St. Óscar Romero

St. Óscar Romero (born August 15, 1917, Ciudad Barrios, El Salvador—died March 24, 1980, San Salvador; beatified May 23, 2015; canonized October 14, 2018; feast day March 24) was a Salvadoran Roman Catholic archbishop who was a vocal critic of the violent activities of government armed forces, right-wing groups, and leftist guerrillas involved in El Salvador’s civil conflict. He was assassinated in 1980 while celebrating mass and was eventually declared a martyr and a saint. One of the most important figures in the Latin American church, he is venerated as a patron saint of the Americas, communicators, and persecuted Christians.

Background and elevation in the church

Romero was the son of a telegraph operator, Santos Romero, and his wife, Guadalupe de Jesús Galdámez. He initially apprenticed as a carpenter, but at age 14 he decided to become a priest and entered a seminary run by the Claretian order. He was ordained in 1942 and spent about two decades ministering to the community of San Miguel. In 1967 Romero moved to San Salvador, where he served as the secretary of the Salvadoran Bishops’ Conference. He was made auxiliary bishop of San Salvador in 1970, followed by his appointment in 1974 as bishop of the Diocese of Santiago de María, a rural area known for coffee-growing.

Becoming a voice for the voiceless

Shortly after Romero’s arrival in Santiago de María, several people were murdered by the National Guard in the village of Tres Calles. Shocked by the violence, the bishop comforted the victims’ families and wrote a letter of protest to Arturo Armando Molina, the president of El Salvador. However, about this time Romero also held views that were critical of priests whom he deemed to be overtly political, and he expressed the opinion that conflict resolution must be done with the help of the government.

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Although Romero had been considered a conservative before his appointment as archbishop in 1977, he denounced the regime of dictator Gen. Carlos Humberto Romero (no relation). The archbishop also refused to support the right-wing military-civilian junta that replaced the deposed dictator. Further, his increasingly outspoken defense of the poor—who were powerless victims of widespread violence—brought repeated threats to his life. In the face of those threats, Romero declared his readiness to sacrifice his life for the “redemption and resurrection” of El Salvador. Romero also broadcast his Sunday sermons on the archdiocesan radio station to relay hope to people throughout the country and to keep his listeners informed about the political violence (including disappearances) of the civil conflict. His unreserved advocacy for human rights made him a hero to many, and he was nominated for the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize by a number of U.S. congressmen and 118 members of the British Parliament.

Assassination

The following year, on March 24, 1980, Romero was assassinated by an unknown assailant while celebrating mass in the chapel of the Divine Providence Hospital, a facility for cancer patients in San Salvador. The Comisión de la Verdad para El Salvador (“Truth Commission for El Salvador”), approved by the United Nations, later concluded that Romero’s death had been carried out by a right-wing death squad. During his funeral a bomb or bombs went off outside the Metropolitan Cathedral of San Salvador, where tens of thousands of mourners were gathered at what has been considered one of the largest demonstrations in the country’s history. Gunfire then rained down on the panic-stricken crowd, leaving an estimated 27 to 40 people dead and more than 200 wounded from the violence and subsequent stampede.

Legacy and sainthood

Romero’s focus on the “preferential option for the poor,” a bedrock principle of Catholic social teaching, and his call for an end to their oppression by the regime led some Latin American Catholic theologians who were associated with the liberation theology movement to view him favorably. It is unclear, however, how closely Romero associated with the movement, which integrated social justice philosophy with Catholic social ethics and emphasized the struggle of the poor for justice.

In 2015, 35 years after Romero’s death, Pope Francis declared him a martyr. Romero was beatified (the second step in declaring a person a saint) later that year. In March 2018, following the medically inexplicable cure of a terminally ill Salvadoran woman whose husband had been seeking Romero’s intercession, Pope Francis approved the miracle necessary for Romero’s canonization, which took place at the Vatican in October 2018. (According to canon law, martyrs require only one miracle for sainthood rather than the standard two.) Romero’s feast day is celebrated on March 24, the date of his martyrdom.

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