Monsignor Oscar Arnulfo Romero
MARTYR OF JUSTICE AND THE OPTION FOR THE POOR IN
XXX ANIIVERSARIO HOMILY OF BISHOP ROMERO MARTYRDOM
CATHEDRAL CRYPT OF 24 MARCH 2010 SAN SALVADOR, EL SALVADOR, CA
GREETING Dear Brother Bishops.
Dear sisters and brothers, ministers, reverends, priests, pastors, priests and nuns from different churches and congregations who have joined us this afternoon. Dear brothers and sisters in solidarity, came from all over the world.
Salvadoran sisters and brothers today we welcome.
is an undeserved privilege that we have granted This day, this Eucharist chair of the thirtieth anniversary commemoration of the Passover martyrdom of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero and Galdámez, our dear Bishop! Salvadoran sisters and brothers today we welcome.
such an honor to thank the sisters and brothers of the Comunidad Oscar Arnulfo Romero of the Cathedral Crypt, who from now will recognize that it has remained steadfast in this very place, the living memory of Romero: thanks, sisters, many thanks! Thanks also to Bishop José Luis Escobar Alas, Archbishop of San Salvador, for your kind letter of invitation. 
I greet my brothers and sisters of Christian Solidarity International Service Oscar Romero, the SICSAL, gathered these days in this House International solidarity groups and committees of Oscar Romero and is also serving thirty years of commitment to the peoples of Latin America, together with the CEIP CORCAS and Sisters and brothers, my eyes contemplate
a truly amazing and surprising event because, being in a crypt, I discover no signs of death but of life, are not revealed to me gestures of grief or apathy, but a dynamism that transmits a powerful energy that pervades this place, not I see faces of pain and grim resignation, but looks full of deep faith and hope to spread ...
is not the tomb of a man dead - killed more accurately say - that we see here, but the beacon that has guided us over the past three decades, seeking and building the Kingdom of God that Jesus came to announce.
is the same wonder that we live on Palm Sunday of thirty years ago when, together with Cardinal Corripio Ahumada and Bishop Sergio Méndez Arceo, came from Mexico to accompany the Salvadoran people at the funeral of Archbishop Romero. That
Palm Sunday that killed dozens of brothers and sisters who were brutally repressed and slaughtered by the murderous bullets came from the rooftops around the square catedral. Gente sencilla del pueblo que, a pesar de la represión, venía a contemplar por última vez el rostro sereno de su pastor, y a reconocer lo que por ellos había hecho en sus cortos tres años como arzobispo de San Salvador.
Nos asombró ese día, como lo hace ahora, la plena convicción de que, con esos acontecimientos ignominiosos, no se apagaba una luz, sino que se encendía una hoguera que nos envuelve, que nos quema y que nos consume con pasión, y que nunca podrá ser apagada. Un fuego y una luz tan potentes, que han rebasado ya las fronteras y los mares que dividen a nuestros continentes.
La llama de Romero permanecerá encendida, mientras haya una o uno de nosotros que undertakes to keep it alive, as does this community from the Crypt.
Thirty years ago the world was experiencing a crisis characterized by the imposition of a political and economic system to survive, demanded the sacrifice of thousands of women and men, making them innocent victims of greed and selfishness of a few. System to operate without "obstacles" and without "mishaps", appealed to the militarization and paramilitarization a supposedly democratic society, thus opening one of the saddest chapters of our recent history.
still stir our hearts to remember mothers who toured prisons and hospitals in search of their missing sons and daughters. Yet we are outraged to evoke the mutilated bodies dumped in landfills, eaten by predators.
still hurt us more than seventy-five thousand dead from that war that bled the "Tom Thumb of America" \u200b\u200band the thousands of martyrs and throughout Latin America who shed their blood in defense of the most basic human rights: right to a dignified life, the right to justice, the right to peace.
Not that I have the desire to open wounds that have been slowly healing, but today we can not remember Monsignor Romero out of context, as a man, as a pastor and bishop he lived, would be a breach of historical memory of the people of El Salvador and Latin America, and an insult to the families of those victims for whom he gave his life.
UNIVERSALITY OF ROMERO Romero
still living in his village as he prophesied, "but their presence is a fact and not just Episcopal Church, but also sociological, is a cultural and political (in the broad sense a word, and I hope you understand that), is part of the reality of Latin America and, more surprisingly, part of the future of herself. Must counted on to make history not only of the beloved people of El Salvador, but throughout the continent.
I mean here something that I hope will not offend our Salvadoran brothers and sisters, and I say this with love and gratitude, you were fortunate enough to live with Monsignor Romero, the privilege of feeling, to hear, and have it and care here in the cathedral ... but for the last three decades Monsignor Romero is a universal, belongs to all humanity, not owned by a group or association, his word and his work has exceeded all human boundaries. God himself, to accept his sacrifice he has made as a testimony of hope and liberation for all women and men fighting for those ideals that ultimately derive from a monitoring and continuation of Jesus in building the Kingdom.
life, thought and work of Monsignor Romero had become a true sacrament of unity and solidarity among the peoples of the world. So we are here to accompany you, to thank and recognize the universality of Monsignor!
remember how, from the day March 29, 1980, a group of American bishops signed a document which stated:
"Three things we admire and appreciate in the episcopate of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero was First, faith announcer and master of the truth ... was second, a staunch defender of justice ... Third was the friend, brother, the defender of the poor and oppressed, the peasants, workers, those living in slums. "
"Bishop Romero has been an exemplary bishop because he was a bishop of the poor on a continent that has so cruelly the mark of poverty of the majority, was inserted between them, defended their cause and suffered the same fate for them: the persecution and martyrdom. Archbishop Romero is the symbol of an entire church and a continent, real suffering servant of Yahweh who bears the sin of injustice and death of our continent. "
"... not surprised his murder continues the paper, it could only be his fate if he was faithful to Jesus, and if it really was inserted into the pain of our people. His death is not an isolated event, part of the testimony of a church in Medellin and Puebla chose, from the Gospel, the poor and oppressed. So now we understand better, since the martyrdom of Archbishop Romero, starvation and disease, permanent reality in our towns, as well as the countless martyrs, the many crosses that mark our continent in recent years: farmers, residents, workers, students , priests, pastoral agents, religious, bishops, imprisoned, tortured and killed for believing in Jesus Christ and love the poor. They are like the death of Jesus, the fruit of the injustice of men while seed of the resurrection. " (Press signed by several bishops. San Salvador March 29, 1980).
That universality has won not only on its own merits, it has been granted the universality of the innocent victims of wars, the universality of the poor of all places and all times of humanity, the universality of the People God's waiting in faith the coming of "a new world and a new heaven" OUR REALITY
live today, in the year 2010, the worsening of the crisis inherited from the last century in a new era. The economic and political system imposed by the powerful, their idols of money, profit and earnings ahead, have excluded more than seventy percent of the humanity of the benefits of wealth that belongs to everyone.
Thousands of children die every year of hunger and curable diseases, the young are being deprived of a free and liberating them away from simple networks of alcoholism, drug addiction or gangs or maras.
Technological advances do not result in welfare but the unemployment of millions of men and women desperate for not having sufficient resources to support their families with dignity. This desperation pushes tens of sisters and brothers to the perilous adventure of migration ... are known stories of abuse, violence and death and suffering of the migrants who fall into the trafficking networks or police forces or paramilitaries.
MNCs mercilessly devour the planet's natural resources, regardless of the health and welfare of this and future generations.
Institutional violence reached new levels in all our countries, the gangs of drug traffickers, gangs, gangs, join the corrupt police forces, the white guards, paramilitary groups and sectors army, enjoying impunity, causing terror and violent death among the civilian population.
The criminalization of social protest and the persecution of social leaders, on the one hand, and the harassment and persecution of defenders of human rights, on the other hand, speaks of a repressive state that changes the speech, but not methods of repression against the people organized
OPTION
Archbishop Oscar Romero Archbishop Oscar Romero was well aware of this violence:
When he was appointed Archbishop of San Salvador, the country already experiencing a situation of repression and persecution clear committed sectors society and the Church.
lived the kidnapping, torture, exile and murder of several of its priests, religious, catechists and lay people involved
This, as we know, paid on your personal conversion process, but what most influenced this was the clear option for the poor and the victims who came to him looking for a word of comfort and liberation. That word was captured decisively in his homilies. They were words that spoke the truth, and so killed him like they killed Jesus by speaking the truth and being himself the truth revealed by the Father, says the Gospel of St. John.
a truth to us women and men truly free, must incarnate and must be updated in the concrete reality of each people and every community.
to Monsignor Romero, like many fellow bishops, the Gospel, the Magisterium of the Church, the documents of Vatican II, Medellín and Puebla were a mirror which reflected his own pastoral projects and their own choice " Thinking with the Church ", the universal church, the Church of the poor, the Church of Jesus. But the documents make no Church, the Church is made when the Gospel and the Magisterium are rooted in the community that reads it, reflects that which puts into practice.
humbly Monsignor recognized their limits and the human condition, his spiritual diary tells of his fears and concerns, but also an abiding faith and a consistency between his thinking, his words and his daily actions. This coherence
gave all the moral authority to denounce and demand from the Gospel, a true rule of law, respecting human dignity and justice to implement expeditiously and impartially.
So his word is as valid, so today I venture to paraphrase what was said in one of their homilies, to tell our governments of the twenty-first century:
"reforms are useless if they are stained with much blood; are useless changing flags of parties in power, called for democratic elections, if these changes only serve to perpetuate this system of death ... governments are useless emanating from the opposition, if not fight to fund the structural violence that comes from the same powerful economic and military and government agencies themselves that have been perpetuated in power ... "
Time of organized civil society that claims for itself the right to govern, the right to give the authorities deserve the right to fully exercise their sovereignty by applying a justice that impunity does not leave many crimes committed in the name of a supposed democracy and an apparent freedom. The right of children, youth and women to be taken into account in these patriarchal societies, the law of the land and nature to be respected. The future is in our hands, brothers and sisters and not in the hands of corrupt politicians or military coup.
So read Monsignor Romero, at the time and clearly, "the subversive witness of the Beatitudes that have turned around" and realized that he had to remove violence from their bases, structural violence, social injustice. And so it is the duty of the Church "to clarify the mechanisms that breeds poverty." The preferential option for the poor is an invitation for the Church as a whole, but also for every follower of Christ. "The Christian who does not want to live this commitment of solidarity with the poor, is not worthy of the name Christian," he said, adding, "the poor have marked so the real journey of the Church. A Church that does not bind to the poor from the poor to denounce the injustices they commit, it is not true Church of Jesus Christ. " (Homily, 23 September 1979).
recognized in this, his own behalf as the Archbishop: "This report, created a duty to make in my capacity as pastor of the people who suffer injustice. I is imposed by the Gospel for which I am willing to face the process and prison. " (Homily, May 14, 1978). FAREWELL
Sisters and brothers,
This Mass, processions, pilgrimages and processions, meetings and international, ecumenical unity of churches, conferences, festivals, participation of children and youth from all over El Salvador, the various events and celebrations today, taken in many countries in Europe, America and Black Africa, remembering the life and work of Monsignor Romero, tell us about the validity and strength of their testimony.
We are thrilled and his words lead us to face this crisis with courage that we talked, we encourage even face the possibility of death as he faced:
"I must say that as a Christian, I do not believe in death without resurrection, if they kill me, I will rise again in the Salvadoran people ..."
"As I am obliged pastor, by divine mandate, to give his life for those I love are all Salvadorans, even for those who will kill me. If the threats were to be met, since I offer God my blood for the redemption and resurrection of El Salvador. "
"Martyrdom is a grace of God that I deserve, but if God accepts the sacrifice of my life, my blood be the seed of freedom and a sign that hope will be soon become a reality ... "
God rewarded him with the palm of martyrdom and sacrifice welcomed by placing it next to the cross of Jesus and God, who keeps his promises, has risen and the struggles and walking the Salvadoran people, the Latin American people and the people internationalist solidarity.
Therefore, we have no doubt he had a prophetic sense of his life and character which had its martyrs death. So, near the village, next to the victims and the poor whom he served, nor do we doubt his holiness, which will eventually be officially declared, not by merit and by human actions, as we have said, but by the action same Spirit.
In it we see that in Latin America began a new era in which Christians, dying for the faith, giving his life for justice. That was the truth of Romero, this is the truth of the Gospel, that is the truth that sets us free! That
Monsignor Romero, our San Romero of America, along with Monsignor Proaño, with Monsignor Gerardi, with Sergio and Angelleli follow in Hope illuminating the causes of the poor, justice and the Kingdom of dignity and justice for everyone.
In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.
+ Samuel Ruiz Garcia.
S. Bishop Emeritus Cristobal de las Casas Chiapas, Mexico. Honorary President of SICSAL
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