Oscar Arnulfo Romero
Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez (Ciudad Barrios, August 15, 1917 – San Salvador, March 24, 1980), known as Monseñor Romero, was a Salvadoran Catholic priest, fourth metropolitan archbishop of San Salvador (1977-1980), famous for his preaching in defense of human rights.
As archbishop, he denounced numerous human rights violations in his Sunday homilies and publicly expressed his solidarity with the victims of political violence in his country. His assassination sparked an international protest demanding respect for human rights in The Savior. Within the Catholic Church he was considered a bishop who defended the "preferential option for the poor." In one of his homilies, he stated: "The mission of the Church is to identify with the poor, so the Church finds its salvation" (November 11, 1977).
Her actions are admired by followers of liberation theology; however, according to her secretary, Monsignor Jesús Delgado, "Romero was not interested" in her. For the Jesuit Martin Maier, if before 1977 he had Judged as a dangerous theological fashion, he later chose Ignacio Ellacuría (martyred like him) and Jon Sobrino as his theological advisers and highlighted in his homilies and pastoral letters the option for the poor, the signs of the times, the praxis and the method of see-judge-act. At the Puebla Conference he met with liberation theologians, who had been denied official participation. In Leuven, he dispelled prejudices against liberation theology.
In 1979 he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize on the proposal of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. However, the laureate with this award that year was Teresa of Calcutta.
He was assassinated during the celebration of a Eucharist in the chapel of the Divina Providencia hospital in San Salvador. The order for his assassination has never been officially confirmed.
On March 24, 1990, the cause for canonization of Archbishop Romero began. In 1994, the request for the canonization of his successor, Arturo Rivera y Damas, was formally presented. From this process, Monsignor Romero received the title of Servant of God. On February 3, 2015, he was recognized by the Catholic Church as a martyr "for hatred of the faith", when Pope Francis approved the decree of corresponding martyrdom and promulgated by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. For this reason, in accordance with the due process as stipulated by the Catholic Church itself, on May 23, 2015 he was beatified in Salvador del Mundo square. Just over three years later, on October 14, 2018, he was canonized by Pope Francis in Saint Peter's Square in Rome.
The Catholic Church venerates him as a saint and some of his faithful refer to him as Saint Romero of America.
Óscar Romero enjoys the following particularities: He is the first Salvadoran to be elevated to the altars; the first martyred archbishop of America; the first to be declared a martyr after the Second Vatican Council; the first native saint of Central America, since, although it is true the holy brother Pedro de San José de Betancur carried out all his work for the one who was canonized in the city of Santiago de los Caballeros in Guatemala and, therefore, also a Central American saint, her origins are in Tenerife, Spain. In addition, the sanctification by the Catholic Church is not the first that has received, since the Anglican Church had already included it in its official saints, just as the Lutheran Church had also already included it in its liturgical calendar.
Outside the Catholic Church, Romero is honored by other religious denominations in Christendom, including the Anglican Communion and Lutheranism, as noted above. In the Anglican Communion, he is one of the ten martyrs from the 20th century represented in the statues of Westminster Abbey in London. Óscar Romero is admired even outside the Christian world, even being valued in irreligious circles.
Biography
Childhood and youth
Born August 15, 1917 in Ciudad Barrios, department of San Miguel (El Salvador). It was the second of 8 brothers, children of the marriage formed by Santos Romero and Guadalupe Galdámez. He was baptized on May 11, 1919 in the parish church of his hometown. As a child, he had very fragile health. In the public school where he studied, he stood out in humanistic matters more than in mathematics.
Since his childhood he practiced night prayer and veneration of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. In 1930, at the age of 13, he entered the minor seminary in the city of San Miguel, which was run by Claretian priests. Later, in 1937, he entered the Seminary of San José de la Montaña de San Salvador.That same year, he moved to Rome, where he continued his theological studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University.
Priesthood
He lived at the Pío Latinoamericano school (a house that houses students from Latin America), until he was ordained a priest on April 4, 1942 at the age of 24. In Rome he was a student of Monsignor Giovanni Batista Montini (future Pope Paul VI).
He returned to El Salvador in 1943, being appointed parish priest of the city of Anamorós in La Unión; Later he was sent to the city of San Miguel, where he served as parish priest at the Cathedral of Our Lady of La Paz and as secretary to the diocesan bishop, Monsignor Miguel Ángel Machado.
He was later appointed secretary of the Episcopal Conference of El Salvador in 1968.
Episcopacy
Auxiliary Bishop of San Salvador
On April 21, 1970, Pope Paul VI appointed him auxiliary bishop of San Salvador, receiving episcopal consecration on June 21, 1970, from the hands of the apostolic nuncio Girolamo Prigione.
Bishop of Santiago de Maria
On October 15, 1974, he was named bishop of the diocese of Santiago de María, department of Usulután. He held that seat for two years.
Archbishop of San Salvador
1977
On February 3, 1977, he was named Archbishop of San Salvador by Pope Paul VI, to succeed Monsignor Luis Chávez y González.
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Many priests and laity of the Archdiocese were surprised by his appointment, since they preferred Arturo Rivera y Damas, auxiliary bishop of Monsignor Chávez, for the position. Some considered Romero as the candidate of the conservative sectors who wanted to contain the sectors of the archdiocesan Church that defended the "preferential option for the poor" (known as the Medellín clergy).
On February 10, 1977, in an interview with the newspaper La Prensa Gráfica, the designated archbishop stated:
The government should not take the priest who pronounces himself for social justice as a politician or subversive element, when he is fulfilling his mission in the common good policy.
On February 20, as the archdiocese prepared for the inauguration of a new archbishop, the country held presidential elections. After the elections, on February 26, the Central Election Council declared General Carlos Humberto Romero, candidate of the National Conciliation Party (in power since 1962), the winner. The opposition forces denounced electoral fraud of great proportions and called a popular rally in the Plaza Libertad in San Salvador. On February 28, the government security forces violently dissolved this popular gathering, leaving dozens dead and missing.
During the week prior to Romero's inauguration as archbishop, the government of President Arturo Armando Molina arrested and expelled from Salvadoran priests Bernard Survill (American) and Willibrord Denaux (Belgian), members of the archdiocesan clergy. Three weeks earlier, at the end of January, the Colombian priest Mario Bernal had been arrested and expelled from the country.
On February 22, Romero took office as archbishop of San Salvador in a simple ceremony held in the chapel of the San José de la Montaña Major Seminary, attended by the apostolic nuncio Emanuele Gerada and the other bishops of The Savior. That same day, the government announced that several religious who were outside the country, including the Spaniard Benigno Fernández S.J. and the Nicaraguan Juan Ramón Vega Mantilla, should not return.
On March 5, during a special assembly of the bishops, Romero was elected vice president of the Episcopal Conference of El Salvador and a statement was prepared to denounce the persecution of the Church in the country.
On March 12, 1977, Father Rutilio Grande, S.J., a close friend of Romero, was murdered in the city of Aguilares along with two peasants. Grande had been in charge of the Aguilares parish for four years, where he had promoted the creation of base ecclesial communities and the organization of peasants in the area. The President of the Republic himself informed Romero about Grande's death, promising an investigation into the facts. The archbishop reacted to this assassination by calling a single mass to show the unity of his clergy. This mass was celebrated on March 20 in the Plaza Barrios de San Salvador, despite the opposition of the apostolic nuncio and other bishops.
1978-1979
At this time, he changed his preaching and began to defend the rights of the unprotected. Monsignor Romero denounced in his homilies the abuses against the rights of peasants, workers, their priests and all the people who resorted to him, in the context of violence and military repression that the country was experiencing. In his homilies after the death of Rutilio Grande, he fearlessly referred to the texts of the Medellín Conference and called for greater justice in society. For the next three years, his homilies, broadcast on the diocesan radio YSAX, denounced the violence of both the military government and left-wing armed groups. He especially pointed out violent acts such as the murders committed by death squads and the forced disappearance of people, committed by the security forces. In August 1978, he published a pastoral letter affirming the right of the people to organize and peacefully claim their rights.
During this period, Monsignor Óscar Romero was closely followed by the Argentine civic-military dictatorship, since they considered his preaching as "Marxist" and "subversive". This documentation can be traced in the communication from the Argentine Chancellery.
First attempted murder
On March 9, 1980, in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a black briefcase was found placed under the main altar. The person who noticed their presence, identified as the priest Ramiro Jiménez, immediately notified the extinct National Police. Detective Juan Francisco Alas, an expert in explosives from the National Police, deactivated the bomb; This consisted of a switch, a radio transmitter connected to three 1.5 volt batteries that would activate two remote-controlled electric detonators. The amount of the explosive was 72 candles of commercial dynamite.
According to investigations, the bomb was triggered at the moment that Monsignor Oscar Arnulfo Romero was celebrating a mass in memory of Mario Zamora Rivas, a former attorney general and former secretary general of the Christian Democratic Party, assassinated on February 23, 1980 at his place of residence. home. The management of the Attorney General of the Republic did not make any formal investigation of the case.
Murder
In October 1979, Romero received with some hope the promises of the new administration of the Revolutionary Government Junta, but as the weeks went by he returned to denounce new acts of repression carried out by the security forces. On February 1980, the Catholic University of Leuven awarded Romero an honorary doctorate in recognition of his fight in defense of human rights. On the occasion of receiving that honorary title, Romero delivered a speech considered his prophetic testament:
[...] The poor majority of our country are oppressed and repressed daily by the economic and political structures of our country. The terrible words of the prophets of Israel remain true among us. There are among us those who sell the righteous for money and the poor for a couple of sandals; those who pile up violence and plunder in their palaces; those who crush the poor; those who make a kingdom of violence come near, lying in ivory beds; those who gather house with house and annexe field to field until they occupy the whole place and stay alone in the country. [...]
It is therefore a clear fact that our Church has been persecuted in the last three years. But the most important thing is to observe why she has been persecuted. No priest has been persecuted or attacked by any institution. That part of the Church which has stood on the side of the poor people has been persecuted and attacked and has gone out in their defense. And again we find here the key to understanding the persecution of the Church: the poor. Again it is the poor who make us understand what has really happened. And therefore the Church has understood persecution from the poor. Persecution has been caused by the defense of the poor and it is nothing else to carry the fate of the poor. [...]
The world of the poor with well-concrete social and political characteristics teaches us where the Church must be incarnated to avoid the false universalization that always ends in connivance with the powerful. The world of the poor teaches us how to be Christian love, which certainly seeks peace, but unmasks false pacifism, resignation and inactivity; which must be certainly free but must seek historical effectiveness. The world of the poor teaches us that the sublimity of Christian love must go through the imperative of justice for the majority and should not refuse the honest struggle. The world of the poor teaches us that liberation will come not only when the poor are pure recipients of the benefits of governments or of the Church itself, but actors and protagonists themselves of their struggle and liberation thus unmasking the ultimate root of false paternalisms even ecclesial. And also the real world of the poor teaches us what it is about in Christian hope.Óscar Romero
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On March 23, 1980, the day before his death, Romero made an energetic appeal to the Salvadoran army from the cathedral in his homily entitled The Church, a service of personal, community, and transcendent liberation, which later became known as the Fire Homily:
I would like to make a special appeal to the men of the army. And specifically the bases of the National Guard, the police, the barracks... Brothers, they are of our own people. They kill their own peasant brothers. And in the face of an order to kill a man, the law of God which says, "Do not kill." No soldier is obliged to obey an order against the Law of God. An immoral law, no one has to comply with it. It is time for them to regain their conscience, and to obey before their conscience than the order of sin. The Church, a defender of the rights of God, of the Law of God, of human dignity, of the person, cannot remain silent before such abomination. We want the government to take it seriously that reforms are useless if they are stained with so much blood. In the name of God, therefore, and in the name of this suffering people, whose lamentations go up to heaven every day more tumultuous, I beseech you, I command you in the name of God: Cease the repression.Óscar Romero
On Monday morning, March 24, 1980, he was at a retreat organized by Opus Dei, a monthly meeting of priest friends led by Monsignor Fernando Sáenz Lacalle. On that day they reflected on the priesthood. Later that same day, at approximately 6:30 p.m., he was assassinated while celebrating mass in the chapel of the Divina Providencia hospital in the Miramonte neighborhood of San Salvador. A shot made by a sniper from a car with a red hood hit his heart moments before his consecration He was 62 years old.
The mortal remains rest in the crypt of the metropolitan cathedral of San Salvador, just below the main altar of the temple and inside a mausoleum that bears his name. The funeral monument is a bronze structure that represents the body of Romero surrounded by four angels that symbolize the four gospels. It was donated by the Community of Sant'Egidio, whose ecclesiastical adviser is Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia, official postulator for the cause of beatification, and was made by the Italian artist Paolo Borghi. The crypt has been visited by renowned personalities, including John Paul II, Barack Obama and Ban Ki-moon.
Further Research
In 1993, the Truth Commission, created by the Chapultepec Peace Accords to investigate the most serious crimes of the Salvadoran civil war, concluded that the murder of Monsignor Romero had been carried out by a sniper. In 2004, a United States court declared Captain Saravia civilly responsible for the crime.
On November 6, 2009, the Salvadoran government headed by Mauricio Funes decided to investigate the murder of Romero to comply with a mandate from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights from the year 2000.
Thirty-one years after the murder, the name of Romero's murderer became known: Marino Samayor Acosta, a sub-sergeant of Section II of the extinct National Guard and member of the security team of the former President of the Republic, who stated that the order to commit the crime was received by Major Roberto d'Aubuisson, creator of the death squads and founder of ARENA, and Colonel Arturo Armando Molina. Marino Samayor Acosta reportedly received $114 for carrying out that action. Marisa d'Aubuisson, sister of Roberto d'Aubuisson but opposed to his way of thinking, years later created the foundation that promoted the beatification of the Salvadoran bishop.
Canonization
Spiritual Life
James R. Brockman, SJ, Romero biographer and author of Life of Bishop Oscar A. Romero said that "all available evidence indicates that he continued his quest for sainthood until the end of his life. But he also matured in that search ».
According to Brockman, Romero's spiritual journey had some of these characteristics: love for the Church of Rome, demonstrated by his episcopal motto, “to feel with the Church,” a phrase he took from the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius; a tendency to do a very deep examination of conscience; an emphasis on sincere piety; mortification and penance through his duties; protection for his chastity; spiritual direction; "to be one with the Church incarnated in this people who need liberation"; enthusiasm for contemplative prayer and finding God in others; fidelity to the will of God; Offering to Jesus Christ.
Romero had weekly spiritual direction with an Opus Dei priest. In 1975 he wrote in support of the cause of the canonization of the founder of Opus Dei, "Personally, I owe profound gratitude to the priests of the Work whom I have entrusted with much satisfaction the spiritual direction of my life and that of other priests".
Opening the case
On March 24, 1990, the cause for Romero's canonization began and the priest Rafael Urrutia was appointed as postulator for the cause. On May 12, 1994, during the diocesan process, the request was formally presented for his canonization to his successor, Metropolitan Archbishop Arturo Rivera y Damas. The diocesan process concluded on November 1, 1996, and on July 4, 1997, the Holy See accepted the cause as valid. Congregation for the Causes of Saints, in Vatican City, which in 2000 transferred it to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (at that time headed by the German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI) for thorough analysis the writings and homilies of Archbishop Romero. Once this analysis was completed, in 2005 the postulator of the cause of canonization, Monsignor Vicenzo Paglia, informed the media of the study's conclusions: «Romero was not a revolutionary bishop, but a man of the Church, of the Gospel and of the poor".
Some Vatican analysts pointed out the existence of a certain "blocking of the cause" from 1997, for ideological reasons. The postulator himself, Monsignor Vicenzo Paglia, explained that he had "some" misunderstandings with John Paul II because, at his In the trial, the information arriving at that time from El Salvador "all went in one direction": the political right, the Salvadoran ambassadors to the Holy See, and some cardinals accused Romero of "being unbalanced" and "being a communist." However, Paglia specified that there was a moment when the Polish pope changed his position: “On his first trip to El Salvador he changed and wanted to go to the Cathedral, he waited ten minutes because it was closed. There he laid his hands on Romero's grave. In addition, he has told me on many occasions that Romero is from the Church". Karol Wojtyła also remembered Monsignor Romero in the celebration of new martyrs during the jubilee of the year 2000, inserting his name —absent in the text— in the oremus final. On the other hand, Paglia pointed out that it was Benedict XVI who unblocked the beatification process on December 20, 2012, shortly before announcing his resignation.
Beatification
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The Holy See responded that the cause for beatification of Óscar Arnulfo Romero was never blocked. Nevertheless, Jesús Delgado, Archbishop Romero's secretary, admitted the existence of economic, social, and political opposition to his beatification, and He pointed out: "Some say that it was (Alfonso) López Trujillo the one who delayed the process and maybe he was, because he was in charge of Latin American issues." During Francisco's pontificate, the cause would have had the express support of the pope.
On February 3, 2015, Pope Francis authorized the promulgation of the decree of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints that declared Óscar Romero a martyr of the Church, murdered for "hatred of the faith." The beatification ceremony, presided over by Cardinal Angelo Amato, was held in the Plaza Salvador del Mundo in the city of San Salvador on May 23. According to estimates by Catholic media, some 300,000 people from 57 countries participated in the celebration, while that other international media estimated the presence of at least 250,000 people.
Pope Francis expressed in a letter sent to the Bishop of San Salvador, José Luis Escobar Alas, that the beatification of Monsignor Romero "is a reason for great joy for Salvadorans and for all of us who enjoy the example of the best sons of the Church", adding:
[...] Monsignor Romero invites us to sanity and reflection, respect for life and harmony. It is necessary to renounce “the violence of the sword, the violence of hatred”, and to live “the violence of love, which left Christ nailed on a cross, which is done each to overcome his selfishness and so that there are no such cruel inequalities between us.” He learned to see and experience in his own flesh “the selfishness that hides in those who do not want to give up their own so that they reach others.” And, with a father’s heart, he was concerned about “the poor majority” by asking the powerful to turn “the weapons in the face of work.” [...]
Canonization
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At the end of February 2017, testimonies of a possible miracle attributed to the intercession of Archbishop Romero were sent to Rome to be studied by the Vatican's Congregation for the Causes of Saints. On March 7, 2018, the Pope Francis authorized the canonization of Monsignor Romero, accepting the miracle of total, irreversible healing, and without sequelae, of the Salvadoran Cecilia Flores, who in 2015, after having her third child, suffered from HELLP syndrome, a rare condition that brought her to the brink of death, but when her husband said a prayer one night on a Romero print that he found inside a bible in their house to ask God for his intercession for a miracle, she immediately began to recover in the hospital where she was hospitalized, coming out of the induced coma in which she was; and a few days later she walked out of the hospital fully recovered. With that miracle and her martyrdom, she meets the necessary requirements for his name to be written in the book of saints.
On May 19, 2018, Pope Francis announced Romero's canonization, which took place on October 14, 2018. In the same ceremony, Paul VI, Nazaria Ignacia de Santa Teresa de Jesús, Francesco Spinelli, Vicenzo Romano, Maria Caterina Kasper and Nunzio Sulprizio. Francis said that it is "beautiful" that Romero was canonized along with Paul VI and the other saints and stressed "he left the safety of the world, even his own safety, to give his life according to the gospel" close to the poor.
Cardinal Gregorio Rosa Chávez asked the Roman pontiff to open the process to declare Romero a doctor of the Church and the beatification of Rutilio Grande.
Sponsorship
- Óscar Romero is patron of Caritas Internationalis, a distinction he shares with Teresa de Calcuta and Martín de Porres.
- Pope Francis named Óscar Romero together with Santa María la Antigua as intercestors of the World Youth Day held in Panama in 2019, with the slogan "Good shepherd, full of God's love and close to his brothers".
Honours received
- Doctor Honoris Causa of the University of Lovaina of Belgium (1980).
- Doctor Honoris Causa of Georgetown University, United States (1978).
- Doctor Honoris Causa of the University of El Salvador (1980).
- Doctor Honoris Causa of the Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas (UCA) in El Salvador.
- Peace Prize for Swedish Ecumenical Action (1980).
- Dearest Son Post Mortém of the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador (2000).
- Ciudadano Ilustre de la municipalidad de Ciudad Barrios (1970).
- National Day of Monsignor Oscar Arnulfo Romero every 24 March, declared by the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador (2010).
- International Day of the Right to the Truth in connection with Serious Violations of Human Rights and the Dignity of Victims, declared by the United Nations on 24 March, in recognition of the values of Monsignor Romero and his dedication to the service of humanity (Resolution of the 71st plenary meeting on 21 December 2010).
- His name appears in the Calendar of Saints Lutheran.
- In 2015, the Committee for the Nomenclature of Small Corps of the International Astronomical Union renamed it as Asteroid (13703) Romeroone of the bodies discovered by Belgian astronomer Eric Walter Elst.
Pop Culture
Romero was a symbol of union with the poor during the war in El Salvador (1980-1992). He is currently considered a symbol of the Catholic Church in El Salvador, and in other parts of the world. Some sectors name him "San Romero de América", an appellation conceived by the religious Pedro Casaldáliga.
The Brazilian composer Jorge Antunes, composed in 1980 the Violet Elegia for Monsenhor Romero, for two child soloists, forced piano, children's choir and chamber orchestra. Within the work, texts by Romero himself are recited and sung, part of Psalms 55, 56 and 59, extracts from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; as well as texts by Ernesto Che Guevara, Naji Alush and Vassilikos.
In 1982, Costa Rican playwright Samuel Rovinski wrote the play El martirio del pastor, centered on the last years of Romero's life.
In the 1983 film Choices of the Heart, about the murder of four North American missionaries in 1980, Romero is played by actor René Enríquez.
He is played by José Carlos Ruiz in the Oliver Stone film Salvador, made in 1986 and portrays an important part of his speech.
The film Romero, made in 1989, is based on his biography. John Sacred Young wrote the script and Raúl Juliá starred in that film production representing Monsignor Óscar Romero.
In the 2006 television sequel Karol: A Man Who Became Pope, Romero is played by Carlos Kaniowsky.
The song Father Antonio and the altar boy Andrés, by Rubén Blades, tells the story of a priest murdered during mass, as a tribute to "a good priest: Arnulfo Romero&# 3. 4;.
Many popular musicians also dedicate their musical arrangements in memory of the work he conducted over the years in his pastoral work, among those songs are: Monseñor Romero, prophet, martyr and pastor. Others: group Yolocamba I Ta, Luis Enrique Mejía Godoy with Farabundo and Romero, Nancy White with Hymn to Oscar Romero, the Chilean group Sol y Lluvia with: Gorrión de amor, Super Pakito Chac with SLM80 and the Honduran group Pez Luna with their song Monseñor. On the occasion of the XXV Anniversary, two new records come to light: a new version of the "Salvadoran Popular Mass" with the participation of the members of "Excess Baggage": Guillermo Cuéllar, Alberto Masferrer and Paulino Espinoza, the voices of the choir of the Technological University and other guest musicians and the album Profeta, 25 años después, recorded by young people from the Caritas Christi Network of Catholic Musicians of El Salvador. Songs like "Romero de las Américas" (Christos), "Blessed" (Mateo Guzmán), "Where is that voice" (Fiat Group), "He rose again" (Mauro Arévalo), "Monsignor" (Roberto Damas), "The humility of a pastor" (Juan Carlos García Melgar), "Heart of Corn" (Prelude) and "You were born when you died" (Ricardo Amaya) are part of this tribute. Among the documentaries that have been made of his life are: Mons. Romero A mystery of God ”(2010) by Guillermo Gómez and Óscar Orellana, the Italian documentary“ Romero. Voce dei senza voce” (2010) by Maite Carpio, “El cielo abierto” (2011) by the Mexican Everardo González, and “Óscar Romero, a universal voice” (2015).
There is also a foundation that contributes not only to rescuing the values of the gospel to the most needy but also to developing sociocultural activities of formation and accompaniment to other popular organizations whose name is "Monseñor Romero Foundation".