Sister Dianna, left, is shown with other demonstrators during a recent anti-torture vigil by TASSC members in Washington, D.C.

     "When I speak of torture, including my own, I am not speaking of myself alone. Rather, I am speaking of and for every person who has fallen prey to this crime — the dead as well as those still living. Yet the response to my words is too often at the level of a personal problem and not a social issue.” It was obvious Sister Dianna Ortiz, an Ursuline Sister of Mount Saint Joseph, was speaking from the depths of her heart as she spoke to those assembled in the Brescia University science building lecture hall March 15 for a Brescia Contemporary Woman program titled “Torture: A Challenge in Contemporary Times.”
     Sister Dianna was working as a missionary in Guatemala in November of 1989 when she was abducted by security forces and brutally tortured for 24 hours in a secret torture center in the capital city before she managed to escape. She found her way to the Maryknoll House in Guatemala City, was taken to the Vatican embassy there, and within three days was home with her family.
     With no memory of her life before the torture, she began her long journey back to recovery. The journey took her to her hometown in New Mexico, to her Ursuline motherhouse at Mount Saint Joseph, to Our Lady of Peace Hospital in Louisville, to the Kovler Center for Survivors of Torture in Chicago, back to Guatemala and to Washington, D.C. in search of names of her perpetrators and, finally, to the establishing of TASSC, the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition.
     To this day, investigations by the Guatemalan and United States governments have failed to solve the case of Sister Dianna’s abduction and torture.

Sister Dianna was the guest speaker for the Contemporary Woman Program March 15 at Brescia University.

     With no memory prior to her abduction and torture, Sister Dianna has relied on family members and friends to help her reconstruct her early years.
     She was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and raised in Grants, New Mexico, a predominately (52%) Hispanic community of 9,000-plus, the county seat of Cibola County on the west-central boundary of the state. Her father, Pilar, worked in the nearby uranium mines. Her mother, Amby, was a stay-at-home mom. The couple raised seven children – four sons and three daughters. “I’m the one in the middle,” says Sister Dianna, “I’m the one who got the hand-me-downs!”
     Sister Dianna and her siblings attended public schools in Grants. But after attending eight years of public grade school and three years of public high school there, Sister Dianna left home to attend her senior year at the Mount Saint Joseph Academy at Maple Mount, Kentucky.
    From the time she was six years old, Dianna had expressed an interest in becoming a sister. That interest carried into her high school years, at which time she spoke more often with her parents about her interest in a religious life. She and her parents began investigating a number of religious communities in the Grants area, and their investigation brought them in contact with Sister Elizabeth Ann Ray, an Ursuline Sister of Mount Saint Joseph, who was principal of Saint Teresa of Avila Grade School in Grants. That led to a visit to the Mount and Dianna was hooked. “The Ursulines appealed to me because of their simplicity, their commitment to education, to children,” she explains.

Sister Elizabeth Ann Ray played a key role in Dianna becoming an Ursuline Sister.

     Sister Elizabeth Ann is now retired at the Mount. Sister Dianna visited with her recently. “I still don’t remember her,” she admits, “but when I see her or when she touches my hand I know that I am safe and that I am Ursuline. And she’s the one who introduced me to the Ursuline community.”
     After transferring to the Mount for her senior year at the Academy, Dianna returned home to New Mexico briefly before returning to Kentucky to begin her novitiate and to continue her education at Brescia College.
     Her lifelong desire to teach young children became a reality when she launched her teaching career at Immaculate Conception Grade School in Hawesville, teaching first and second graders there for two years. She then taught kindergarten at Blessed Mother School in Owensboro for two years before she began her missionary work in Guatemala. The years that followed changed her life forever.
     Sister Alice Zachmann, SSND, now office manager and outreach director for TASSC, was director of the Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA at the time Sister Dianna was abducted. She recalls, “As soon as we learned of it,  we rushed out the word concerning Sister Dianna's abduction and ‘disappearance,’ requesting information and the release of Sister Dianna. No stone was left unturned. It was with great gratitude when the news announced her release.”

"When I was stronger and reacquainting myself with the community during the recovery process, Sister Annalita (Lancaster) walked with me on that journey," says Sister Dianna.

     The early news releases did state that the security forces had released Sister Dianna, but as she quickly points out, she was not released…she escaped.
     Sister Mary Matthias Ward was the congregational leader of the Ursuline Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph at the time Sister Dianna returned to the Mount to begin her recovery. Now director of the Sacred Heart Retreat Center in Gallup, New Mexico, she has witnessed the progress of her recovery from the beginning to the present. “Sister Dianna was a fragile, broken and wounded woman when she returned from Guatemala in 1989,” she recalls. “I had the good fortune of speaking with her when she was the dinner speaker at Bishop Pelotte's Mardi Gras Fundraiser here in Gallup in 2005. She was a strong, vibrant and confident woman who told her story to a full, quiet house, a packed group of family, friends and others from the area.”
     Sister Dianna began her ministry in Washington, D.C., in 1994, doing outreach work for the Guatemalan Human Rights Commission/USA. It was while she was doing public speaking for the commission that she became aware that torture went far beyond Guatemala. “While I was doing public speaking, survivors from other countries would approach me and it was then that I realized that torture was widespread,” she says.

Sister Dianna visits with a special Ursuline friend, Sister Rose Emma Monaghan.

     In 1998 the United Nations declared June 26 as U.N. International Day in support of torture victims and survivors. Sister Dianna knew of other survivors who lived in Washington, got them together and they decided to commemorate that date. Reaching out to a number of non-governmental organizations and some treatment centers, the group held a 12-hour vigil in front of the White House on June 26, 1998. “We had about 30 people there,” Sister Dianna recalls,” including six survivors.”
     The group has returned each year on June 26 for the vigil, and it has grown steadily each year. Last year’s crowd was estimated at 3,000, including between 60 and 80 survivors and, as Sister Dianna points out, the survivor count could be higher. She says, “It used to be easier for survivors to obtain visas, but today many of our folks are denied visas when they attempt to come here.”
      Why are the vigils held in front of the White House? Sister Dianna says, “Because we think that the people who live in that building need to know what is transpiring throughout the world and U.S. involvement in torture. We also select that particular place because we know there are a lot of visitors, people will stop and see what we are doing and will see that we are a very peaceful organization. We do not believe in violence; we’ve already been through that violence.
      The first vigil in front of the White House in 1998 led to Sister Dianna’s founding of TASSC, the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition, later that year. The TASSC mission is to end the practice of torture wherever it occurs and to empower survivors, their families and communities wherever they are.

Sister Rose Marita O'Bryan calls Sister Dianna "a 21st century face of our Ursuline founder, Saint Angela Merici."

       Getting TASSC organized wasn’t easy. As Sister Dianna recalls, “It was important for us to have people understand that the voices of survivors need to be incorporated into the campaign to abolish torture. I still remember people just brushing us aside, saying, ‘You’re survivors, you’re just too traumatized by your experience, people are not going to want to hear what you have to say about your personal experience. Who wants to hear the unspeakable acts committed by another human being?’
       “Sometimes many of our members were labeled as fragile, unstable, not able to follow through with a plan, which we have proven untrue.”
       But TASSC survived its skeptics and is celebrating a milestone this year. “This is our tenth year as an organization,” Sister Dianna proudly proclaims. “We have been successful in reaching survivors not just in the United States, but abroad.      "We have survivors who live in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Pakistan, Bosnia, the Philippines and we’re just touching the tip of the iceberg.” She continues, “We would like to have a survivor representative who would be responsible for a particular continent. That’s our dream. But right now, because of lack of funds and because we don’t have the staff, we’re not able to put that plan into action.”

Sister Alice Zachmann, office manager and outreach director for TASSC, joined Sister Dianna for the Contemporary Woman Program presentation at Brescia.

       Sister Alice credits Sister Dianna with TASSC’s success. She says, “Her compassion, her keen insights, and her incredible courage have brought the ministry of TASSC to hundreds of survivors. Dianna has spoken to thousands of people, not only about her torture, but always recognizing that far too many others have had the same horrible experience. Conscious, too, of those being imprisoned and tortured NOW!
       “As the mission of TASSC is to abolish torture wherever it occurs, every opportunity that Sister Dianna has to direct that action she does so," Sister Alice explains. "Her concern about other survivors is one of her other passions. Every survivor who comes to the office for support is warmly welcomed and receives help to the extent that TASSC is able to give it."
       The TASSC office is located in Washington, D.C. Is the U.S. government aware of TASSC and its mission?
       “Members of Congress know we exist,” says Sister Dianna, “We are a credible organization. We do provide testimony before Congress. We provide interviews with mainstream media, alternative media as well. We have been working with ABC and 20/20. They’re doing a piece on evil and torture.
     Getting their message out to the public is one of TASSC’s most important tasks. “Part of the healing for survivors is being able to reclaim one’s voice,” Sister Dianna explains. “I often say, and I think all of the other survivors will agree, that one never heals from torture. We learn to live with our experience. We try daily not to allow it to define who we are or what path we will walk...and it’s no easy task.”
    In 2002 Sister Dianna told of her personal story of torture in the book The Blindfold’s Eyes: My Journey from Torture to Truth, co-written by human rights activist Patricia Davis.

Sister Dianna visited with longtime friend Sister Alicia Coomes during a recent visit to Maple Mount.

       Sister Dianna’s triumphant, long walk back from that dark day in November of 1985 hasn’t gone unnoticed by her peers.
       Sister Rose Marita O’Bryan, director of the Contemporary Woman Program at Brescia University says, “Sister Dianna is a light in the darkness of our world. She is a 21st-century face of our Ursuline founder, Saint Angela Merici. I carry her in my heart every day.”
       Her co-worker at TASSC, Sister Alice, says, “There is no doubt that Dianna as an Ursuline, has been, and is inspired by their founder Angela Merici.  Dianna often mentions Angela, as well as the Maple Mount community for the support that she receives from her sisters. She lives the spirit of the Ursulines every day. To me, Sister Dianna is an epitome of what we as religious need to be about in these times. I will be forever grateful to God that I have been privileged to know Dianna, to minister with her, and be inspired by her faith and the commitments she has made to create a more non-violent world."
      Sister Mary Matthias says, “TASSC, founded by Sister Dianna, speaks for itself, of how much she has regained of her own strength in order to work for and give to others who have been tortured.”
      What does the future hold for TASSC?
      “Our goal is to close all of our office doors,” Sister Dianna admits. “When we’re able to do that, that will also convey to us that the problem, the plague of torture has been dealt with ... but it’s not going to happen for a long time. So the future of TASSC will continue to exist until there’s a reason not to exist.”
       What about Sister Dianna’s future?
       “I hope that someday I will be able to go back to the classroom,” she says. “But I’m sure that my approach to teaching would be far different from that of my early days. I really believe that social justice would need to be incorporated into the curriculum. Something as basic as respecting each other, dealing with conflicts, violence on television, and violence in these video games and toy guns. Being aware of other people’s needs.”
        Is Sister Dianna happy as she completes the tenth year in her TASSC ministry and dreams of a future return to the classroom?
        “I’m happy to be alive today,” she says with very little hesitation. “But I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. Every day is a new day for me and every day I renew my commitment to life. But I do not know what tomorrow will bring.”

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