ReillyO’Brien

It was November 2008, and Jillian Roger was 22 years old, about to depart on a journey that would change the trajectory of her life. 

   Roger was setting out for Fort Benning, Georgia, the site of a protest against the School of the Americas, also known as the SOA. The SOA was a U.S. Army training facility, focused on intelligence training meant to target Communism during the Cold War. Students were usually military officers from Latin America, who upon graduating were sent back to Latin America to curb the spread of Communism. 

   In 1996, manuals detailing a history of teaching coercion tactics such as torture, blackmail and extortion were released to the public. These papers revealed the depth of the harm being done to the people in Latin America, alerting the general public to the crimes being committed through a school based in America. 

   In her junior year at Creighton University, Roger had taken a theology class entitled liberation theology. “It was all about Jesus in the Bible as a beacon of liberation,” Roger said. “Liberation theology comes out of the poor, persecuted people in Latin America.” 

   This protest is held annually by a Jesuit group called the SOA Watch, and is meant to commemorate the lives of six priests who had been murdered in El Salvador by SOA graduates, and to push for a change that would close the school, and save lives. 

   In the days leading up to the SOA protest, Roger says she felt “really excited to put the Catholic Social Teaching principles into action.” 

   “It was a very prayerful atmosphere,” Roger said. “We had a big Mass before. There was very much a focus on putting the words and actions of Jesus into action.” 

   Roger says that there were many different kinds of people present, and among the many groups of Jesuit protestors was an “interesting group of people who probably protested a lot in the 60s and 70s,” Roger said. “There was a lot of memorabilia reminiscent of the 1960s and anti-war protesting.” 

   While attending the protest, Roger had many deep conversations with a chaperone attending with the students; these conversations are the ones that convinced Roger to become a teacher and join the Magis teaching program at Creighton, ultimately changing the trajectory of her life. 

   This urgency to use their voices for good doesn’t just come from the Jesuits. The Servants of Mary, also known as the fearless founders of Marian High School, are known for expressing these same beliefs. 

   Sister Nancy Marsh has a great passion for  what she refers to as witness, or “standing up in a more positive gesture.”

   This use of the term witness is meant to take away from the negative connotations that can come along with the word protest. 

   For several years, groups of sisters would stand on Military Avenue and bear witness to causes that they held dear. For Marsh, it was “where children were involved, being separated from their parents or killed. These faces are embedded into my heart. They should be alive, and they’re not.” 

   The Servites always work to put a connection between the topic at hand and their faith. For Marsh, this often comes back to Jesus. 

   One slogan the Servites printed on their signs was “forced like Jesus Christ to flee” which connects to “immigrants and their families, forced to flee like Jesus Christ into Egypt,” Marsh said. 

   “When you are out there helping your neighbor and acting justly, you’re doing what Jesus would do,” Marsh said. 

   Marsh wants to encourage young people to do what scares them. If you don’t go out and do what worries you, you will never grow. 

   Roger recognizes that today’s climate is very different from what it was in 2008. 

   “Go with friends, be safe, know where the exits are. You can’t exist in the modern world today without thinking about that, which is sad.” 

   Marsh adds to this, saying to “go with a peaceful heart and respond rather than react.”

   The importance of protesting for your beliefs is one that cannot be overlooked. Roger says that there is strength in numbers. “You feel that solidarity and that purpose.” 

   “I feel like we are becoming a society of screen demons. Show up and put your words into action, physically be there and be in people’s faces. That’s how you create awareness and change,” Roger said. “The algorithm can silence you, but they can’t silence your physical presence.”