St. Oscar Romero

Who they were

Oscar Romero was named Archbishop of San Salvador in 1977 precisely because he was expected to trouble no one: a bookish, cautious conservative in a country sliding into state terror. Three weeks later his friend Rutilio Grande, a Jesuit serving campesinos, was machine gunned on a rural road, and Romero drove out to stand over the body.

What the safe candidate did next made him the most dangerous man in El Salvador. His Sunday homilies, broadcast by radio when the press was censored, became the one place the country could hear the week's disappearances and killings named aloud, one by one. Warned constantly, he refused protection. On 23 March 1980 he preached directly to the soldiers: in the name of God, and in the name of this suffering people, I beg you, I implore you, I order you, stop the repression. The next evening, celebrating Mass in a hospital chapel, he was killed by a single shot at the altar. He was canonized in 2018, his feast is the day of his death, and the United Nations marks it as the international day for the right to the truth.

Why people turn to St. Oscar Romero

The persecuted, and the families of the disappeared. Devotion to Romero is enormous wherever people have vanished into state violence. And, quietly, everyone who was cautious for fifty years and suspects their moment is asking more.

How to ask their intercession

His own counsel to the frightened was to stay close to the people and to the altar. Ask his prayers for the specific place your voice is being asked for, and for his late arriving, total courage.