Remembering Oscar Romero

Today, March 24th, 2010, is the 30th anniversary of the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero. I thought to do a brief sketch of his life but in looking throughout the Internet for material, I quickly became overwhelmed. It seems there are endless numbers of websites, essays, biographical sketches, photographs, artistic depictions, etc.

That said, one of my younger co-workers had no idea who Romero was, and on top of that I see how figures ranging from Texas educational boards to U.S. politicians are attempting to rewrite history and ignore Romero's message and legacy.

So here, for those who are just getting started, are a few resources.

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2010/03/24/el-salvador-30th-anniversary-of-assassination-of-oscar-romero/

http://www.uscatholic.org/oscar_romero

As the Archbishop of San Salvador during El Salvador's brutal civil war, Romero became the "bishop of the poor" for his work defending the Salvadoran people. After calling for international intervention to protect those being killed by government forces, Romero was assassinated on March 24, 1980.

By the way, Garrison Keillor, to his credit, devoted a healthy portion of his Writer's Almanac radio spot to Romero this morning.

It's hard to believe it was thirty years ago.

I also recall that his actions on behalf of the poor didn't have the support of JPII and the Vatican.

This was at a time when the Vatican was beginning to take a hardline against Liberation Theology, of which the
anti-government movement in El Salvador was a part. The Catholic Church, as it so often does, supported the
government. If my memory serves me right, the Vatican had a "no comment" attitude to his death at the time.

written by Jesuit Andrew Hamilton, who was there at the time. I always enjoy reading Fr. Hamilton's thoughtful and
insightful articles.

It confirms my memory that the Archbishop and other younger clergy were at odds with the Catholic hierarchy at
the time over the stand they were taking on behalf of the poor.

"Seeing that the political order was based on the violation of human dignity of the many for the profit of the few, Romero built his ministry as Archbishop on the assertion of the human dignity of each human being, beginning with the least resourceful. The Church had to proclaim God's love for each human being, and so to call the systematic abuse of human dignity for what it was. This inevitably led him to be joined with other simple Christians in being murdered for their faith.

In this divided society some Catholics described Romero as leftist, communist, liberationist and atheist, and projected onto him their own view of a church at war with itself. It was a pity that this view fell on well-prepared ground outside El Salvador."

http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=20161

"Eureka Street" is an Australian Jesuit paper that deals with religion, politics, and the issues of the day.

Namely raygun and the bfee through their Salvadorean proxies...

...Romero was assassinated in 1980, before Reagan took office.



While I'm back here updating, here's a pertinent blog entry I came across:

http://latamreflections.blogspot.com/2010/02/san-oscar-romero-patron-saint-of.html


And it's off-topic to a degree, but still pertinent to the time period: an article about the murder of another churchman in Central America, Father Stanley Rother. I only recently learned his name, and certainly didn't read about the case back in the '80s.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,949376,00.html

But thinking like the bfee, they act first to prevent any problems from getting in the way of their future plans.

And had Romero lived, he would have been a big thorn in the side of the bfee.

Alvaro Saravia, a former military captain, is talking again about the assassination of Archbishop Romero and who ordered it. Whether you are familiar with the timeline and events or not, the article is worth checking out.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/05/AR2010040503234.html

From a mountain hideout, Saravia named Roberto D'Aubuisson, the deceased founder of the conservative Arena political party, as the person who gave the order to kill Romero.

(SNIP)

The revelations have reopened this still-painful wound at a time of renewed calls for prosecutions of those accused of political violence, which were shelved by a 1993 amnesty law passed in El Salvador after the end of the war between the repressive U.S.-backed Salvadoran army and leftist guerrillas of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN).

The FMLN is now the ruling party, and its first president, Mauricio Funes, apologized for the Romero assassination on its March 24 anniversary, "in the name of the state," saying the right-wing death squads "unfortunately acted with the protection, collaboration or participation of state agents."

(SNIP)

"This is an excellent story that leaves no doubts," said Marissa D'Aubuisson, a founder of the Romero Foundation. She is a sister of the late right-wing activist, but she ardently opposed his views.