Romero

Did you see the film, Romero, starring Raul Julia?
It is about the priest Oscar Romero, who became Archbishop of El Salvador.

He is an enduring image/icon of the peacemaker in turbulent/violent times.

I remember one image from that movie. I don’t remember if it is from the early part or the latter part of his life. I imagine it is towards the end of his life.

The military, which was basically a death squad by 1980, had kicked Romero out of his Catholic Church, so they could use it as a safe house for the soldiers, a base of operation.

So he is being kicked out of the church, he is walking out to his car. Outside all of the neighborhood parishioners are watching what is unfolding in shock and sadness.

He gets to his car and realizes that he does not have the Eucharistic elements, and he wants them.

He walks back to the church, calmly, serenely, confidently. As he walks towards the altar, a soldier grabs an assault rifle and comes towards Romero as Romero kneels in front of the altar and begins to scoop up, lovingly, carefully, the wafers, the body of Christ.

Just like that, the military man starts shooting, aiming above Romero’s head. He stops, and Romero continues to gather up the body of Christ. The soldier comes over and kicks him.

Romero finishes. He leaves, eucharistic material in hand, to continue his ministry.

It is the best visual I’ve ever seen of rendering unto God what is GOd’s and rendering unto Caesar, the empire, the status quo, the things of this world, what is Caesar’s.

Your guns, your violence, your empire, your weapons, they mean nothing to me, compared to what is owed to God.
My eyes are trained on God. I don’t even see your guns. I may feel your kick, but it doesn’t touch my soul.

It is just a powerful image.

On March 23, 1989 Romero said these words to his people:
The great task of Christians must be to absorb the spirit of God’s kingdom and, with souls filled with the kingdom of God, to work on the projects of history. It’s fine to be organized in popular groups; it’s all right to form political parties; it’s all right to take part in the government. It’s fine as long as you are a christian who carries the reflection of the kingdom of God and tries to establish it where you are working, and as long as you are not being used to further worldly ambitions. This is the great duty of the people of today. My dear Christians, I have always told you, and I will repeat, that the true liberators of our people must come from us Christians, from the people of God. Any historical plan that’s not based on what we spoke of in the first point-the dignity of the human being, the love of God, the kingdom of Christ among people-will be a fleeting project. Your project, however, will grow in stability the more it reflects the eternal design of God. It will be a solution of the common good of the people every time, if it meets the needs of the people…. Now I invite you to look at things through the eyes of the church, which is trying to be the kingdom of God on earth and so often must illuminate the realities of our national situation.

I would like to make a special appeal to the men of the army, and specifically to the ranks of the National Guard, the police and the military. Brothers, you come from our own people. You are killing your own brother peasants when any human order to kill must be subordinate to the law of God which says, “Thou shalt not kill.” er. The church, the defender of the rights of God, of the law of God, of human dignity, of the person, cannot remain silent before such an abomination. In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cries rise to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you in the name of God: stop the repression.
The church preaches your liberation just as we have studied it in just as we have studied it in the holy Bible today. It is a liberation that has, above all else, respect for the dignity of the person, hope for humanity’s common good, and the transcendence that looks before all to God and only from God derives its hope and its strength.

The next day he was assassinated while saying mass, by those same soldiers. His message is ours: the church is the defender of human dignity, the defender of every person, and we cannot remain silent.