The Year of the Two Joans – 1983

Peru 1980s 

THE YEAR OF THE TWO JOANS 1983

Joan O’Callaghan ( Cross and Passion ) &  Joan Sawyer ( Columban Sister )

On 12^th January 1983 Sister Joan O’Callaghan CP died.

On the 31^st December 1982 Sister Joan O’Callaghan and  Sister Kathleen Kinane were paying a visit to the doctor.  Joan was carrying an X-ray that she had taken previously. They lived in a desert area called

Villa El Salvador 1980

Villa El Salvador, a huge shanty town (called a Pueblo Joven or young town) south of Lima. At that time, it had no electricity, water was sporadic and there were not yet any proper roads. Driven by Tito, a young man who lived in the parish, they were travelling in an old yellow Volkswagen, a car valued because it was good for travelling in soft sand. At a curve in the road known as the Devil’s Curve they were hit by an empty bus driven by a drunken man anticipating the new year. The car went on fire and as there was no water in the area that day the locals tried to rescue the travellers putting out the flames with the sand on the ground.

I was the third sister in the community and the leader at the time. I first heard of the accident when a young man banged loudly on the door. I ran to tell Fr Joe Walejewski, the parish priest, and we then took off to the clinic where the sisters were taken. It was a very basic clinic and I’ll never forget having to queue to pay for the bandages, ointment and other medicine that Joan and Kathy would need. As Kathy was in the back seat she had less injuries, a burnt arm. Her hair and eyebrows had the smell of burning. Tito also had a badly burnt arm which he got from trying to open Joan’s door. She was in the passenger seat and suffered the most with 50% serious burns.

At Joan’s request we set off to a clinic run by Italian sisters where Joan had fought for her life three years earlier having nearly died of septicemia. The problem was that the sisters had left the clinic a year or two before so the standard was not up to scratch for the injuries Joan had. I asked a young woman from the parish to accompany Joan and Kathy in their shared room and she very bravely did so. This was necessary because the new year festivities were in process and the medical staff were scarce on the ground.

Two Irish priests, Fr Joe McCarthy and Fr Adrian Carbery, hearing of the accident, went to visit Joan and Kathy and not being able to gain access, climbed up the clinic wall to reach their room to give them support. Joe went on to petition the Cardinal to help Joan get access to the State Hospital for Workers which had the only burns unit in Lima. In the meantime, I had to bring such basics as toilet paper and towels, check on our sisters and inform our provincial Sr Consuelo.

By chance the sisters in Chile were preparing for their local Chapter/Assembly and our Congregational leader, Sr Wilfrida was already there. We had no phone at the time and neither did the parish so we had to travel to the house of the Augustinians, great friends of ours from the USA. Brother Tony Schander was our great friend and he informed Sr Consuelo of the tragedy. It took Wilfrida and Consuelo two or three more days to arrive. They were there when Joan died on the 12^th January. Joan was a great follower of Elizabeth Prout and her feast day was always important to her. When she was in the clinic and still conscious she was visited by  Bishop German Schmitz MSC.  He was very moved when she said that she offered her pains for the Peruvian church and mission. She was in great pain, particularly because they had to change her bandages several times a day.

When Wilfrida, Consuelo and Fr Joe McCarthy accompanied Joan to the State Hospital for Workers, I brought Kathy to a clinic run by religious sisters. She was suffering from shock as well as burns.  One sister who helped Joan immeasurably was Sister Millie, an Irish Mercy sister based in England. She was a brilliant nurse. The missionary community rallied round Joan and our community in our hour of need.

Sister Joseph Carmel, Joan’s sister, arrived to see her. She was shocked equally by the situation of poverty in which Joan happily lived as the condition of her burns. Sr Wilfrida then had to go back to Chile to prepare for the chapter but Sister Consuelo stayed for the funeral and was a great support and comfort.

Before she died Joan asked for Fr Adrian Carbery to visit her. He did so and heard her confession. Later he visited us in the house to tell us that Joan was very ill. In truth, she had already died. As I walked up the corridor towards the burns unit with Sisters Joseph Carmel, Consuelo and Wilfrida, I noticed a figure wheeling a covered gurney. It was Joan in the gurney.

The Funeral of Joan took place outside the Church beside our house, Cristo el Salvador”. The Religious sisters, friends of Joan, against custom, were the first to carry her coffin.  A huge crowd of parishioners took turns to carry it in a wave of solidarity and empathy. Religious, parishioners and friends who were there were inspired by it.

Sr Joan O’Callaghan cp grave in Peru

When we arrived at the rocky bleak cemetery, Nueva Esperanza, the grave had not been dug. The grave diggers had drunk the money given to them by Fr Joe Walejewski, our parish priest who was very upset by the entire situation of Joan and Kathy’s accident and did his best to help us through it. We stood there in the hot sun as the young men  in the procession ripped off their good shirts and set about digging the grave themselves. In the meantime, young parishioners who had been taught the guitar by Joan, serenaded the gathering with her own guitar, starting with hymns and ending with cheerful tunes that Joan loved. It was a very merry funeral at the end!

After the funeral Sr Consuelo returned to Chile bringing Kathy with her so that she could recover and rest. When we went to pay our medical bills for Joan, Kathy and Tito, we found that the Passionist Fathers and Brothers had already paid it as an act of solidarity with us. Joan’s body was later transferred to a new cemetery in Villa El Salvador where she is buried beside two other religious who worked and died there. She is still well remembered in Villa El Salvador.

Joan was a strong woman and a strong Passionist. She was passionate about helping the poor and had great rapport with the struggling women she supported. They knew she was on their side. She could be difficult to live with at times but was generous, just and single minded in mission. She filled the chapel with her energy. Sr Pat Denny often used to say to me, “I think He listens to her.”

 On the 14^th December 1983 Joan Sawyer, Columban Missionary, died.

Sr Joan Sawyer was a Columban Sister who was killed with seven prisoners at Lurigancho Prison, Lima, Peru on 14th December 1983 after being taken hostage in a prison breakout. As prisoners and hostages were leaving the prison in a vehicle, police opened fire indiscriminately. Joan was sitting at the back and got the worst of the bullets. The volunteers bore no animosity to the hostage takers as they were driven by desperation and a sense of injustice.

I first became aware of this event while I was doing some sewing, a rare occasion but necessary!

Father Joe Walejewski, our parish priest,  had gifted us with a small TV. Sr Maria Perpetua, the provincial at the time, thought it would be good for our Spanish! We hardly used it . But on this rare event, I was watching the news when I saw a  pile of bodies heaped on the screen and the name Joan Sawyer being mentioned. She was one of a group of prisoners and jail volunteers who had been killed by the police as they were caught up in a hostage attempt, promised free passage by the governor and later shot indiscriminately. The way they were piling the bodies was brutal, disrespectful and shocking.  I learned  later that when the doors of the vehicle were opened after the shooting, they found that seven prisoners  were dead,  Sr Joan was dying, and three more hostages and two prisoners were wounded.

Joan was small, slight, delicate almost. She was glad to be living in Peru  and although the Columban sisters mainly worked among the poor in deprived areas,  Joan answered the call of the Cardinal for religious to do prison ministry. She befriended the prisoners, visited their families, and was generally happy in her work. Lurigancho prison was overcrowded, violent and generally feared, mostly inhabited by poor men pushed towards crime by poverty. The drug trade too helped fill the cells. Joan, like me, was from Belfast and we shared a love of the idiosyncrasies of the Northern Irish use of language. We swapped funny booklets by John Pepper and had many a laugh together.

Joan O’Callaghan had lived with the Columban sisters when she first went to Peru and it was one of them that had first led her to Villa El Salvador. They had shown great solidarity with us when our Joan died, little knowing that before the year was out they would bury their own Joan.

Once again Sister Millie, the Mercy sister, would be helping to coffin and care for another Joan.

After the funeral mass we had a long procession walking to the cemetery and taking turns carrying the coffin. This was also a call to the authorities to investigate the details of this tragedy as it was also a crime. Investigations and recriminations followed and the Cardinal condemned what happened. Joan Sawyer is remembered still in Peru.

These two Irish missionaries are hard to forget.  They inspire us still. I was privileged to be part of their lives.

Sr Rosaleen Murray CP

Sr Joan Sawyer