Mags GarganOscar Romero’s early life suggested an unlikely hero for justice and human rights, writes Mags Gargan
Images of Archbishop Oscar Romero can be found everywhere in El Salvador; from hotel room keys, to calendars on the walls of cafes and murals on the sides of houses. Despite 35 years passing since his death, these images declare ´Monseñor Vive´ (The Monsignor lives), and he remains the most celebrated hero of the average salvadoreño, following his martyrdom for speaking out against the injustices committed by successive authoritarian governments.
Yet this great ‘voice of the voiceless’, was originally elevated to archbishop precisely because he was considered quiet and non-controversial, a ‘safe option’ who would rein in the priests advocating social action on behalf of the poor and marginalised. However, this was to change when he was confronted with the human rights abuses being committed around him.
Oscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez was born in Ciudad Barrios, El Salvador, on August 15, 1917 to a large family. His family home did not have electricity or running water, and when he turned 13 his parents could no longer afford to send him to school, so his father organised an apprenticeship with a carpenter. However, the young Romero felt a strong vocation for the priesthood and left home the following year to enter the seminary. He studied in El Salvador and in Rome, and was ordained in 1942 at the age of 25.
Ministerial career
Fr Romero spent the first 25 years of his ministerial career as a parish priest and diocesan secretary in the Diocese of San Miguel. He recognised the power of radio to reach out to large audiences and convinced five radio stations to broadcast his Sunday sermons. He became famous for his preaching. He lived a simple lifestyle and was known to be attentive to the poor, visiting prisons, organising catechism classes, starting an Alcoholics Anonymous group and working with local charities. In 1966, he was chosen to be secretary of the Bishops Conference for El Salvador and became editor of the archdiocesan newspaper Orientación, which became fairly conservative under his stewardship.
“He was a hardworking, highly intelligent and holy little man,” says Fr Crispin Keating, one of a group of Irish Franciscans who worked in the Diocese of San Miguel.
“The first time I saw Msgr Romero was at a reception for a new bishop. I saw this little man, and he was standing in the middle of a garden on his own in a long, black cassock and I thought that’s a very lonely man.
“I think he was a frightfully shy man; an intelligent hard worker, who was totally transformed by the Spirit,” he says.
“He was a very quiet person and sort of timid as well,” agrees Fr Alfred Loughran, another Franciscan who was based in the diocese. “He was a great preacher always. People loved him to come to their fiestas. They liked him for his preaching, that old traditional preaching. He was a very good speaker.”
Fr Alfred says that Fr Romero was quite well known in San Miguel for “looking after the poor children on the street”. “He was traditional, but very close to the poor. He came from a poor background himself and was very conscious of the poverty in the country.”
In 1967, Romero was made a monsignor and moved to San Salvador. There he met Jesuit priest Fr Rutilio Grande, who became a very good friend.
In 1970 he became auxiliary bishop of San Salvador. At this time, Romero had a reputation as a conservative, uncomfortable with social action or challenging political leaders, and sceptical of both the Vatican II reforms and the call for social advocacy by the Conference of the Latin American Bishops in Medellín, Colombia in 1968.
In 1974 the Vatican named him to the Diocese of Santiago de María, a poor, rural region which included his boyhood hometown. A month later the army killed three people in the village of Tres Calles. The new bishop met the grieved families and was driven by their anguish to write to President Arturo Armando Molina to protest about the murders.
Bishop Romero also began using the resources of the diocese and his own personal resources to help the poor. It was this first-hand experience of the suffering of the landless poor and the increasing human rights abuses by the military, which began to change him into an outspoken critic of social and economic injustice.
Romero returned to the capital when he was appointed Archbishop of San Salvador on February 3, 1977 to replace the aging Archbishop Chavez. Later that month the results of the national elections led to a protest in the city’s Plaza Libertad, where 23 civilians were killed when troops opened fire on a large crowd calling for a recount.
On March 12, Fr Rutilio Grande and two people he was travelling with were shot and killed by machine-gun fire on the way to Mass. Fr Grande had been a strong advocate for land reform, worker unions and organising local communities.
“Romero went that night to where they were waking the bodies. It was a strong conversion experience for Romero, who spent a long time contemplating the body,” says Fr Gerry Moore, another Franciscan in El Salvador.
Romero later said: “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’.”
Archbishop Romero cancelled all Masses the following Sunday except for one in front of the cathedral for 100,000 people. He also refused to attend any official government events, including the President’s inauguration, until the murder was solved.
Support
“The Mass was a massive showing of support for Romero and disapproval of the killing of Rutilio Grande. This was the moment when Romero came out. It opened a new page,” says Fr Gerry. “We had been nervous of Romero being named because of his very conservative background, but now we were going through a period of rethinking.
“From that period on he opened his heart and the doors of the archdiocese for all those who came to him with their problems – huge problems that were part of the situation in El Salvador at the time.”
The International Commission of Jurists estimated that in 1978 about 60% of the land in El Salvador was owned by a 2% ruling class. In 1979 the country had the lowest per capita income of any nation in the western hemisphere bar Haiti and the highest rate of unemployment in the Americas. According to Amnesty International, 30,000 politically motivated killings occurred between October 1979 and December 1981 in what was basically a struggle between rich and poor.
Archbishop Romero continued to use the radio broadcast of his Sunday sermons on the archdiocese radio station YSAX to tell people what was happening throughout the country. He also broadcast an information bulletin outlining the week’s previous events and documented cases of killing, disappearance or torture.
When a coup overthrew the Salvadoran government on October 15, 1979, Archbishop Romero expressed cautious support for the reformist junta which replaced it. He soon became disenchanted, however, as the persecution of the poor and the Church continued.
He tried to raise awareness about the violence globally and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. The Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium gave him an honorary doctorate degree in 1980 and while in Europe, Archbishop Romero met with Pope John Paul II and gave him a detailed report of his concerns. He also wrote an open letter to US President Jimmy Carter asking for an end to military aid to El Salvador.
“By the first months of 1980, the stage was set for open guerrilla warfare. Romero had been trying for a peaceful solution and been calling on leaders for a more just society and a new project where everyone would be taken into account,” says Fr Gerry.
“During these years, priests, religious, and maybe 20 catechists in Gotera parish were killed. It was a huge problem. We had to help all those in danger and to get catechists under threat to safety, maybe out of the country. It became impossible with the spread of armed warfare.
“Romero was speaking more and more openly and condemning the politico-social situation.”
As the violence intensified, death threats against Archbishop Romero came daily. On March 23, 1980, after reporting the previous week’s deaths and disappearances, Archbishop Romero spoke directly to soldiers and policemen saying: “I beg you, I implore you, I order you… in the name of God, stop the repression!”
The following evening, while saying Mass in the chapel of Divine Providence Hospital, Archbishop Romero was shot dead by a suspected right-wing death squad.
“His assassination was a shock in that no one thought the army would go so far, but it was expected by many as the army and police has never shown any hesitation in killing priests, nuns and catechists before,” says Fr Pat Hudson OFM.
Romero’s death further polarised Salvadoran society and represented a point at which human rights violations reached their peak. It was followed by the break out of full scale civil war between the Government and guerrilla forces.
Hundreds of thousands of people attended Oscar Romero’s funeral at the Metropolitan cathedral of San Salvador. A bomb exploded in the cathedral square and gun fire came from surrounding buildings. Many people were shot or killed in the stampede running away from the explosions and gunfire.
“They ran over the fences and that’s when all the people were killed,” says Fr Alfred, who was there with the other Franciscan friars. “We were locked into the cathedral. Eventually the body was buried in a quick ceremony. Then we had to leave with our hands up and the army was outside. It was scary.”
Oscar Romero remains a symbol of hope in a country that has suffered terrible poverty, injustice and violence. Earlier this year Pope Francis declared him a martyr, meaning someone who died as a witness to the Faith, which cleared the way for his beatification this weekend. While his beatification is being welcomed with joy in El Salvador, Archbishop Romero is already considered a saint not just in his home country, but across Latin America.
“Archbishop Romero is looked on as a prophet, a very valiant bishop and the good shepherd who gave his life for his sheep,” says Fr Alfred.
“He was looked upon as a hero, a man who defended the poor and put his life at stake for the poor,” agrees Fr Gerry.
“He showed that there are people who are willing to face death, just like Jesus, in order to serve the Lord in people,” says Fr Pat.
In his own words…
What good are beautiful highways and airports, beautiful buildings full of spacious apartments, if they are only put together with the blood of the poor, who are not going to enjoy them? – July 16, 1977
Peace is not the product of terror or fear. Peace is not the silences of cemeteries. Peace is not the silent result of violent repression. Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of all to the good of all. Peace is dynamism. Peace is generosity. It is right and it is duty. – January 7, 1978
Many would like the poor to keep on saying that it is God’s will for them to live that way. But it is not God’s will for some to have everything and others to have nothing. That cannot be of God. God’s will is that all his children be happy. –- September 10, 1978
The great need today is for Christians who are active and critical, who don’t accept situations without analysing them inwardly and deeply. We no longer want masses of people like those who have been trifled with for so long. We want persons like fruitful fig trees, who can say yes to justice and life, regardless of the circumstances. – March 9, 1980
Those who surrender to the service of the poor through the love of Christ, will live like the grains of wheat that dies. It only apparently dies. If it were not to die, it would remain a solitary grain. The harvest comes because of the grain that dies. – March 24, 1980, moments before he was killed