Oscar Romero

Salvadoran Roman Catholic archbishop

• Born: August 15, 1917
• Birthplace: Ciudad Barrios, El Salvador
• Died: March 24, 1980
• Place of death: San Salvador, El Salvador

During a period of extreme government oppression in El Salvador, Romero was chosen the Roman Catholic archbishop of San Salvador because he was a conservative, but he emerged as a strong advocate of the poor until martyred during Mass. His murder added fuel to an already volatile fire: a civil war in El Salvador that began just several months before his murder. His death also brought international condemnation of the human rights abuses in El Salvador.

Early Life

Oscar Romero (roh-MAY-roh) was born into a large family living in the mountain town of Ciudad Barrios in the east of El Salvador, not far from the border with Honduras. His mother, Guadalupe de Jesús, provided spiritual direction, and his father, Santos Romero, a telegrapher, taught him the skills of carpentry.

Romero’s small town offered only three grades in elementary school, so a family friend, Anita Iglesias, tutored him in academics beyond those grades. By the age of thirteen, Romero had demonstrated keen academic skills and was sent to study with the Claretian Fathers in San Miguel and later to a seminary in San Salvador. As a promising scholar, he studied in Rome and received a degree in theology from Pontifical Gregorian University before ordination in 1942.

When Romero was just fifteen years old, events in El Salvador began to unfold, shaping his later life. In 1932, Farabundo Martí, a socialist, led an insurrection against the government and powerful landowners. The rebellion was quickly put down, but with a heavy loss of life: thirty thousand people. From that point El Salvador was controlled by fourteen wealthy Salvadoran families with the backing of the military, while the poor struggled to maintain a living under difficult conditions. After witnessing the profound problems in his own country, and after also experiencing the ravages of World War II while in Europe, Romero sought out a simple, peaceful life in the priesthood. However, he always found himself surrounded by conflict.

Life’s Work

Romero, who was a conflict-aversive, quiet, and highly spiritual leader, returned to El Salvador from Rome to serve in numerous positions: parish priest in Anamorós, director of the San Miguel Seminary, secretary-general of the Episcopal conference of El Salvador, and one of many in a line of auxiliary bishops to Archbishop Luis Chávez during his thirty-eight-year bishopric of San Salvador. The three years that Romero would serve as archbishop of San Salvador (1977-1980) overshadow the rest of his career. When Archbishop Chávez retired in 1977, the country was in crisis.

In 1975, a government land reform act under Colonel Arturo Molina distributed 150,000 acres to twelve thousand peasant families. The landowning class did everything to delay and hinder this action, including a publicity campaign in newspapers and on television and radio. Peasants organized as unions that were labeled communist by the media. However, the Church offered support, as many rural priests related the Gospel in the form of liberation theology.

On February 20, 1977, presidential elections turned into a sort of referendum for opposing parties. Arnesto Claremount, a retired military officer sympathetic to peasant concerns, was opposed by General Carlos Humberto Romero (no relation to the archbishop), former minister of defense and public security and ally of the landowning business class. Elections were marked by numerous irregularities and violence, and General Romero was declared the winner by a 2-1 margin.

Two days later, Oscar Romero was named archbishop of San Salvador, but not without controversy. The Church’s popular candidate for the position had been Bishop Arturo Rivera y Damas, whom the landowners discredited as a communist. Church leaders instead recommended Romero for the position because he appeared easily controllable. For the peasants it was a major disappointment because they had lost the presidential elections and now seemingly had lost Church support. No one could have expected what transpired over the next months and the transformation that took place with Romero as archbishop. Instead of the elaborate and ostentatious services that had often marked such ecclesiastical installations, Romero requested a simple, private ceremony. No government figures were invited, and the poor of El Salvador took notice.

On February 28, thousands gathered in the Plaza Libertad in San Salvador to protest election irregularities and fraud. The military ended the protest with extreme force, killing many demonstrators. Priests were among those arrested and then tortured. Eight priests who had been out of the country at the time of the demonstration were not allowed to return. A new, more radical and aggressive organization known as the February 28 Popular League, or LP-28, emerged after Romero’s assassination.

On March 12, a close personal friend of Romero, Jesuit father Rutilio Grande, along with an elderly man and a teenage boy, were gunned down while walking to the village of El Paisnal, where Father Grande was scheduled to celebrate Mass. This event, more than any other, symbolized the government’s attack on the poor and brought solidarity to the Church and the masses. Romero often spoke of this tragedy as his “Damascus Road experience.” He personally claimed the bodies of the three slain individuals and gave them a proper burial. He then called upon the government to investigate the matter, though to no avail.

On May 11 the body of Mauricio Borgonovo, former Salvadoran minister of foreign affairs, was found. He had been kidnapped and then murdered. Thugs retaliated later that day by taking the life of Father Alfonso Navarro while he was resting in his parish house, a clear sign that the Church was being targeted. Armed gangs roamed the countryside, harassing peasants carrying a Bible or a photograph of Father Grande. The archbishop soon learned that army troops occupied the parish church at Aguilares, so he went there to remove the Eucharistic host, and in his presence troops shot up the church and profaned the Blessed Sacrament.

The peasants of El Salvador took note of the archbishop’s bravery in confronting the armed forces. All Salvadorans, especially the powerful landowners, took notice when he refused to attend the July 1 inauguration of the new president, General Romero. Those in power in El Salvador responded with more threats and violence. On November 25, the government enacted a so-called law of defense and guarantee of public order, which rescinded human rights laws, banned free speech, and legitimized indiscriminate imprisonment and torture.

Over the next two years, thousands of peasants were imprisoned and several hundred, including priests, were killed. Public demonstrations were met with machine gun fire. In the meantime, the economic situation of El Salvador deteriorated and the country came under the watchful eye of the Organization of American States. On May 8, 1979, international media recorded a demonstration in front of the Metropolitan Cathedral when the Salvadoran army opened fire, killing twenty-five persons and wounding hundreds of others.

During this period, the archbishop wrote a series of pastoral letters that were read by the priests to their congregations. Carefully worded, they spoke of the legitimacy of liberation theology and criticized government oppression. The archbishop’s sermons, broadcast throughout the country by radio, offered encouragement and support for the peasants and condemned all violence.

On October 15 a bloodless coup removed General Romero from the presidency. At first its leaders held out the possibility of reform and a return to democratic ideals. However, extreme elements took over and repression increased to higher levels. By January, 1980, the coup’s civilian leaders, unable to control security forces, submitted their resignation en masse. Larger demonstrations, including one of several hundred thousand people on January 22, brought further reprisals. In the first three months of 1980, nearly one thousand persons were killed by death squads.

Archbishop Romero remained at the center of the resistance movement. Dozens of people came to his residence every day seeking protection. Romero became their voice, speaking their messages to the government and to the international community. He addressed the National Council of Churches in were chosen and spoke before university audiences at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and the University of Louvain in Belgium, where he received honorary doctorates. On February 17 he used the occasion of his weekly homily to read a letter to U.S. president Jimmy Carter, appealing for an end to military aid and armament sales to oppressive regimes like that of El Salvador. Several weeks later, he appealed directly to the troops and national guardsmen in his broadcast homily, asking them to lay down their arms, obeying God rather than the orders of officers. The next day, March 24, an assassin shot and killed Romero as he stood at the altar to celebrate Mass.

Significance

Latin America has never known a more popular bishop than Romero. Several hundred thousand attended his funeral in the Barrios square outside the cathedral. He symbolized a life that was called to lead all people. Although in his earlier ministry he had walked in the circles of the powerful, the circumstances of his three years as archbishop drew him closer to the poor. He became known as the Voice for the Voiceless. Also significant is that his murder at the hands of revolutionaries led many to join the nascent civil war in El Salvador, which continued until the end of 1992. The civil war brought international attention to the human rights abuses in El Salvador, which led to social and political reform.

At a time when many North American theologians remained skeptical of liberation theology, Romero carefully articulated in his pastoral letters and homilies the theological basis for the preferential treatment of the poor and for a prophetic critique of those who abused power. In the decades following his death a worldwide movement has worked for Romero’s canonization.

Bibliography

Brockman, James R. Romero: A Life. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 2005. Revised from the 1989 first edition biographical companion to the film Romero, starring Raul Julia.

Dennis, Marie, Renny Golden, and Scott Wright. Oscar Romero: Reflections on His Life and Writings. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 2000. A series of essays written to promote Romero’s canonization by the Catholic Church.

Pelton, Robert, ed. Archbishop Romero: Martyr and Prophet for the New Millennium. Scranton, Pa.: University of Scranton Press, 2006. A brief collection of papers presented at a conference at the University of Notre Dame in 2005. Essays include “The Future of the Church in the Memory of Romero” and “Romero the Preacher.”

Romero, Oscar. The Violence of Love. Translated by James R. Brockman. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 2004. A collection of short excerpts of Romero’s writings and speeches.

Walsh, Michael J., trans. and ed. Archbishop Oscar Romero, Voice of the Voiceless. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1985. Includes Romero’s four pastoral letters, his most theologically developed treatises, and other public statements, including his final homily.