken advocate of martyred Salvadoran Jesuits, laid to rest

(OSV News) -- Jesuit Father José María Tojeira immediately rushed to the scene upon hearing the awful news in November 1989: Six fellow Jesuits, their housekeeper and her daughter were murdered in their home in San Salvador in an attack perpetrated by Salvadoran troops.

Father Tojeira pushed for justice to be carried out in El Salvador, but had to wait 30 years before testifying in a Spanish court -- which convicted Inocente Orlando Montano, vice minister of defense at the time of the killings. Montano was convicted in July 2020 and sentenced to 133 years in prison, though many more suspects never faced justice.

"He was the most consistent voice after the death of the Jesuits," Juan Melendez, country director for the Netherlands Institute of Multiparty Democracy, told OSV News.

"Despite the militarism … and the height of war in the 1990s, he was consistent and denounced human rights violations. (He was) very brave and at the same time, a man of peace."

Father Tojeira died of a heart attack Sept. 5, while preparing to give a lecture at Jesuit-run Rafael Landívar University in Guatemala City. He was 78. He was laid to rest in Antiguo Cuscatlan, El Salvador, on Sept. 11.

Commonly called "Padre Chema," the Spanish-born Father Tojeira was a giant in El Salvador's public life as the country confused with war, achieved peace accords, returned to democracy, experienced savage gang violence, then returned to strongman rule with the president operating under emergency powers.

"He could talk to everybody, engage people from the other side of an issue, while still holding firm to his principles," a Catholic source in El Salvador told OSV News. "But he was just really approachable and willing to engage everybody in dialogue and find ways to work things out."

Father Tojeira served as provincial of the Jesuits' Central America province from 1988 to 1995 and rector of the Jesuit-run Central American University José Simeón Cañas in San Salvador from 1997 to 2010.

He also served as director of the university's Human Rights Institute and pastor of El Carmen Parish in Santa Tecla until his death. He became spokesman for the Society of Jesus after the Jesuit-run Central American University in Managua was seized by Nicaragua's dictatorship in 2023.

Father Tojeira championed environmental causes in El Salvador. He testified for a national water law before the National Assembly in 2017 and criticized the 2024 repeal of a law banning mining. "It's false that mining enriches the country," he said, contradicting claims from President Nayib Bukele that extractive activities would bring in a bonanza of revenue.

He took issue with Bukele, who calls himself the world's "coolest dictator," telling the president to seek dialogue rather than "exercise power in a despotic and tyrannical style."

Father Tojeira was born in Vigo, Spain, in 1947 to schoolteacher parents. He joined the Jesuits and was sent to Central America in 1969. He started in Honduras, working with a religious community, serving as a parish priest and directing Radio Progreso, a Jesuit project.

He moved to El Salvador in 1985, starting work with the Jesuit's university and becoming regional provincial three years later. He became a Salvadoran citizen, too, a prominent figure in the country's public life.

"After they killed the Jesuits, he certainly became the voice of and the face of the martyrs in talking about that, engaging and pushing for justice, but also engaging people across the political spectrum to find solutions in the country," the church source said.

"People really appreciated … his openness and his attitude to really look for a solution."