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| Oscar Romero (2013) by J. Puig Reixach |
THE FIFTH STEP OF SILENCE
Saint
Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez (August 15, 1917-March 24, 1980) was the fourth
Archbishop of San Salvador who was assassinated for his outspokenness by agents
of the political right wing of El Salvador. He spoke out against structural poverty,
social injustice, assassinations, and torture. In 1993 the Truth Commission for
El Salvador, created under the auspices of the United Nations, identified Roberto
D’Aubuisson, a right-wing politician and death squad leader, as responsible for
giving the order to kill Romero.
Franciscan Media Biography
The
night before he was murdered while celebrating Mass, Archbishop Oscar Romero of
San Salvador said on the radio: “I would like to appeal in a special way to the
men of the army, and in particular to the troops of the National Guard, the
police, and the garrisons. Brothers, you belong to our own people. You kill
your own brother peasants; and in the face of an order to kill that is given by
a man, the law of God that says ‘Do not kill!’ should prevail.
“No
soldier is obliged to obey an order counter to the law of God. No one has to
comply with an immoral law. It is the time now that you recover your conscience
and obey its dictates rather than the command of sin. … Therefore, in the name
of God, and in the name of this long-suffering people, whose laments rise to
heaven every day more tumultuous, I beseech you, I beg you, I command you! In
the name of God: ‘Cease the repression!’”
Simultaneously,
Romero had eloquently upheld the gospel and effectively signed his own death
warrant.
When
he was appointed archbishop of San Salvador in 1977, Bishop Romero was
considered a very “safe” choice. He had served as auxiliary bishop there for
four years before his three years as bishop of Santiago de Maria.
Oscar’s
father wanted him to be a carpenter—a trade for which he demonstrated some
talent. Seminary classes in El Salvador preceded his studies at Rome’s
Gregorian University and his ordination in 1942. After earning a doctorate in
ascetical theology, he returned home and became a parish priest and later
rector of an inter-diocesan seminary.
Three
weeks after his appointment as archbishop, Romero was shaken by the murder of
his good friend Jesuit Father Rutilio Grande, a vigorous defender of the rights
of the poor. Five more priests were assassinated in the Archdiocese of San
Salvador during Romero’s years as its shepherd.
When
a military junta seized control of the national government in 1979, Archbishop
Romero publicly criticized the US government for backing the junta. His weekly
radio sermons, broadcast throughout the country, were regarded by many as the
most trustworthy source of news available.
Romero’s
funeral was celebrated in the plaza outside the cathedral and drew an estimated
250,000 mourners.
His
tomb in the cathedral crypt soon drew thousands of visitors each year. On
February 3, 2015, Pope Francis authorized a decree recognizing Oscar Romero as
a martyr for the faith. His beatification took place in San Salvador on May 23,
2015. He was canonized on October 14, 2018.
See:
https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-oscar-arnulfo-romero/
—“Saint Oscar Arnulfo Romero,” Franciscan Media, March 24, 2019
Quotes
“Each one of you has to be God’s microphone. Each one of you has to be a messenger, a prophet. …Wherever there is someone who has been baptized, that is where the church is. There is a prophet there. Let us not hide the talent that God gave us on the day of our baptism and let us truly live the beauty and responsibility of being a prophetic people.”
“Each one of you has to be God’s microphone. Each one of you has to be a messenger, a prophet. …Wherever there is someone who has been baptized, that is where the church is. There is a prophet there. Let us not hide the talent that God gave us on the day of our baptism and let us truly live the beauty and responsibility of being a prophetic people.”
“Here
there is a challenge from Christ to the goodness of humankind. It is not enough
to be good. It is not enough to not do evil. My Christianity is something more
positive; it is not a negative. There are many who say, ‘But I don’t kill, I
don’t steal, I don’t do anything bad to anyone.’ That’s not enough. You are
still lacking a great deal. It is not enough to be good.”
“There
are not two categories of people. There are not some who were born to have
everything and leave others with nothing and a majority that has nothing and
can’t enjoy the happiness that God has created for all. God wants a Christian
society, one in which we share the good things that God has given for all of
us.”
“If
we are worth anything, it is not because we have more money or more talent, or
more human qualities. Insofar as we are worth anything, it is because we are
grafted onto Christ’s life, his cross and resurrection. That is a person’s
measure.”
—ISN Staff, “Man as God’s Microphone: 11 Quotes to Celebrate the Life and Voice of Oscar Romero,” Ignatian Solidarity Network, August 13, 2014
“A
church that does not provoke any crisis, preach a gospel that does not
unsettle, proclaim a word of God that does not get under anyone’s skin or a
word of God that does not touch the real sin of the society in which it is
being proclaimed: what kind of gospel is that?”
“The
church must suffer for speaking the truth, for pointing out sin, for uprooting
sin. No one wants to have a sore spot touched, and therefore a society with so
many sores twitches when someone has the courage to touch it and say: ‘You have
to treat that. You have to get rid of that. Believe in Christ. Be converted.’”
“Those
who, in the Biblical phrase, would save their lives—that is, those who want to
get along, who don’t want commitments, who don’t want to get into problems, who
want to stay outside of a situation that demands the involvement of all of
us—they will lose their lives. What a terrible thing to have lived quite
comfortably, with no suffering, not getting involved in problems, quite
tranquil, quite settled, with good connections politically, economically,
socially—lacking nothing, having everything—to what good? They will lose their
lives.”
—“Oscar A. Romero > Quotes,” goodreads
“If
my person is repulsive to some, who would therefore silence my voice, let them
not look at me, but at him who bids me tell them: Love one another! It is not
me they hear, but the Lord, who is love and wants to make us his own by the
sign of his love.”
“When
the truth is spoken, it gives offense, and the voices that speak the truth are
put to silence.”
—The Violence of Love: Oscar Romero,
compiled and translated by James R. Brockman, S.J., foreword by Henri Nouwen
(New York: The Plough Publishing House, 2011)
The
fifth step of silence is a contradiction in terms. It is to speak out against
injustice and oppression, according to the fourth beatitude, “Blessed are they
who hunger and thirst for justice.” It is to imitate Christ in his public life
of prophecy.
Image courtesy of J. Puig Reixach
ReplyDeleteImage link:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oscar_Romero_by_puigreixach.jpg
Gonzalinho
POLITICAL MORALITY
ReplyDeleteThe moral dimension of politics is poorly addressed in our education system, yet political actions have the capacity to inflict grave and far-reaching moral evil affecting millions and millions. Morality that is taught in our private Roman Catholic schools in particular focuses on the moral actions of the individual and generally neglects to take up the morality of political actions that affect many millions. Politics has far-reaching, dramatic, life-altering effects on masses of people so that political morality demonstrates a structural character. Politics is the enabler and perpetrator of social sin. It is according to this aspect that politics strikes at the very core of our moral life, competing directly with individual allegiance to God's law.
Link:
https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2019/06/placeholder-2-of-4.html
Gonzalinho
When you become silent in the face of tyranny, you relinquish a portion of your freedom to oppressors. When you look away when confronted with injustice, you become an accomplice to it...
ReplyDeleteJamela Alindogan, @jamelaaisha
Philippine Daily Inquirer (June 13, 2019)
Gonzalinho
“We know that every effort to better a society, especially one that is so enmeshed in injustice and in sin, is an effort that God blesses, that God desires, that God demands of us.”—Saint Oscar Romero
ReplyDeleteThe source of this quote documented as follows:
Oscar Romero “…was assassinated as he concluded his homily on March 24, 1980.
“…James R. Brockman, S.J., author of Romero: A Life (Orbis Books) and editor/translator of Romero's The Violence of Love (Harper), reexamined the tape recording of Archbishop Romero's homily and published the following translation of it in the March 28, 1992, issue of America….”
See this link, America (October 12, 2018):
https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2018/10/12/homily-oscar-romero-was-delivering-when-he-was-killed
Gonzalinho
“A church that does not provoke any crisis, preach a gospel that does not unsettle, proclaim a word of God that does not get under anyone’s skin or a word of God that does not touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed: what kind of gospel is that?”
ReplyDelete—Saint Oscar Romero, Radio Sermon, January 14, 1979
“Those who, in the Biblical phrase, would save their lives—that is, those who want to get along, who don’t want commitments, who don’t want to get into problems, who want to stay outside of a situation that demands the involvement of all of us—they will lose their lives. What a terrible thing to have lived quite comfortably, with no suffering, not getting involved in problems, quite tranquil, quite settled, with good connections politically, economically, socially—lacking nothing, having everything—to what good? They will lose their lives.”
—Saint Oscar Romero, The Violence of Love (1988)
Always a good practice to locate the sources, although I can’t always find the time.
Gonzalinho
THE FIFTH STEP OF SILENCE
ReplyDeleteThe fifth step of silence is a contradiction in terms. It is to speak out against injustice and oppression, according to the fourth beatitude, “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice.” It is to imitate Christ in his public life of prophecy.
To speak out—a type of action—against injustice and oppression springs from our deep interior silence, our union with God in prayer. We are stricken by a moral imperative, the compulsion of Jeremiah the prophet. In our prayer, outrage and confusion is met with understanding, clarity, affirmation, wisdom, anointing, and courage, according to the providence of God. We are touched and called, as it were, like the prophets of old.
Gonzalinho
“Whoever speaks on his own seeks his own glory, but whoever seeks the glory of the one who sent him is truthful, and there is no wrong in him.”—John 7:18
ReplyDeleteGonzalinho