20th century
Feast: March 24
A cautious, bookish archbishop who was considered ‘safe’ by the government — until his best friend was murdered, and he started naming the killers from the pulpit.
Oscar Romero was nobody’s idea of a radical. He was a quiet, conservative bishop who loved books, worried about liturgical details, and was considered reliable by El Salvador’s military government. When he was named Archbishop of San Salvador in 1977, the rich families and the generals were relieved — they expected someone who would stay out of politics. Then Rutilio Grande was murdered. Grande was a Jesuit priest and Romero’s close friend, shot dead on a rural road along with two companions for organizing peasant communities. Something broke open in Romero. He began visiting the poor, listening to their stories of disappeared family members, and preaching about it. His Sunday homilies — broadcast on the diocesan radio — became the most listened-to program in the country. He named names. He described specific massacres. He read lists of the disappeared. The government jammed his signal. Death threats arrived daily. In his last homily, on March 23, 1980, he addressed the soldiers directly: ‘I beg you, I implore you, I order you in the name of God: stop the repression.’ The next evening, while celebrating Mass in a hospital chapel, he was shot through the heart by a single bullet. He fell at the altar. He was sixty-two.