Social Justice Activist Spotlight—Oscar Romero

Here at the Darst Center the bedrooms are named after significant people who have been models for doing work in social justice. Each month we highlight an individual to learn about their lives, the work they have done, and the impact they have made. This month we are highlighting Oscar Romero. Here is a synopsis of his life and work, and his impact on others:

Oscar Romero was born in Ciudad Barrios, a town east of El Salvador, on 15 August 1917. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1942. In February 1977, Oscar Romero became archbishop of San Salvador.

In that same month, a crowd of protesters were attacked by soldiers in the town square of the capital. Then, on 12 March 1977, a radical priest, Fr. Rutillo Grande, was murdered in Aguilares. Romero had known him and observed that there was no official inquiry into Fr. Rutillo’s murder. He recognized that power lay in the hands of violent men and that they murdered with impunity. When a new government, which represented a coalition of powerful interests, was elected it was seen to be by fraud.

More and more, Romero committed himself to the poor and the persecuted, and he became the catalyst for radical moral prophesy both in the church and outside it. The press attacked Romero vehemently. Romero, it was said, allied the church with revolutionaries. This he repudiated: the church was not a political movement, but when successions of priests were murdered, Romero found in their deaths “testimony of a church incarnated in the problems of its people.”

In May 1979, he visited the Pope in Rome and presented him with seven dossiers filled with reports and documents describing the injustices of El Salvador. The threats and dangers against Romero continued to mount. On 24 March 1980 he was suddenly shot while celebrating mass in the chapel of the hospital where he lived. Today the memory of Oscar Romero is cherished by the people of El Salvador, and by countless Christians across the world.

Oscar Romero