Thirty-one years ago today Oscar Romero was assassinated. Obama’s visit to the archbishop’s tomb has drawn added attention to that anniversary.
Obama visits grave of slain Salvadoran archbishop – LA Times Politics
Although many see Romero as a priest deserving of sainthood, his enemies see him as a political figure and tool of the left. His is a figure that in many ways encapsulates still-simmering tensions of the civil war that ended by United Nations-brokered peace accords 20 years ago. Salvadoran president Funes said Obama’s visit was an important recognition of El Salvador’s “historic” democratic transition — a right-wing party that governed for nearly two decades handed power peacefully to a leftist coalition of former guerrillas after elections in 2009 — and its struggle to build a new economic model less dependent on remittances.
Obama at Romero’s tomb: The politics of liberation – Religious Dispatches
After he was appointed archbishop in 1977, the repression of the rural poor escalated, and Romero was profoundly affected by their suffering. Romero came to see the preferential option for the poor as the defending of life itself. His sympathy towards the poor and oppressed grew, and he began to openly criticize injustice and violence. He saw the Church that encompasses the passion of Christ in the passion of oppressed peoples. Most important in light of today’s visit, however, is Romero’s belief that Christianity is in its core political.
On anniversary of Archbishop Romero’s death, bishops call U.S. to do more for Latin America – US Conference of Catholic Bishops
“Archbishop Romero defended the rights of poor and marginalized persons of his day,” remarked Archbishop José Gomez, of Los Angeles, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Migration. “Today, moved by his example, we urge the President and the Congress to reach out to those at the margins of our society by adopting comprehensive immigration reform.”
The last stanza of a poem by Romero
We may never see the end results,
but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders,
ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.