God is glorious in his saints!
Welcome to the Christian Saints Podcast. My name is Darren Ong, recording from Sepang in Malaysia. In this podcast, we explore the lives of the Christian saints, from the Anglican, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions. Today, we will commemorate Saint Oscar Romero, Arbchbishop and Martyr, a 20th century saint from El Salvador
Oscar Arnulfo Romero was born into a family of ten on 15 August 1917 in Ciudad Barrios, El Salvador. His father was in charge of the local telegraph office. He decided at a young age that he wanted to be a priest, so at 14 he set off for a junior seminary. When his mother became ill, he had to leave the seminary for three months to work in a gold mine, to help pay for her expenses. Nevertheless, his education was a successful one, and he had a chance to further his studies in Rome. He was ordained a priest, and eventually returned to El Salvador to serve. After many years of service as a parish priest, he was appointed a bishop in 1970.
This was a time of conflict and social upheaval in El Salvador. Their society was very unequal – a few wealthy families controlled most of the land, whereas the campesinos, the tenant farmers lived in terrible poverty. The military was also very powerful, and their interests aligned with the Salvodorean landowner elites. A presidential election in 1972 was very contentious, marred by massive electoral fraud that favoured the military-backed candidate. Tensions would eventually erupt into a civil war in 1979.
In 1977, Saint Oscar Romero becameArchbishop of San Salvador. His appointment was supported by the military government and the landowner elites, and was a disappointment to the many priests in El Salvador who were standing up against the oppression of the ordinary El Salvadoreans. At that time, Saint Oscar Romero had the reputation of being a conservative, someone who would not rock the boat, and keep the church out of politics and on friendly terms with the government and the wealthy landowners.
However, just three weeks fter becoming archbishop, a great tragedy struck. Saint Oscar Romero’s friend, the Jesuit priest Rutilio Grande was murdered by the government’s security forces.
the assassination , three weeks after Romero had taken over as Archbishop, of Rutilio Grande, a young Salvadoran Jesuit, together with an old man and a 15 year old boy as they were on their way to celebrate Mass, had a profound and lasting effect on him. Romero and Rutilio had come to know each other 10 years before when both were living in the diocesan seminary.
As soon as he heard of the assassination, Romero left the city and went to the church where they had laid out the three bodies. There, he celebrated Mass with the Jesuit Provincial, César Jerez, and then, with peasants, he spent part of the night in prayer and part seeking advice on what should be done. As he recounted afterwards, that night he read the Gospel anew through the eyes of the poor and oppressed. He began to understand what Jesus has to say, and therefore what he as Archbishop should also be saying, to the persecuted and the underprivileged.
When morning came, he summoned his priests and advisers and decided to boycott all state occasions and meetings with the president until an investigation into Rutilio’s death was carried out. It never was, and Romero, all the time he was Archbishop, never attended any state occasion.
This tragedy had a profound impact on Saint Oscar Romero’s outlook, and for his understanding of the church’s role in El Salvador. He would say later that “When I looked at Rutilio lying there dead I thought, 'If they have killed him for doing what he did, then I too have to walk the same path.'"
On the website of the Kellog institue of international studies probes further on the murder of Rutilio Grande, in the context of the daily injustices happening in El Salvador at that time – the injustices that pro-government supporters of Oscar Romero’s ascension to Archbishop had hoped he would ignore.
Although Fr. Grande’s murder had enormous impact on Romero, he realized that it was not an isolated incident. Literally tens of thousands of men, women, and children were murdered by military and para-military death squads under the guise of “anti-communism,” “law and order,” and “maintenance of traditional values.” On one day alone—January 22, 1979—paramilitary snipers killed 21 people and wounded 120 more while they were staging a peaceful protest march through downtown San Salvador. In rural areas, campesinos were murdered on a daily basis and their bodies were left to rot on road sides, as warnings to others who might “forget their place.” The death squads, commanded by Major Roberto D’ Aubuisson, a Salvadoran army officer who founded the right-wing ARENA political party, and self-proclaimed “fuhrer of San Salvador”— routinely murdered, tortured, raped, and looted with absolute impunity. The police and the courts existed primarily to exonerate the guilty and to punish those victims who dared to speak about the mistreatment they had suffered.
Beyond the overt violence, Oscar Romero saw institutionalized social and economic injustice on a pervasive scale. Two percent of the population controlled 57 percent of the nation’s usable land, and the 16 richest families owned the same amount of land utilized by 230,000 of the poorer families. The use of the comparative, rather than the superlative, is intentional since the poorest families had no land whatever, and were forced to sleep in ditches and muddy fields. Hungry farm workers were beaten or shot for eating a piece of the very produce they had grown. Mines and factories operated under the theory that it was cheaper to replace a dead or crippled worker than to repair defective equipment. Sixty percent of all babies died at birth, and 75 percent of the survivors suffered severe malnutrition. Hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children died from diseases that could have been cured by basic medications.
Throughout Saint Oscar Romero’s term as Archbishop, he was a fierce critic of the government’s cruelty and violence, and a steadfast advocate of their victims. The archbishop offered his home as a sanctuary to those fleeing the government’s repression. Saint Oscar Romero’s sermons were carried by radio, along with accounts of people who were murdered or disappeared, revealing to all El Salvador the truth of the government’s cruelty.
In his writings Saint Oscar Romero discussed at length how the church had to advocate for the poor, to prioritise the poor the way that Jesus did. Here is a section from one of his letters:
This is what the first Christians understood and lived out, those who “remained faithful to the teaching of the apostles, to the brotherhood, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers…. The faithful all lived together and owned everything in common;they sold their goods and possessions and shared out the proceeds among themselves according to what each one needed” (Acts 2:42, 44). Down through its history the church has carried out, with greater or lesser fidelity, that ideal of those first Christians in its following of Jesus. There have been times when the Church has more clearly been the Body of Christ. There have been times when it was not so clear—indeed, when it has been disfigured because it has accommodated itself to the world, seeking rather to be served by the world than itself to serve the world. But at other times its sincere wish has been to serve the world. On those occasions it has experienced rejection by the sinful world, just as its Founder did, even to the extent of persecution. That was the fate of the first Christians, of Peter and John before the courts, of Stephen the deacon, of Paul. that the kingdom of God is at hand, especially for the great majority who, in worldly terms, have been estranged from it—the poor, the low-income classes, the marginalized. This does not mean that the church should neglect the other classes in society. It wants to serve them also, to enlighten them. It also needs their help in building up the kingdom. But the church should share Jesus’ preference for those who have been used for others’ interests and have not been in control of their own destinies. The Church Denounces Sin and Calls to Conversion The church, like Jesus, has to go on denouncing sin in our own day. It has to denounce the selfishness that is hidden in everyone's heart, the sin that dehumanizes persons, destroys families, and turns money, possessions, profit, and power into the ultimate ends for which persons strive. And, like anyone who has the smallest degree of foresight, the slightest capacity for analysis, the church has also to denounce what has rightly been called “structural sin”: those social, economic, cultural, and political structures that effectively drive the majority of our people onto the margins of society. When the church hears the cry of the oppressed it cannot but denounce the social structures that give rise to and perpetuate the misery from which the cry arises. But also like Christ, this denunciation by the church is not inspired by hatred or resentment. It looks to the conversion of heart of all men and women and to their salvation.
Saint Oscar Romero’s courage came at a cost. Pro-government forces intensified their persecution against the church. Up to the point that Priests were exiled and murdered. One right-wing group threatened that the Jesuits, the Roman Catholic order to which the murdered Father Grande belonged, would be subject to systematic extermination if they did not leave the country.
Saint Oscar Romero also called out the United States for providing support for El Salvador’s government, in a famous letter to U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who often portrayed himself as a devout Christian. I read here an excerpt:
Dear Mr. President:
In the last few days, news has appeared in the national press that worries me
greatly. According to the reports, your government is studying the possibility of
economic and military support and assistance to the present government junta.
Because you are a Christian and because you have shown that you want to
defend human rights, I venture to set forth for you my pastoral point of view in
regard to this news and to make a specific request of you.
I am very concerned by the news that the government of the United States is
planning to further El Salvador’s arms race by sending military equipment and
advisors to “train three Salvadoran battalions in logistics, communications, and
intelligence.” If this information from the papers is correct, instead of favoring
greater justice and peace in El Salvador, your government’s contribution will
undoubtedly sharpen the injustice and the repression inflicted on the organized
people, whose struggle has often been for respect for their most basic human
rights.
as a Salvadoran and archbishop of the archdiocese
of San Salvador, I have an obligation to see that faith and justice reign in my country,
I ask you, if you truly want to defend human rights:
•To forbid that military aid be given to the Salvadoran government;
•To guarantee that your government will not intervene directly or
indirectly, with military, economic, diplomatic, or other pressures, in
determining the destiny of the Salvadoran people;
***
Naturally, Saint Oscar Romero’s actions meant his life was constantly in danger. But he did not let these threats perturb him, instead looking toward his hope in Jesus Christ. In an interview to a Mexican journalist very shortly before his own assassinationn, Saint Oscar Romero gave these thoughts about risking death:
***
I have frequently been threatened with death. I must say that, as a Christian, I do not believe in death but in the resurrection. If they kill me, I will rise again in the people of El Salvador. I am not boasting; I say it with the greatest humility. As a pastor, I am bound by a divine command to give my life for those whom I love, and that includes all Salvadorans, even those who are going to kill me. If they manage to carry out their threats, I shall be offering my blood for the redemption and resurrection of El Salvador. Martyrdom is a grace from God that I do not believe I have earned. But if God accepts the will soon become a reality. May my death, if it is accepted by God, be for the liberation of my people, and as a witness of hope in what is to come. You can tell them, if they succeed in killing me, that I pardon them, and I bless those who may carry out the killing. But I wish that they could realize that they are wasting their time. A bishop will die, but the church of God—the people—will never die.
***
The last straw was a homily he delivered on March 23, 1980 urging the soldiers and police to ignore orders to murder their countrymen. This is the end of that homily:
22I would like to appeal in a special way to the army’s enlisted men, and in particular to the ranks of the National Guard and the police --- those in the barracks. Brothers: you are of part of our own people. You kill your own campesino brothers and sisters. Before an order to kill that a man may give, God’s law must prevail: Thou shalt not kill! No soldier is obliged to obey an order against the law of God. No one has to fulfill an immoral law. It is time to take back your consciences and to obey your consciences rather than the orders of sin. The Church, defender of the rights of God, of the law of God, of human dignity, of the person, cannot remain silent before such abominations. We want the government to understand seriously that reforms are worth nothing if they are stained with so much blood. In the name of God, and in the name of this suffering people, whose laments rise to heaven each day more tumultuous, I beg you, I beseech you, I order you in the name of God: Stop the repression! The Church preaches its liberation just as we have studied it today in the Holy Bible --- a liberation that includes above all, respect for the human person, the salvation of the people’s common good, and transcendence, which looks before all to God, and from God alone derives its hope and its force. Let us now proclaim our faith in this truth...…
The next day, Saint Oscar gave a mass at a hospital chapel. Appropriately, his final homily was about the saving power of a life lived in Christlike sacrifice:
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I ask all of you, dear brothers and sisters, to view these things that are happening in our historical moment with a spirit of hope, generosity, and sacrifice. And let us do what we can. We can all do something and be more understanding. This holy woman that we are remembering today perhaps could not do anything directly, but she encouraged those who were doing something, she understood their struggle, and she above all prayed. Even after death she speaks to us a message from eternity, telling us that our work is worthwhile. If we illuminate with Christian hope our intense longings for justice and peace and all that is good, then we can be sure that no one dies forever. If we have imbued our work with a sense of great faith, love of God, and hope for humanity, then all our endeavors will lead to the splendid crown that is the sure reward for the work of sowing truth, justice, love, and goodness on earth. Our work does not remain here; it is gathered and purified by the Spirit of God and returned to us as a reward. This holy Mass of thanksgiving, then, is just such an act of faith. By Christian faith we know that at this moment the host of wheat becomes the body of the Lord who offered himself for the redemption of the world, and that the wine in this chalice is transformed into the blood that was the price of salvation. May this body that was immolated and this flesh that was sacrificed for humankind also nourish us so that we can give our bodies and our blood to suffering and pain, as Christ did, not for our own sake but to bring justice and peace to our people. Let us therefore join closely together in faith and hope at this moment of prayer for Doña Sarita and ourselves…
***
Subsequent investigations indicated that the assassins were members of a death squad led by Major Roberto D'Aubuisson, a prominent right-wing leader. He died of cancer in 1992, never having been brought to justice for this and many other crimes.
Even in death, the El Salvador government would not leave Saint Oscar Romero alone. His funeral was attended by hundreds of thousdans, but descended into chaos as the government attacked the crowd with snipers and bombs.
Saint Oscar Romero was made a saint in the Roman Catholic Church in 2018. His feast day is on March 24, the day of his martyrdom. He is also celebrated in the Anglican church’s calendar, and a statue of him stands in Westminister Abbey.
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Christian saints podcast. Look for the Christian Saints podcast page on Facebook or Instagram, or look for us on Twitter at podcast_saints. All music in this episode was composed by my good friend, James John Marks of Generative sounds. Please check out his music at https://generativesoundsjjm.bandcamp.com/
To end this episode, let us quote from Oscar Romero: the Voice of the Downtrodden by Ignacio Martín-Baró – a short biography of the saint. The author one of the six members of the Jesuit faculty of the Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas who were assasinated by Salvadoran troops on the morning of November 1989.
In the midst of bombs, shooting, blood, and horror, the archbishop was hurriedly buried. He was interred in the cathedral, the cathedral where the people had listened to his words, the seat of his Christian leadership, and the place of refuge for a persecuted people. He was buried in the midst of the wounded and the dead, the shuddering walls of the cathedral protecting the defenseless from the bullets of the powerful. He was buried as he had lived, in the midst of a downtrodden people, whose cause he had made his own, and to whose aspirations he had given voice. The archbishop has died. The people of El Salvador, however, the Christian community, men and women throughout the world who love life, know that the archbishop still lives. His word of beings before the common Father, in all those who give their lives to bring about here on earth the kingdom of justice, love, and peace proclaimed by Jesus of Nazareth.
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