Oscar Romero 25 years after

On 24 March 1980 Oscar Romero, Archbishop of El Salvador in Central America, was celebrating Mass. At the most solemn part of the liturgy he pronounced the words of consecration: "On the night he was betrayed, Jesus took bread, gave thanks, broke the bread and gave it to his disciples saying, ‘Take this and eat, This is my Body which will be given up for you.’" He then lifted up the host for the people to see, and at that moment the assassin, a government soldier, fired his gun. Oscar Romero’s blood (so to speak) mingled on the altar with the newly consecrated host, the Body of Christ.

That was 25 years ago. Today his memory is still fresh, despite efforts of influential people to try to erase his memory.

Oscar Romero began his ministry by being a rich man’s archbishop. Government officials were his friends. Wealthy patrons supported his projects. Like them he condemned the Jesuits as irresponsible, and removed them from the administration of the Seminary. He did not wish the young students for the priesthood to be contaminated by Jesuit influence.

The reason he did not like the Jesuits was because they were denouncing the government, and particularly the army, as guilty of injustice to the poor peasants. Many peasants were being killed. The Jesuits claimed they had been murdered by the army. Oscar Romero refused to believe that.

Then one day Father Rutilio Grande, one of the Jesuits who had been actively working among the poor, was murdered, together with two peasants who were walking with the priest along a country road. Father Rutilio Grande had been popular among the poor, and many of them now flocked to the barrio church where his body and those of his companions were being waked.

In the middle of the night Archbishop Oscar Romero came to that barrio church and sat with the peasants until morning. He then celebrated Mass for the dead priest and his companions.

From that time on, he was a changed man. Rutilio Grande’s murder by soldiers finally convinced him that the poor were being oppressed. From then on, he was delivering sermons that fearlessly denounced the injustice being done to the poor. The Holy Spirit, he said, was speaking to us through the people. It was necessary to listen to the Spirit by listening to the people. Total identification with the people was now his aim.

The fight, he said, was not between the Church and the government, but between the government and the people. The Church was with the people.

He made a promise to work for and with the people, despite the risks that this kind of ministry entailed. He asked for prayers that he would never abandon that promise.

He not only denounced. He preached faith and hope. Faith and hope in God who was for the poor.

This meant of course that he lost all his rich and powerful friends. More than that, he was getting death threats. His reply was, "May my death bring about the liberation of the people."

Archbishop Romero now incurred the displeasure of high ecclesiastical authorities. They told him a bishop must never offend anybody but be conciliatory, like Jesus Christ. As one writer remarked, "If Jesus never offended anybody and was conciliatory, why was he put to death?"

As things look Oscar Romero will probably never be beatified or canonized. But it really does not matter. God gave him the grace to die a martyr. That is the highest honor.

If Catholic authorities are reluctant to honor Oscar Romero, the Anglicans of England have given him the highest honors. His statue now is prominently displayed in a niche on the facade of the famous Westminster Abbey.

And Pope John Paul II himself, on a visit to El Salvador, visited Oscar Romero’s tomb and knelt down to pray.