In Memoriam: Oscar Amulfo Romero

† 24 March 1980

In seminaries of another era

the refectory reader proclaimed to silence:
“Martyrologium Romanum” mm a litany of saints
ending “et alibi” and elsewhere
“plurimorum sanctonun”mm many more saints.

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

“Plurimorum sanctorum” mm a hemorrhage
seeping into him: mm Rutilio Grande mm his Jesuit friend
Fathers Navarro mm Barrera mm Ortiz and four companions
(as the martyrologies say)
graffiti around the capital read: mm “Be a patriot, kill a priest.”

The wound opens mm thirty-thousand peasants die
overwhelming mm drowning the Archbishop who
casts for moorings with the poor mm 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 mm the death he died not a witness
to traditional doctrines mm 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 4/06 CPF Newsletter