ROMERO – Servant of Justice

ROMERO – Servant of Justice

            On 24 March 1980, Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador was gunned down by a Salvadorean military squad. The assassination took place in the chapel of the Divine Providence Hospital where he was celebrating the Eucharist, thus mingling his blood with the Blood of the Lamb. His funeral Mass, celebrated in the packed front square of San Salvador Cathedral, was horribly marred by the government troops opening fire on the grief-stricken mourners, dozens of whom were killed. Those were the years when the extreme right Arena party was in power. They could not stomach the social liberation spearheaded by Archbishop Romero whose message consistently echoed the Gospel’s call for justice.

“The world of the poor is the key to understanding our Christian faith, the action of the Church and the political dimension of that faith and action. Since the Church has opted for the poor and has opted for the truly oppressed and repressed, the Church lives in the world of the political sphere as well. The glory of God is the poor fully alive.”

His acceptance speech on receiving an honorary degree in Louvain highlighted how he learned “the beautiful but harsh truth that our Christian faith does not separate us from the world, but immerses us into it.” Faith and justice were for him related like gunpowder and flame!

The oppression of the poor by grasping landlords and, indeed, the government in power affected him deeply, thereby shaping his teaching and actions, so much so, that his pastoral practice became a reference point for church and community leaders worldwide, including Asian and African liberation theologies. His violent death bore out his love to the end and served as the ultimate witness to the coherence of faith and justice from the perspective of Jesus’ option for the poor; and even though poverty and rank injustice continue to stalk the world like a colossus, the social context in El Salvador and most countries has changed dramatically in the past 30 years.

Forthright champion of the oppressed, Romero was steeped in the Church’s social teachings, and at once in touch with the Scriptures and the lives of the poor. He met with advisors who help him prepare his homilies, though he often sat alone from 10 p.m. on Saturday until

4 a.m. on Sunday, bent over his sermons – the fresh fruits of his godly solitude. For him, too, preaching was hard work.

“The glory of God is the living, poor person.” A powerful slogan that got up the nose of the establishment! And Archbishop Romero knew it. That he didn’t hide the possibility (indeed, probability) of death by assassination was evident in those words of affirmative faith:

“My life has been threatened many times. If they kill me, I will rise again in the Salvadorean people. You may tell them, if they succeed in killing me, that I forgive and bless those who do it. A bishop will die, but the Church of God, which is the people, will go on.”

The end came just a few days later as he lifted the chalice at the Offertory of the Mass he was celebrating in the chapel of Providence.