Liberation Theology- Contemporary People, Kevan and Daniel

Oscar Romero became the archbishop of El Salvador in 19the late 1970s. El Salvador was in the midst of a government supported civil war. The police, the army and paramilitary militias throuought the country had executed tens of thousands of people. Hundreds of thousands were homeless and even more were fleeing the country. To understand Oscar Romero, we must first understand El Salvador.

El Salvador had been a part of the Spain’s American empire until revolutionaries began the liberation of South and Central America. Initially, El Salvador was a democracy modeled upon the United States, at least until coffee and other cash crops dominated the Salvadorian economy. Private corporate interests began to seize huge tracts of land, expelling and enslaving the previous occupants. By the beginning of the 20^th century, fourteen families controlled El Salvador. Over 90% of the population were virtual serfs, forced to work on plantations, or were starving urban poor.

Labor disputes flared throughout El Salvador; the government suppressed these strikes and attempted revolutions brutally. Dissidents were labeled Communists, and by the 1970s the United States was giving El Salvador millions of dollars to combat Communist influence both in El Salvador and in nearby Nicaragua. The government of El Salvador sanctioned kidnapping, assassination, bombings, disappearances, massacres and other brutal methods to suppress the people.

Oscar Romero was born in El Salvador. Desiring to be a priest, he studied in Italy and the Vatican. He returned to El Salvador, but was forced to spend several months in a detention camp in Cuba due to security considerations. Romero rose swiftly in the ranks of the Church, eventually becoming the Archbishop of San Salvador.

Initially, Romero ignored the social disaster that plagued his country. One of the main reasons the government allowed him to rise in the church was due to his outspoken conservatism. Romero mainly focused on the problems of drinking, gambling, pornography and prostitution in El Salvador, and turned a blind eye to the massacres in the city and country.

He didn’t stay silent for long.

The first shock came when the National Guard attacked a village in Romero’s diocese, butchering people with machetes and executing others. The next blow came when the Army opened fire on unarmed protesters. The final strike came when a militia assassinated a personal friend, Father Rutilio Grande, and a young boy and an old man. Grande had been trying to organize the peasants.

Romero’s first act was to excommunicate the killers and to deliver a message condemning the violence in El Salvador. Romero spent the last years of his life working to aid the people of El Salvador. Romero’s final message was to the men in the army, telling them that the government was violating God’s law, begging them to mutiny and join the peasants.

Romero was assassinated in his church, after morning mass. The gunman was never captured. A bomb exploded at Romero’s funeral, and sharpshooters fired on the large crowd of mourners

Romero’s life at first seems a failure. Nothing really changed and he was killed in the end. Romero died the death of a martyr, giving aid and comfort to the people. Romero never resorted to violence in the face of massive injustice; he spoke comfort to those that had been hurt by the government. Romero did everything in his power to bring the aid of the Church to the people. He even went as far as to write President Carter a letter, asking him to cut off funding to the El Salvadorian government. Above all, Romero did everything he could to restore hope to a bleak El Salvador, defending the poor and vulnerable