Remembering Catholic Archbishop Romero: 25 Years After His Murder

[Itsthetruth]

CounterPunch
March 25, 2005

25 Years After the Assassination
Remembering Archbishop Romero
By MARK ENGLER

Mark Engler, an analyst with Foreign Policy In Focus, has previously worked with the Arias Foundation for Peace and Human Progress in San José, Costa Rica.


Twenty-five years ago, on March 24, 1980, Archbishop Oscar Romero was shot down while celebrating Mass in San Salvador. In the years before his murder, Romero had emerged as an outspoken defender of the Salvadoran poor, making him one of the best-known embodiments of the liberation theology that was infusing new life into the Catholic Church in Latin America in the '70s and '80s.

During El Salvador's long conflict, which stretched from the late 1970s to 1992, the country's government and its paramilitary death squads murdered some 75,000 citizens. A 1993 U.N.-sponsored Truth Commission confirmed that these forces made a special point of attacking political dissidents, trade unionists, religious ministers, and human rights workers.

Romero was resolute in his response to this situation. He insisted on the need to "denounce the social structures that give rise to and perpetuate the misery" of the people. When his priests were targeted as part of the official repression, Romero unflinchingly stated, "I am glad that they have murdered priests in this country, because it would be very sad if in a country where they are murdering the people so horrifically, there were no priests among the victims."

The day before he was killed, Romero made a "special appeal" in his Sunday sermon, in which he called upon soldiers to " your consciences rather than a sinful order." In words broadcast by radio across the country, he said, "I implore you, I beg you, I order you in the name of God: Stop the repression."

Romero's pleas were directed not only at the Salvadoran army, but also at the United States.

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