Until recently, I assumed that we would never see Romero beatified. I am old enough to remember when Romero was maligned as a communist. But this new Pope has begun the process of canonization.
Saint Romero--how I like the sound of that.
A few years ago, I created this card to commemorate his life:
I find his life inspiring for all the reasons you might expect: the standing up to oppression, the speaking truth to power, the martyrdom.
Lately I've been thinking about the fact that he came into greatness late in his life; he was born in 1917, and I don't think he did his best work until the 1970's, in his late 50's/early 60's. Looking at the trajectory of his life from the middle years of the century, one would not have predicted that he would speak so eloquently about injustice and the need to fight against it.
In fact, many scholars believe that he was chosen to be Archbishop precisely because he was expected not to make trouble. All that changed when one of his good friends, an activist Jesuit priest, was assassinated by one of the death squads roaming the country. Romero became increasingly political, increasingly concerned about the poor who were being oppressed by the tiny minority of rich people in the country. He called for reform. He called on the police and the soldiers to stop killing their brethren. And for his vision, he was killed as he consecrated the bread for Mass.
Romero knew that he was in danger from various political forces in the country, but he refused to cower in fear and back down. Likewise, Jesus must have known what wrath he was bringing down upon himself, but he did not back down. Until the end of his life, he called upon us to reform our earthly systems, systems that enrich a few on the backs of the many. Romero and Christ both show us that the forces of empire do not take kindly to being criticized.
In the years since Romero was assassinated, we have seen the kind of economic injustice that infected El Salvador, where a very small proportion of the population controlled much of the money, take over much of the world. What would Romero call on us to do? How can we change the very economic structure that oppresses so many?
Romero's life story shows that the system will resist change violently and perhaps take lives along the way. And yet, Christians believe that the trajectory of change will continue towards justice, and that we are called to be part of the mass who nudge/force that trajectory.
We are Easter people living in a Good Friday world (I've seen this phrase credited to Barbara Johnson, but unsure). God can take horrific suffering and death and transform it into resurrection. We know what happened to Jesus and those early Christians after the death of Jesus. Likewise, in death, Oscar Romero became a larger force for justice than in life. His death, and the martyrdom of other Church leaders and lay workers (not to mention the deaths of 75,000 civilians) galvanized worldwide public opinion against the forces of death in El Salvador. God is there with us in our suffering and with God's help, suffering can be transformed.
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