Oscar Romero – Man of the People
Today, I want to commemorate a simple man. A man with a plan. His plan? To give a voice to the poor and oppressed Salvadorians. The man? Archbishop Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez of San Salvador, was assassinated for it on March 24, 1980. Thirty years to the day.
When he was originally appointed an auxiliary bishop in 1970, this move was looked upon with suspicion by progressives in El Salvador. Five years later he was made Bishop of Santiago de María. In 1977 – to the surprise of many, including his own, Pope Paul VI appointed Romero the new Archbishop of San Salvador. It is in this capacity he would receive world wide recognition. At the start it was the government who was pleased with the appointment of Romero as they saw him as a man not to ruffle their feathers. The more liberal, even Marxist leaning clergy looked upon his appointment with apprehension...
"We are never embarrassed of saying, 'The Church of the Poor'."
– Romero, Christmas Eve 1978 Sermon
But then a "funny" thing happened... Less than a month after his consecration, a personal friend of the archbishop, the Jesuit Rutilio Grande, was assassinated by a death squad for creating self-reliance groups among the poor peasant campesinos. This murder shook Romero dreadfully.
As if released from lethargy, in response to this murder, Romero became more radical. He began to speak out against the diseases plaguing El Salvador: poverty, social injustice, assassinations and torture.
"If God accepts the sacrifice of my life, may my death be for the freedom of my people ... A bishop will die, but the Church of God, which is the people, will never perish."
Interview, a couple of weeks before his assassination.
When in 1979 the Revolutionary Government Junta took power amidst a wave of human rights abuses by paramilitary right-wing groups – the death squads - and the government. The Archbishop criticized the United States government for giving military aid to the regime. Romero even wrote Jimmy Carter the month before he died with a warning that US military aid would "undoubtedly sharpen the injustice and the repression inflicted on the organized people, whose struggle has often been for their most basic human rights". Carter ignored the plea.
On March 23, 1980 Romero issued a direct undermining challenge to the repressive regime: he called upon all Salvadoran soldiers in his sermon:
"as Christians, to obey God's higher order and to stop carrying out the government's repression and violations of basic human rights."
ASSASSINATION AND AFTERMATH
"May this Body immolated and this Blood sacrificed for Mankind nourish us also, that we may give our body and our blood over to suffering and pain, like Christ -- not for Self, but to give harvests of peace and justice to our People."
(Uttered seconds before a gunshot pierced his heart as he prepared to consecrate the Eucharist.)
March 24 started as an ordinary day for the Archbishop. But this would soon change. While celebrating mass at a small chapel located in a hospital called "La Divina Providencia", he was shot while elevating the chalice at the end of the Eucharistic rite, his blood spilling over the altar. It is believed major Roberto D’Aubuisson, an organizer of death squads, was behind the murder.
"May God have mercy on the assassins." (Last words.)
But worse was yet to come... On March 30, 1980 the slain archbishop was to be buried in a tomb in the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Holy Savior in San Salvador. His funeral was attended by more than 250,000 mourners. But violence was to accompany the archbishop literally to his grave. During the ceremony, suddenly a smoke bomb exploded on the Plaza Gerardo Barrios before the cathedral and rifle fire erupted from surrounding buildings, including the National Palace, targeting the mourners. Between 30 and 50 people were killed by this attack.
After Romero’s murder, El Salvador would be further wrecked by civil war for the next twelve years until the Chapultepec Peace Accords of 1992.
From the Carter Administration to the Bush 41 administration, the U.S.A. sent seven billion dollars of foreign and military aid to El Salvador. President Reagan favoured the Salvadoran military regime, and under the guise of combating communism increased military aid and sent more U.S. military advisors. Reagan even cynically kept certifying that the Salvadoran government was progressing in respecting and guaranteeing the human rights of its people.
Human Rights Watch reported about this:
"During the Reagan years, in particular, not only did the United States fail to press for improvements . . . but, in an effort to maintain backing for U.S. policy, it misrepresented the record of the Salvadoran government, and smeared critics who challenged that record. In so doing, the Administration needlessly polarized the debate in the United States, and did a grave injustice to the thousands of civilian victims of Government terror in El Salvador."
ASSESSMENT
Weeks before he was murdered, Romero said, "If they kill me, I shall arise in the Salvadoran people." That he did. In as much that - although not officially sainted by the Catholic Church - the people have made him pretty much the patron saint of El Salvador.
But how has the official Catholic Church looked upon Romero? At first with some disdain. After all, liberation theology - the Christian movement which understands the teachings of Christ in terms of a liberation from unjust political, economic, or social conditions – is officially frowned upon by the Catholic Church hierarchy. More so when the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (in effect, the old inquisition), headed by cardinal Jozef Ratzinger issued official condemnations of certain elements of Liberation Theology in 1984 and 1986. During the following years, as prefect Ratzinger continued to condemn and prohibit dissident priests from teaching such doctrines, even going as far as to excommunicate several of them. Even today, theological formation schools are forbidden from using the Catholic Church's organization and grounds to teach Liberation Theology.
The last couple of years, things have changed a bit though as in 1997 a cause for beatification and canonization into sainthood was opened for the late Archbishop, although as far as I know no progress has been made. The late Pope John Paul II also bestowed upon him the title of Servant of God. Receiving the title Servant of God is the first of the four steps in the canonization process. The next steps are being declared Venerable, upon a decree of heroicity or martyrdom, then beatification, with the title of Blessed, after the confirmation of a miracle attributed to the candidate. The final step is canonization after the confirmation of another miracle upon which one would receive the title of Saint X.
But with Ratzinger’s elevation to supreme pontiff, things look more clouded for a beatification to happen in the near future. There is no reason to think Benedict XVI’s ideas differ much from cardinal Ratzinger’s.
Archbishop Romero is also one of ten 20th century martyrs who are depicted in statues above the Great West Door of Westminster Abbey in London (the others are St. Maximilian Kolbe, Manche Masemola, Janani Luwum, Grand Duchess St. Elizabeth of Russia, Martin Luther King, Jr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Esther John, Lucian Tapiedi and Wang Zhiming).
I therefore dare to postulate that Romero is the beau ideal of what Christ had in mind with his teachings. Selflessly fighting to improve the lives of the poor and the underprivileged, not for the rich and powerful. In that aspect, Romero comes closer to Christ than the pampered princes of the – currently scandal ridden – Catholic Church currently residing in Rome and other places do... after all wasn’t Christ not kind off a socialist avant la lettre?
I also regret the unsavory role the U.S.A. has played in Central- and South-America during the last couple of decades...