HENNESSEY, Gwen (Sister)

HENNESSEY, Gwen. Sister (Manchester, IA, September 29, 1932-- ). Roman Catholic religious sister and activist.

Sister Gwen took part in a protest march in the 1960s in Antioch, Illinois. African Americans were banned from the city, and Martin Luther King, Jr. was marching with her. She also helped Cesar Chavez, leader of the United Farm Workers, organize migrant workers in California.

Sister Gwen Hennessey and her real sister, (Sister) Dorothy HENNESSEY are most widely known for protests in 2001 at Fort Benning, Georgia, home of the Army's School of the Americas, a facility for training Latin American soldiers. The two Sisters were drawn to the School of the Americas Watch by their brother, Ron Hennessey, a Maryknoll priest in Latin America from 1964 until his death in 1999. The Sisters believed that the School of the Americas taught torture techniques to Latin American soldiers and that graduates of the program were involved in atrocities, including the 1989 murders of six Jesuit priests and two women in El Salvador. The school denied these claims and argued that it helped to spread democracy in Latin America. Sister Gwen Hennessey, along with her sister and many others were arrested, convicted, and sentenced to six months in jail for their protest.

In 2002, Sister Gwen Hennessey, along with her sister Dorothy Hennessey, was awarded the Pacem in Terris Award. It was named after a 1963 encyclical letter by Pope John XXIII that called upon all people of good will to secure peace among all nations. Pacem in Terris is Latin for 'Peace on Earth'. Hennessey later served as the director of the Clare Guest House, in Sioux City.