Will You Die for Your Faith? The Story of St. Oscar Romero

Let’s start with the death.

It was a Mass given in memory for the mother of one of the archbishop’s friends. It was a Monday evening, hot and humid. The doors of the hospital chapel stood open in hopes some breeze might provide relief from the weather. The gospel reading was John 12:23-26. The archbishop stood to announce the Good News to the gathered worshippers:

Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.

His homily honored the life of Sara Meardi de Pinto, but it did much more than eulogize. The archbishop called for all assembled to offer “our body and our blood to suffering and to pain—like Christ, not for self, but to impart notions of justice and peace to our people.”  He spoke prophetically, with the passion for justice and preference for the poor that had defined his ministry, especially in the previous three years.

As the archbishop moved behind the Altar and prepared the offerings for the Eucharist, the open doors to the street beyond provided an excellent view of his movements.

According to a CIA report of what followed, the archbishop “was struck in the left side of his chest by a single .22 caliber bullet that fragmented and lodged in his lung . . . the killer apparently got out of a car opposite the doors to the chapel, fired one shot, and was driven away before anyone got a close look at him.” 

The gunman’s shot proved fatal. Within minutes, Archbishop Oscar Romero was dead.

In the last half century of Catholicism, few moments have the ability to shock and outrage our faith as does the brutal martyrdom of St. Oscar Romero.  The assassination of an archbishop is a rare attack against the Church. Like St. Thomas Becket before him, Romero was murdered in a church as he worshipped. Like Becket, Romero was the victim of political power determined to silence the commands of Christ.

For many, it is St. Oscar’s death we remember—the flagrant assault on the Church, on the Mass, on the archbishop. This dramatic image, captured in photo and audio, of a priest slain at the altar adds a contemporary name to the list of martyrdoms, fearless Christians who gave the ultimate sacrifice to foster the Faith.

In 2015, Pope Francis wrote that the beautification of Romero was “a cause for great joy for the Salvadorian people and for we who rejoice by the example of the best children of the Church. Archbishop Romero, who built peace with the power of love, bore witness to the faith with his life, totally committed to the extreme.”

There can be no doubt that Romero’s martyrdom is a powerful lesson for the faithful. It serves as witness to the evil that seeks to destroy the Kingdom of God. It also teaches the necessity of courage and conviction, of following our Lord wherever He wills we must go, trusting always in His plan for our salvation.

The Catechism states that “Martyrdom is the supreme witness given to the truth of the faith: it means bearing witness even unto death. The martyr bears witness to Christ who died and rose, to whom he is united by charity. He bears witness to the truth of the faith and of Christian doctrine.”

If there is danger in martyrdom, it is that through human concupiscence we can misuse the sacrifice of the martyr to make the death itself become the most essential thing about that person’s life. The martyred one ceases to be the protagonist of their story. Instead, the brave witness becomes a victim and the act of violence becomes the focus of the remembering.  Each martyr’s sacrifice must stay connected to the reason for the death. The living of the martyr’s life must resonate with its end.

When Pope Francis recognized Romero’s martyrdom, the Holy Father honored the archbishop’s death as testimony to the truth of the Faith. When Francis canonized Romero in 2018, he praised the first giving of his life that Romero offered for God saying that he had  “left the security of the world, even his own safety, in order to give his life according to the Gospel, close to the poor and to his people, with a heart drawn to Jesus and his brothers and sisters.”

St. John Paul II initiated Romero’s cause for canonization and praised him as a “zealous pastor who tried to stop violence.”  Pope Benedict XVI, who called Romero “a great witness of the faith” unblocked the cause for Romero’s canonization after it had been opposed by factions who feared Romero’s memory could be politically manipulated by Marxists.

These three popes recognized sanctity in Romero’s life. They knew the archbishop had answered God’s call to follow a path that transcended the left/right spectrum of secular politics to embrace the Church’s preferential option for the poor. At Romero’s canonization, Pope Francis stated, “Jesus is radical . . . He gives all and he asks all: he gives a love that is total and asks for an undivided heart . . . (he) gives himself to us as the living bread; can we give him crumbs in exchange?”

Oscar Romero lived in service to Christ. The nature of that service changed as he matured and took on the responsibilities of archbishop of San Salvador. Whatever hopes secular powers had for the unassuming Romero when he was appointed archbishop were quickly dashed. God reveled to Romero the suffering of the poor and the horror of political violence. His critics claimed the archbishop had become a radical and in one way, they were correct:  Romero lived Jesus’ radical call for love, peace and mercy.

Romero evolved to see that God is always asking us for more.  He said, “It is not enough to be good. It is not enough to not do evil. My Christianity is something more positive; it is not a negative. There are many who say, ‘But I don’t kill, I don’t steal, I don’t do anything bad to anyone.’ That’s not enough. You are still lacking a great deal. It is not enough to be good.”

His homilies, ministry, actions, and evolution as archbishop saw him embrace the teaching of the Gospels, and his deepest concern became for “the least of these.”  Romero came to understand, as he stated, “There are not two categories of people. There are not some who were born to have everything and leave others with nothing and a majority that has nothing and can’t enjoy the happiness that God has created for all. God wants a Christian society, one in which we share the good things that God has given for all of us.”

While the elite of El Salvador saw him as a meddler, his mission was not political but rooted in the Gospels and in the Magisterium of the Church. He did not desire, as he said, “to be an anti, against anybody. I simply want to be the builder of a great affirmation: the affirmation of God, who loves us and who wants to save us.” He believed that the Church taught of “a transcendence from the human heart. It is entering into the reality of a child, of the poor, of those wearing rags, of the sick, of a hovel, of a shack. It is going to share with them. And from the very heart of misery, of this situation, to transcend it, to elevate it, to promote it, and to say to them, ‘You aren’t trash. You aren’t marginalized.’ It is to say exactly the opposite, ‘You are valuable.’”

His life embraced this transcendence, and as archbishop he not only called for an end to poverty and to violence but actively worked to bring about real spiritual change. “Peace,” he wrote, “is not the product of terror or fear. Peace is not the silence of cemeteries. Peace is not the silent result of violent repression. Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of all to the good of all.”  His spiritual vision frightened the secular world. Their fear is what provoked those threatened by his call for peace and justice to murder Romero.

If those who ordered the assassination thought their bullets would silence calls for justice, they would be proved wrong. Romero was not a political movement that could be stopped but a servant of God.  Living with the knowledge that he was on the death lists of the reactionary forces, the archbishop told the Mexican magazine that “If God accepts the sacrifice of my life, may my death be for the freedom of my people. A bishop will die, but the Church of God, which is the people, will never perish. I do not believe in death without resurrection. If they kill me, I will rise again in the people of El Salvador.”

As a martyr, Romero accepted death as witness to his faith. As a saint, he lived that witness by walking with the poor, working against violence, and giving his all for Jesus. 

As we celebrate Oscar Romero’s legacy today, let us honor both his martyrdom and his living. May his death encourage us to be witnesses for faith and may his life call us to give ourselves to Jesus by serving the least of these.

Romero, O. (2004). The Violence of Love (J. Brockman, Trans.). Orbis Books. (1988).

Photo by the Arzobispado de San Salvador and retrieved from CNN