February 3, 2015
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis (click here) decreed Tuesday that slain Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero was killed in 1980 out of hatred for his Catholic faith, approving a martyrdom declaration that sets the stage for his beatification.
Francis, the first Latin American pope, approved the decree honoring one of the heroes of Latin American Christians at a meeting with the head of the Vatican's saint-making office.
Romero, the archbishop of San Salvador, was gunned down by right-wing death squads March 24, 1980,...
Archbishop Romero was internationally recognized.
Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez (August 15, 1917 - March 24, 1980) (click here) was a prominent Roman Catholic priest in El Salvador during the 1960s and 1970s becoming Archbishop of San Salvador in 1977. After witnessing numerous violations of human rights, he began to speak out on behalf of the poor and the victims of repression. This led to numerous conflicts, both with the government in El Salvador and within the Catholic Church. After speaking out against U.S. military support for the government of El Salvador, and calling for soldiers to disobey orders to fire on innocent civilians, Archbishop Romero was shot dead while celebrating Mass at the small chapel of the cancer hospital where he lived....
He was a post humerous Nobel Peace Prize winner. Not to give the wrong impression of the Roman Catholic Church, Archbishop Romero was saving lives. He was ministering to the poor in El Salvador during a time when government corruption, land abuses and combat altercations between those that were powerful. The USA was backing the official government in arming the troops when El Salvador was in civil war. El Salvador had been in conflict for decades. But, this was different this time..
The problem arose that the poor became homeless. Land was taken over to insure the standing government had control. The removal of El Salvadorians from the land was named "The Football War." The people were nameless and faceless and they literally had no place to be. It was a four day maneuver with wide ranging impacts including adversity in the El Salvador and Honduras. The years was 1969. The poverty of the people became institutionalized and was permanent from that time forward.
The Archbishop placed himself at the center of the poverty and asked for help. He asked the Vatican and when the Vatican had no answers, he criticized the USA to end the conflict that was being fueled by munitions coming from USA contractors. He didn't have help from anyone. He was at the center of the poverty and his only ally was the poor. He took his position and told the people where they were in the eyes of God. He instilled faith in their hearts, but, also talked about the reality of their conditions so they knew this was not their fault, but, that of the government and powers they had no method to act against. He made people with power angry. Their anger ended his life.
...1979
Oscar visited the Pope in Rome (click here) and outlined to him, with evidence, the injustices which were part of life in El Salvador. He did not have much support within the church, and was under threat from those outside it. He spoke out against the USA-financed security forces, and became too much of a threat to the government.
1980
He was shot dead while celebrating mass. His last words were: 'May God have mercy on the assassin.'
1981
Oscar Romero was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (having been nominated in 1978).
There are many lessons from the death of Archbishop Romero. His frustrations were obvious and his power vacuum too much to bear. He was in a country he loved that had been removed from it's moorings. No one listened, except, the people he ministered to and they were powerless to change their outcomes. Did his life count?
...Just weeks before his murder, (click here) Archbishop Romero published an open letter to President Jimmy Carter in the Salvadoran press, asking the United States not to intervene in El Salvador’s fate by arming brutal security forces against a popular opposition movement. Romero warned that U.S. support would only “sharpen the injustice and repression against the organizations of the people which repeatedly have been struggling to gain respect for their fundamental human rights.” Despite his plea, President Carter moved to approve $5 million in military aid less than one year after the archbishop’s murder, as Carter was leaving office in January 1981.
Included in the posting are documents reporting on a secret, behind-the-scene effort by the United States to enlist the Vatican in pressuring Romero over his perceived support for the Salvadoran left; an account of the archbishop’s powerful March 23, 1980, homily, given the day before his assassination; a description of the murder by the U.S. defense attaché in El Salvador; and an extraordinary embassy cable describing a meeting organized by rightist leader Roberto D’Aubuisson in which participants draw lots to determine who would be the triggerman to kill Romero....
The Archbishop was completely disregarded among any authority that influenced the civil war. The Archbishop wanted the violence to stop. He was actually seeking a power sharing government, but, that concept wasn't considered a valued aspect of any peace settlement. In those years there was war or no war; but, nothing in between. The Archbishop wanted the killing to end and in his own way without official definition was calling the people to come together and for the powerful to have mercy on the poor.
... In 1980 a series of failed military juntas took power, (click here) but none were able to quell the violence. By 1981, leftist guerrillas and political groups jointed forces, forming the FMLN. Then, throughout the 1980s civil war was waged between the FMLN and the U.S.-backed Salvadoran military forces. Increased international attention to the fighting led to an investigation by the U.S. Congress into the conflict and, eventually, the UN intervened to help mediate a resolution upon request of the two warring parties. The Commission on the Truth for El Salvador was mandated by the January 16, 1992 U.N.-brokered peace agreements that ended the war. The commission was set up in July....
From the peace agreement. This was the military the USA built. I was dismantled into a peaceful force to protect the sovereignty of the country that insured the well being of each citizen.
Reduction (click here)
There are many lessons from the death of Archbishop Romero. His frustrations were obvious and his power vacuum too much to bear. He was in a country he loved that had been removed from it's moorings. No one listened, except, the people he ministered to and they were powerless to change their outcomes. Did his life count?
...Just weeks before his murder, (click here) Archbishop Romero published an open letter to President Jimmy Carter in the Salvadoran press, asking the United States not to intervene in El Salvador’s fate by arming brutal security forces against a popular opposition movement. Romero warned that U.S. support would only “sharpen the injustice and repression against the organizations of the people which repeatedly have been struggling to gain respect for their fundamental human rights.” Despite his plea, President Carter moved to approve $5 million in military aid less than one year after the archbishop’s murder, as Carter was leaving office in January 1981.
Included in the posting are documents reporting on a secret, behind-the-scene effort by the United States to enlist the Vatican in pressuring Romero over his perceived support for the Salvadoran left; an account of the archbishop’s powerful March 23, 1980, homily, given the day before his assassination; a description of the murder by the U.S. defense attaché in El Salvador; and an extraordinary embassy cable describing a meeting organized by rightist leader Roberto D’Aubuisson in which participants draw lots to determine who would be the triggerman to kill Romero....
The Archbishop was completely disregarded among any authority that influenced the civil war. The Archbishop wanted the violence to stop. He was actually seeking a power sharing government, but, that concept wasn't considered a valued aspect of any peace settlement. In those years there was war or no war; but, nothing in between. The Archbishop wanted the killing to end and in his own way without official definition was calling the people to come together and for the powerful to have mercy on the poor.
... In 1980 a series of failed military juntas took power, (click here) but none were able to quell the violence. By 1981, leftist guerrillas and political groups jointed forces, forming the FMLN. Then, throughout the 1980s civil war was waged between the FMLN and the U.S.-backed Salvadoran military forces. Increased international attention to the fighting led to an investigation by the U.S. Congress into the conflict and, eventually, the UN intervened to help mediate a resolution upon request of the two warring parties. The Commission on the Truth for El Salvador was mandated by the January 16, 1992 U.N.-brokered peace agreements that ended the war. The commission was set up in July....
From the peace agreement. This was the military the USA built. I was dismantled into a peaceful force to protect the sovereignty of the country that insured the well being of each citizen.
Reduction (click here)
The new situation of peace shall include the reduction of the armed forces to a size appropriate to their doctrine and to the functions assigned to them by the Constitution within the framework of the constitutional reform resulting from the Mexico Agreements. Accordingly, pursuant to the New York Agreement, the Government has submitted to the Secretary-General of the United Nations a
plan for the reduction of the armed forces, which the Secretary-General
has made known to FMLN. The implementation of the plan must have the pr
actical consequence of making reductions in the various branches of the armed forces.
Chapter 2 established a national civil police, Chapter 3 and 4 are not in the digital record, Chapter 5 addresses the problem with the land and how farmers needed to work the land to feed the people, Chapter 6 recognizes the political party FMLN and removed all political prisoners to a citizen status and Chapter 7 ends the conflict. Chapters that follow outlines the enforcement of the peace agreement by the United Nations.
Did life matter? Ultimately the Archbishops demands were met by intervention of the United Nations. He gave his life to bring awareness and urgency to the need for peace. His life mattered. His impact is immeasurable. He deserves the recognition by Pope Francis.
Archbishop Romero is among the modern day recognition of a martyr that changed the face of an entire country. He is a controversial figure, because he took the challenge of the poor to a higher level than simply supporting them through faith. He is no less a saint for the life and passions he had against a superpower and the government it backed that caused the deaths of innocent civilians in El Salvador.
