Until the Spirit emboldened them at Pentecost, Jesus’ disciples huddled in an upper room in fear for their lives. Two decades ago, six Jesuit priests in war-torn El Salvador who spoke out fearlessly for justice had their compound broken into while they slept and were brutally murdered along with their housekeeper and her daughter. Now Spain's National Court has invoked a special law to order the arrest and trial of 20 former Salvadoran military officers for the murders.

Five of the six Jesuits were naturalized Salvadorans of Spanish birth. In announcing the charges, the Spanish court cited its universal jurisdiction law, which says that some crimes are so grave they can be tried anywhere.

In the indictment, Judge Eloy Velasco Nuñez said El Salvador's judicial mechanism "was a defective and widely criticized process that ended with two forced convictions and acquittals even of confessed killers." Among those indicted were a former Salvadoran defense minister.

A 1993 United Nations Truth Commission report said high-ranking Salvadoran military officials were responsible for ordering the murders and their cover-up. The six priests and two women were murdered Nov. 16, 1989 at their residence on the campus of Central American University in San Salvador.

The U.N. report concluded that units of the U.S.-trained Atlacatl battalion forced their way into the Jesuits' residence, ordered them into a garden, shot them, and did away with witnesses such as the housekeeper and her daughter.

In San Salvador rights groups hailed the move as an important step towards justice. The judge's decision "gives us encouragement to continue the fight against impunity," said Miguel Montenegro, director of the Human Rights Commission of El Salvador.

Shortly before he was killed, one of the slain Jesuits, Ignacio Martin Baro, spoke to CNN about the chilling effect of the long-running Salvadoran civil war. "We have become used to violence,"  said. "We have become used to living in a very dangerous world. We have learned to live, accepting death, extraordinary abnormal death, into our lives."

Sources: Articles by Catholic News Service, Agence France Presse, and Al Goodman for CNN