Saint Oscar Romero

Saint Oscar Romero

Long ago, Bishop Ken Untner (Saginaw, MI) wrote something that has been associated nearly as long with Archbishop (now Saint) Oscar Romero (El Salvador, San Salvador, martyr).

This is what we are about: We plant seeds that one day will grow.  We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.  We lay foundations that will need further development.  We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.  We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.  This enables us to do something and to do it very well.  It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for God’s grace to enter and do the rest.  We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.  We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not messiahs.  We are prophets of a future not our own.

Saint Archbishop Oscar Romero

Remembering St Oscar Romero

On 24 March 1980, in El Salvador, Archbishop Oscar Romero was murdered while celebrating Mass. Recognizing him as “a martyr for the faith,” Pope Francis canonized him in 2018.
Oscar Romero’s father wanted his son to become a carpenter. With good reason. As a child, young Oscar had a talent for fixing things that were broken.

A Letter Written & Signed by Archbishop Oscar Romero
& Translation

St. Oscar Romero: Letter Written & Signed

Oscar A Romero
Archbishop of
San Salvador, El Salvador, C. A.
(Seminario San Jose de la Montana)

                               San Salvador 18 de Noviembre/77. 

Dear Senor Rainey: 

First of all I want to congratulate you for the interest you take in collecting autographed photographs of representatives of the church in various countries.  It is a way of making history through photographs, which contributes to the history of the Church in our times.

            It is with great pleasure that I send you my autographed photograph for your collection.

            Also with this I send you a publication about some homilies (preaching) of mine, so that you know broadly my way of thinking.

                                                May the Lord grant you many blessings.

                                                Affectionately in Christ

                                                Oscar A. Romero, Archbishop

                                                 

Óscar Romero was born on August 15, 1917 to Santos Romero and Guadalupe de Jesús Galdámez in  El Salvador. On May 11, 1919, at the age of one, he was baptized.

Romero entered the local public school, which offered only grades one through three. When finished with public school, Romero was privately tutored by a teacher, Anita Iglesias, until the age of thirteen. During this time Romero’s father trained him in carpentry because he showed exceptional proficiency as an apprentice. His father wanted to offer his son the skill of a trade, because in El Salvador studies seldom led to employment,  However, Romero broached the idea of studying for the priesthood, which did not surprise those who knew him.

Romero entered the minor seminary in San Miguel at the age of thirteen. He left the seminary for three months to return home when his mother became ill after the birth of her eighth child.  During this time he worked with two of his brothers in a gold mine near Ciudad Barrios.

After graduation, he enrolled in the national seminary in San Salvador. He completed his studies at the Gregorian University in Rome, where he received a Licentiate in Theology cum laude in 1941, but had to wait a year to be ordained because he was younger than the required age. He was ordained in Rome on  April, 4, 1942. His family could not attend his ordination because of travel restrictions due to World War II. Romero remained in Italy to obtain a doctoral degree in Theology, specializing in ascetical theology and Christian perfection.

Before finishing in 1943 at the age of 26, he was summoned back home from Italy by his bishop. He traveled home with a good friend, Father Valladares, who was also doing doctoral work in Rome. On the route home, they made stops in Spain and Cuba, where they were detained by the Cuban police, likely for having come from Fascist Italy,  and were placed in a series of internment camps.

After several months in prison, Valladares became sick and Redemptorist priests helped to have the two transferred to a hospital. From the hospital they were released from Cuban custody and sailed on to Mexico, then traveled overland to El Salvador.

Romero was first assigned to serve as a parish priest in Anamorós, but then moved to San Miguel where he worked for over 20 years. He promoted various apostolic groups, started an Alcoholics Anonymous group, helped in the construction of San Miguel’s cathedral, and supported devotion to Our Lady of Peace. He was later appointed rector of the inter-diocesan seminary in San Salvador. Emotionally and physically exhausted by his work in San Miguel, Romero went on retreat in January 1966 where he visited a priest for confession and a psychiatrist. Physically, emotionally & spiritually he was exhausted.

In 1966, he was chosen to be Secretary of the Bishops Conference for El Salvador. He also became the director of the archdiocesan newspaper Orientación.

On April  25, 1970, Romero was appointed an auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of San Salvador and as the titular bishop of Tambeae. He was consecrated on  June 21, 1979. In 1974  he was appointed Bishop of the Diocese of Santiago de María, a poor, rural region.

 Romero became  Archbishop of San Salvador, February 1977.  While this appointment was welcomed by the government, many priests were disappointed, especially those openly supportive of Marxist ideology. The progressive priests feared that his conservative reputation would negatively affect liberation theology’s commitment to the poor.

The Murder of His Friend & His Complete Change of Heart

On 12 March 1977, Rutilio Grande, a Jesuit priest and personal friend of Romero who had been creating self-reliance groups among the poor, was assassinated. His death had a profound impact on Romero, who later stated: “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.”

Romero urged the government to investigate, but they ignored his request. Furthermore, the censored press remained silent.

 In response to Grande’s murder, Romero revealed an activism that had not been evident earlier, speaking out against poverty, social injustice, assassinations and torture.

Romero denounced the persecution of members of the Catholic Church who had worked on behalf of the poor:

In less than three years, more than fifty priests have been attacked, threatened, calumniated. Six are already martyrs–they were murdered. Some have been tortured and others expelled [from the country]. Nuns have also been persecuted. The archdiocesan radio station and educational institutions that are Catholic or of a Christian inspiration have been attacked, threatened, intimidated, even bombed. Several parish communities have been raided. If all this has happened to persons who are the most evident representatives of the Church, you can guess what has happened to ordinary Christians, to the campesinos, catechists, lay ministers, and to the ecclesial base communities. There have been threats, arrests, tortures, murders, numbering in the hundreds and thousands…. But it is important to note why [the Church] has been persecuted. Not any and every priest has been persecuted, not any and every institution has been attacked. That part of the church has been attacked and persecuted that put itself on the side of the people and went to the people’s defense. Here again we find the same key to understanding the persecution of the church: the poor.

— Óscar Romero, Speech at the Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium, 2 February 1980.

The Country, San Salvador

When Oscar Romero was appointed Archbishop of San Salvador in 1977, his country was broken. Many people in El Salvador were living in poverty, while an elite group manipulated all political and economic power. Death squads ensured things stayed that way.

That is when he became known as “The voice of those without voice.”

The Civil War

In 1980, social tensions erupted into a civil war which lasted twelve years and left over 75,000 people dead. Archbishop Romero set up pastoral programs to assist the victims of oppression. At the same time, he became even more outspoken, condemning human rights violations, and defending the preferential option for the poor.

The Appeal

Archbishop Romero appealed desperately to the Salvadoran military to stop killing their own people. “No soldier is obliged to obey an order that goes against the law of God”, he said. “I beseech you. I beg you. I command you! In the name of God: ‘Cease the repression!’”

It was his last radio broadcast.

The Assassination 

At 6.30 pm, on Monday  March 24, 1980, the Archbishop of San Salvador was celebrating Mass in the chapel of the Divine Providence hospital. A car pulled up outside, and a single gunman fired a single shot from the doorway straight into Oscar Romero’s heart. 

Moments earlier, the Archbishop had been speaking about how “Those who surrender to the service of the poor through love of Christ, will live like the grain of wheat that dies…”. 

The Canonization

Recognized as “a martyr for the faith”, he was beatified on 23 May 2015 in San Salvador. 

On 14 October 2018, in St Peter’s Square, Pope Francis proclaimed Oscar Arnulfo Romero a saint. For the occasion, the Pope chose to wear the same blood-stained belt that Romero was wearing at the altar when he died. 

“Aspire not to have more, but to be more.” – Saint Oscar Arnulfo Romero

  • Date June 5, 2022
  • Tags Saint Oscar Romero, Saints & Blesseds