© Carolyn Gantner
Romero mural in Arcatao, El Salvador, 1994. Text reads: "The cry for liberation from the people is a call that rises to God and nothing and no one can stop it."
The road toward sainthood for Salvadoran Archbishop Óscar Romero moved one step closer this week as Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the postulant for the cause of Romero’s sainthood, said in a radio interview that he hopes that Romero will finally be canonized in the coming year.
The one hundredth anniversary of Romero’s birth, on August 15, is being celebrated this week not only in his home country of El Salvador, but across the globe. The path to canonization has been a long one for the archbishop, who was murdered on March 24, 1980, for defending the human rights of the people of his country. On May 23, 2015, he was beatified in a ceremony in San Salvador, the final step before becoming a saint.
Earlier this week, Archbishop Paglia told Vatican Radio that “the witness of Romero to continue to preach the gospel of love for the poor as a strategic pastoral initiative” helped Pope Francis advance his own social justice agenda. Paglia said that with the example of Romero, “we can change this world” and “support the globalization of solidarity.”
Pope Francis, commenting in 2015 on Romero’s beatification, said “This is what the Church in El Salvador is called to today, in America and in the whole world: to be rich in mercy and to become a leaven of reconciliation for society.”
Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez was born on August 15, 1917, in the town of Ciudad Barrios, northwest of San Salvador. He was appointed Archbishop of San Salvador on February 3, 1977, just as the country becoming engulfed in an increasingly violent repression of political dissidents and members of the Catholic Church who saw their role as working with and advocating for the poor.
After the murder of his friend and colleague Father Rutilio Grande, Romero became more outspoken against the violent oppression of the Salvadoran people. In February, 1980 he wrote a letter to then-President Jimmy Carter calling for an end to U.S. military aid to his country. “The contribution of your government,” he wrote, “instead of promoting greater justice and peace in El Salvador will without doubt sharpen the injustice and repression against the organizations of the people which repeatedly have been struggling to gain respect for their fundamental human rights.”
A month later, Romero he was assassinated by a death squad which included graduates of the notorious U.S.-run School of the Americas. A new book by human rights attorney Matt Eisenbrandt, tells of the ongoing quest to bring his killers to justice.
The book’s afterword was written by Benjamín Cuéllar, former director of the Human Rights Institute of the Jesuit University of Central America in San Salvador. He looks forward from Romero’s beatification, to a time when the Salvadoran people can have justice: “We still must build a force of good: one that comes from the people. Because while Romero’s people continue to suffer, our blessed martyr, who is with us every day, will also continue to suffer.”