Father Roy Bourgeois will speak at Pine Valley at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, February 23rd. Father Roy is a human rights advocate and peace activist. In 1980 Fr. Roy became involved in the issues surrounding U.S. policy in El Salvador after four U.S. churchwomen – two friends of his – were raped and killed by Salvadoran soldiers. In 1990 he founded the School of the Americas Watch, an office that does research on the U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA), which has now been renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. This school trains hundreds of soldiers from Latin America in combat skills – all paid for by U.S. taxpayers. The school is synonymous with torture and military repression around the world. Fr. Roy has spent more than four year in prison for non-violent protests against the training of these Latin American soldiers. Fr. Roy received the 1997 Pax Christi USA Teacher of Peace Award and the 2005 Thomas Merton Award.
