Óscar Romero: Preacher of Love and Justice

From the Center for Action and Contemplation
Wednesday, January 15, 2025

[Ken Gray] I know some of you don’t read my blogs in full. But in this case, if you read nothing more, READ THE FINAL PARAGRAPH — Trust me on this

[Center for Action and Contemplation] Let us not tire of preaching love, for this is the force that will overcome the world. Let us never tire of preaching love. Even if we see waves of violence coming to drown out the fire of Christian love, love must win out. It is the only thing that can.  
—Óscar Romero, homily, September 25, 1977 

Religion scholar Kerry Walters writes of the transformative life of Archbishop Óscar Romero.  

Oscar Romero [1917–1980], Archbishop of San Salvador, was gunned down on March 24, 1980, while celebrating Mass. Over the next few days, his body lay in state in the cathedral where he had so often preached. Thousands of mourners filed past his coffin, many of them campesinos, landless peasants and field workers, who had traveled miles to be there. 

They hadn’t come just to pay their respects to a Church dignitary, although that was certainly part of it. They came because they loved Romero. During the three years he served as their archbishop, they knew him as a father who stood between them and a death-dealing government. Now that he was gone, they not only felt orphaned, they were terrified…. 

[Romero] was accused of being a Communist, an agitator, a Soviet stooge, a gullible fool, imprudent, unintelligent, and a bad priest. The calumny hurled at him soured his relations with the Vatican, leading to humiliating curial scolding during his lifetime and stonewalling on his canonization after his death. But Romero was clear in his own mind and conscience that he was doing Christ’s work, not playing power politics. [1] 

In a homily given in 1978, Archbishop Romero urged communities and individuals to recognize how their actions had the power to convert and transform the world:  

A Christian community is evangelized in order to evangelize. A light is turned on in order to give light. “People do not light a candle and put it under a basket,” said Christ. “They light it and put it up high so that it gives light” (Matthew 5:15). That is true community. A community is a group of women and men who have found the truth in Christ and in his Gospel and join together to follow the way of truth more resolutely. It is not just a matter of individual conversion but of community conversion. A community is a family that believes; it is a group where each member accepts God and feels strengthened by the others. In their moments of weakness, they help one another and love one another; they shed the light of their faith as an example for others. When that happens, the preachers no longer need to preach because there are Christians whose very lives have become a form of preaching.  

I said once before and I repeat today, sisters and brothers, that if some sad day they silence our radio and stop us from writing in our newspaper, then all of you who believe must become microphones, radio stations, and loudspeakers—not by talking but by living the faith. [2] 

References:  
[1] Kerry Walters, Saint Oscar Romero: Pastor, Prophet, Martyr (Franciscan Media, 2018), xi, xiv–xv.   

[2] Óscar Romero, “The Church: A Communion of Life, Love, and Truth for the World’s Salvation,” homily, October 29, 1978.