The prophetic courage of Saints Oscar Romero and Paul VI

INTRODUCTION

Two very different men, facing different sets of dire challenges with prophetic courage, faithfully journeyed along two different paths to the same destination: sainthood!

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Who would have imagined on Feb. 23, 1977, the day of his appointment as Archbishop of San Salvador, that the highly conservative Oscar Romero – who was suspicious of the Catholic Church’s involvement in political activism – would die a martyr’s death for courageously defending his people against the murderous assaults of the Salvadoran government, military and right-wing death squads?

The most important event affecting Romero’s decision to wholeheartedly stand with the poor and oppressed was the assassination of his close friend Jesuit Father Rutilio Grande who was promoting land reform, worker unions, and organizing communities to have a greater voice regarding their own lives.

Romero, who was deeply inspired by Grande said, “When I looked at Rutilio lying there dead I thought, ‘if they have killed him for doing what he did, then I too have to walk the same path.’

During his March 23, 1980 Sunday national radio homily, Romero said, “I would like to make an appeal to the men of the army … The law of God must prevail that says: Thou shalt not kill! In the name of God, and in the name of this suffering people … I beg you … I order you in the name of God: Stop the repression!” The next day while celebrating Mass in the chapel of the hospital compound where he lived, Saint Romero’s loving heart was pierced with an assassin’s bullet.

With numerous armed conflicts raging in various parts of the world, and the Vietnam War worsening, Pope Paul VI on Oct. 4, 1965 proclaimed before the U.N. General Assembly: “No more war, war never again. It is peace, peace which must guide the destinies of peoples and of all mankind.” Unfortunately, in 1965 the world did not heed Paul VI’s prophetic words. And sadly, it has not heeded them since.

Saint Paul VI in his prophetic encyclical letter Populorum Progressio (“On the Development of Peoples”) wisely said, “When we fight poverty and oppose the unfair conditions of the present, we are not just promoting human well-being; we are also furthering man’s spiritual and moral development, and hence we are benefiting the whole human race. For peace is not simply the absence of warfare, based on a precarious balance of power; it is fashioned by efforts directed day after day toward the establishment of the ordered universe willed by God, with a more perfect form of justice among men.”

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