In Memoriam:
Oscar Arnulfo Romero

† 24 March 1980

In seminaries of another era
the refectory reader proclaimed to silence: 
"Martyrologium Romanum" a litany of saints 
ending "et alibi" and elsewhere
"plurimorum sanctorum" many more saints

How about here—El Salvador    nineteen-eighty 
an Archbishop    at first timid    a careerist 
chosen to calm El Salvador down
preach a peace that was the status quo

"plurimorum sanctorum"    a hemorrhage
seeping into him:   Rutilio Grande   his Jesuit friend 
Fathers Navarro    Barr    Ortiz and , for companions 
(as the martyrologies say)
graffiti around the capital read:    "Be a patriot, kill a priest."

The wound opens    thirty-thousand peasants die
overwhelming    drowning the Archbishop who
casts for moorings with the poor    a symbolic act:
declining some aristocrats the courtesy of a private baptism 
requiring them to line up with the peasants on Sunday morning

by little and by little emboldened    the death he died not a witness
to traditional doctrines    but as voice to those who have no voice 
the poor who are the paper on which the Gospels are written.

John P. McNamee 
Lent 2005

return to 3/05 CPF Newsletter