Saturday evening, Jon de Cortina, S.J., joined the DuBourg Society for its annual dinner and was awarded the Sword Ignatius Loyola Award. The Loyola Award is “given by the University to an individual who has made significant achievements to benefit humankind,” which de Cortina continues to pursue daily as the founder of Pro-Busqueda de NiA?as y NiA?os Desaparecidos (Association in Search of Disappearing Children).

De Cortina began the organization when he discovered another facet to the injustices committed during the El Salvadoran civil war, which devastated the tiny country in the late ’80s. He found out that children were being kidnapped while the civilians that were being killed.

De Cortina, who survived the war, felt compelled to serve the people whose lives were sacrificed during the war. “It is important to preserve the right to life,” he said.

De Cortina lived among the six Jesuit priests and their housekeepers who were murdered at the University of Central America by the El Salvadoran military in November of 1989. He was visiting a parish outside of San Salvador and returned to the UCA to find his name among the death list.

“I touched myself to make sure I was alive,” he told the New York Times.

The community assumed he died with the rest of his compatriots, and not until the war subsided did the community feel De Cortina’s living presence.

After the fighting stopped in 1992, a Truth Commission was formed by the United Nations to investigate war atrocities. As a parish priest and as an active member of the commission, de Cortina was entrusted with the local and national stories of requests.

The Salvadoran government and military literally stripped the youngsters from the arms of screaming mothers and sold the children to adoption agencies around the world. De Cortina said that the children who waited to be sold were kept at orphanages and were told, “You survived due to the good people in the military army and because your parents have abandoned you.”

To this day, the Salvadoran government and military have not admitted any involvement in the child abductions. Almost 20 years after the Salvadoran war ended, parents continue to look for their disappeared children, and de Cortina continues to help them search. Many of the mothers and fathers who lost children are getting older. De Cortina and his team now take their DNA to ensure that, if they find a child, they have a way to connect them with their Salvadoran family.

Since de Cortina founded the organization for disappeared children, he and his volunteers have received more than 700 requests to find stolen children. More than 250 cases have been solved ?_” many with the help of DNA testing. In more than 150 cases, there has been a reunion of the stolen children with their birth families. The kidnapped children have been found all over the world, some in the United States living with their adoptive families.

Virtually no one who participated in the kidnappings and selling of the children has been punished.

De Cortina denied the validity of the saying “Forgive and forget,” instead insisting that just the opposite should be done.

“He said we must never forget, but remember. We can’t forgive people who have not said they were sorry,” recalled DuBourg society member and SLU theology professor Ronald Modras.

Cortina still believes his mission is nowhere near complete.

“We must continue to look for the truth, and until then, I ask the victims for their forgiveness. They deserve to be healed of this atrocity,” he said.

The shy, gentle Jesuit is a two-time SLU alumnus. He received a licentiate in philosophy in 1962 and a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering in 1963.

The DuBourg Society, established in 1970 by Paul Reinert, S.J. and named for the founder of the University, Bishop Louis William DuBourg, recognizes Saint Louis University’s special donors.