Today marks the 30th anniversary of the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador by paramilitary trained here at the U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA) in Ft. Benning, GA. It's sickening. Having visited El Salvador a couple of times and having seen the chapel where Romero was shot dead while delivering mass (the Hollywood version doesn't exaggerate the gruesome reality), I feel connected to this modern martyr if by Catholic proximity only. The Jesuit institutions of my high school, undergraduate and graduate education have pumped Catholic social justice teaching into my veins for the past thirteen years. I found an excellent article on the National Catholic Reporter's website about the life of Romero and his influence in the Catholic Church and on the Christian imagination.Lent opens on Ash Wednesday with the command that we are to remember that we are from dust and will again return to dust ... so, in the words of poet Mary Oliver,
Tell me, what is it you plan to dowith your one wild and precious life?
RESOURCES:
Paulo Friere, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Continuum, 2000)
Marie Dennis, Renny Golden, Scott Wright, Oscar Romero: Reflections on His Life and Writings (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2000)
That article was lovely, a really simple but moving summary of Romero's work in those times. I think it's a great reminder that we as humans are not always perfect and don't always make the best choices for ourselves and for our world, but that we always have the capacity to change. This life is unbelievably precious, and it's easy to want to hold on to what feels safe and comfortable, but it is wild! It's always changing and exciting and the world today offers so many ways to live it to the fullest. Beautiful.
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