Wednesday World Changers: Oscar Romero

A desire to care for humanity drives so many people. Some come from a religious background such as Óscar Romero. His life is an example for so many. Romero  was the fourth Archbishop of San Salvador in El Salvador from 23 February 1977 until his assassination on 24 March 1980. Three years.


The funeral mass held on 30 March 1980, in the San Salvador Cathedral was attended by over a quarter of a million mourners - has to be one of the biggest funerals in history. The funeral was never finished interrupted by smoke bombs and gunshots which killed between 30 and 50 people. 

1980 saw the start of the civil war in El Salvador, a tiny country in Central America. This war which lasted until 1992 saw the deaths of between  8 000 and 16 000 civilians  every year of the war. In 1981, an entire village  (El Mozote) was massacred. Rape,murder, bombings, intimidation of the clergy, teachers, lecturers, church lay workers, political activists, journalists, labor unionists (leaders, rank-and-file), medical workers, students, human-rights monitors and politicians. It was a nasty, nasty war.
  

In 1990 I saw a film about Romero which impacted me profoundly. Touched by the magnitude of what was happening in El Salvador I went there in 1991 (twenty years ago). I was in El Salvador when the peace agreement was signed in Mexico in 1992 and danced in the streets with thousands of people ending the horrific conflict. That country changed my life. 


Romero too was changed by what he saw. Installed as a "safe, conservative" archbishop, Romero’s first task as archbishop was to bury dozens of people machine-gunned by the army for protesting against doctored election results.


He soon spoke out regularly against the poverty and injustice of his country: We must not seek the child Jesus in the pretty figures of our Christmas cribs. We must seek him among the undernourished children who have gone to bed at night with nothing to eat, among the poor newsboys who will sleep covered with newspapers in doorways. (December 1979)  


In his last sunday sermon he said: "In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cry rises to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you: stop the repression" (March 23, 1980,


Romero was chosen in 2008 as one of the 15 Champions of World Democracy by the Europe-based magazine. 



On 24 March 2010—the thirtieth anniversary of Romero's death—Salvadoran president Mauricio Funes offered an official apology on behalf of El Salvador for Romero's death.


In December 2010, the United Nations made 24 March:  International Day for the Right to the Truth concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims.


Why am I blogging about this today? In recent weeks, the mystery of who shot Romero has finally been revealed: Samayor Marino Acosta, Deputy Sergeant from the former National Guard. This ends one chapter in the story of Romero but not the book. After all, 30 years after he died, people ate stil quoting from his sermons -in the world and nopt just in then church. of how many other priests can we say this si true?


Romero said: I must tell you, as a Christian, I do not believe in death without resurrection. If I am killed, I shall arise in the Salvadoran people.’