In El Salvador in the late 1970s, the country was rocked by political turmoil and violence. Death squads, under the direction of the Salvadoran political leaders, roamed the countryside kidnapping and killing all who opposed their policies and regime. Archbishop Oscar Romero was an unassuming figure in the midst of his countries chaos. Selected as the compromise candidate, Archbishop Romero had stayed clear of politics, and had even harshly criticized Catholic priests in the country who had embraced the new and radical liberation theology.
But one night as his assistant, a priest named Rutillio Grande, a 7-year old boy, and an old man, were all gunned down by one of the death squads. Archbishop Romero went to the tiny village to claim the body of the slain priest, and to comfort the families of the little boy and old man. That night the Archbishop of El Salvadore stood in a small parish church looking out at the crowd gathered to hear him speak. Fear gripped the countryside, and Oscar Romero promised them that the violence would end. That peace would come to El Salvador. That he was with them in their fear and in their struggle. One of Romero’s biographers wrote later “The peasants had asked for a good shepherd and that night they received one.”
At this point in El Salvador’s sad history, 3,000 people were being killed per month. Bodies were dumped in streams, and in the garbage dump of San Salvador. 75,000 people would die, thousands more vanish, and 1,000,000 people leave the tiny country of El Salvador during this reign of terror.
Oscar Romero took to the airwaves, and in his weekly homily, promised that he would not rest until all the violence was ended, until peace came to El Salvador. He refused to attend the inauguration of El Salvador’s latest president, which further inflamed the opposition against him. All the bishops of El Salvador turned on him, complaining to the Vatican that he had become “politicized.” But Romero continued to speak out.
He not only spoke out, he made frequent trips to the massive garbage dumps, accompanying families who were searching for the bodies of their loved ones. He spoke at funerals for the murdered; stopped the construction of El Salvador’s majestic cathedral until the killing stopped; and, refused to hold communion during a period of particular violence.
The final straw came when Romero, in a radio address to the El Salvadoran troops, urged them to stop killing their fellow citizens, and told them that ” No soldier is obliged to obey an order that is contrary to the will of God . . . ”
The next day, while saying a public mass, Oscar Romero was shot in the chest by a man standing at the back of the church. Romero fell behind the altar, at the feet of the massive crucifix of Jesus, who was shown bleeding from the wound in his own side. There Romero died, a martyr for God, a good shepherd who laid down his life for his sheep. Just before Romero was shot, he said, “”One must not love oneself so much, as to avoid getting involved in the risks of life that history demands of us, and those that fend off danger will lose their lives.”
The passage he had just read was,
“Unless the grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains only a grain. But if it dies, it bears much fruit ”(Jn. 12:23-26)
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