Saint Oscar Romero on The Violence of Love.

The violence we preach is not the violence of the sword, the violence of hatred. It is the violence of love, of brotherhood, the violence that wills to beat weapons into sickles for work —Archbishop Oscar Romero, November 27, 1977 [1].

We follow the nun down a narrow street as her habit, a shimmering, heavenly white, flutters in the breeze.  She opens what appears to be a large, old, wooden door. Inside is a small courtyard.  She gestures to a wall covered with numerous plaques dedicated to the late Archbishop, Oscar Romero. “These plaques were on his grave because people asked for favours from God through Monsenor,” she says. She leads us to a library, where his homilies are kept, as well as four pastoral letters, and his identification cards.

The Carmelite nun is demure but her smile, as well as her voice, is fixed with a resolve and a gentle confidence as she describes the home of the Archbishop. “Here is his bedroom,” she says. We enter and the camera pans right and reveals a small bed, a cot, really, against the wall. “He would offer this little bed to visitors to stay the night. He would tell them ‘Stay the night, don’t leave this late! The neighbourhood is a bit dangerous. You could get mugged. I will sleep in the other room. I have my hammock.’”

In another corner, under a window, there is a tiny desk with a washed-out green IBM Executive typewriter, a cassette recorder that resembles a portable radio, and a telephone. “On that typewriter he wrote all his documents, his homilies…and he recorded his diary every night on that tape recorder.”

So begins the feature-length documentary, Monsenor, The Last Journey of Oscar Romero [2].  It chronicles the last three years of the life of the Salvadoran Archbishop–once a conservative cleric, a friend of the wealthy–who became the voice of the poor, the powerless, the oppressed. A voice that was fearless in declaring God’s love for everyone, including the powerless–a voice that rang loud through a time of massive social upheaval, widespread human rights abuses, bloodshed, and incredible loss of life.  It was a voice that could not be silenced even after six of his priests were brutally assassinated in a two year period. A voice that would continue to live through his fellow Salvadorans, decades after his death.

El Salvador, 1931–1980

By the early 1930s, El Salvador was at the end of a sixty year period of government monopolized by a small group of coffee barons.  A coup in December of 1931 installed General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez as president.  Barely a month later Hernandez brutally suppressed a farmworker revolt, organized by the recently formed Salvadoran Communist Party [3]. After the brutal suppression, Hernandez ordered the summary execution of over 10,000 suspected participants.  La Mantaza (or ‘the slaughter’) was a pivotal chapter in Salvadoran history, and highlighted, for the landed elite, the importance of a close allegiance with the military. This relationship was to continue until the outbreak of civil war almost fifty years later, in 1979.

In 1964 José Napoleón Duarte was elected mayor of El Salvador’s capital and largest city, San Salvador.  His popularity and that of his party, the Christian Democratic Party, was seen as a direct threat to military editorships.  In the 1972 general ‘election’ however the alliance he headed was crushed by his opponent, Col. Arturo Armando Molina.  Duarte was later arrested and then exiled to Venezuela [4].

The 1970s saw growing social unrest in El Salvador. Strikes and demonstrations, representing the poor, peasants, labour unions, and those locked out of the power structure, became more pronounced.  Reports of the government’s brutal attempts to put down the protests increased. As human rights abuses and instances of social injustice increased, the cries of the suffering grew louder. In addition, members of the Catholic Church, who had traditionally defended El Salvador’s rulers, increasingly sided with the poor, and openly condemned the social injustice that routinely went unchecked.

In February 20, 1977 General Carlos Humberto Romero, a staunch anti-Communist, was elected president, amid reports of massive fraud and voter intimidation [5].  Romero backed the use of military force to halt the actions of the opposition, including labour unions, peasants, students, and priests. Two days later, the other Romero, Father Oscar Romero, was appointed Archbishop of San Salvador.

Romero

Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Ghadames was born on August 15, 1917, in the town of Ciudad Barrios. Apprenticed by his father as a carpenter at age 13 [6], he instead followed his calling to become a Catholic priest. He studied in El Salvador and in Rome and was ordained in 1942.  Romero was a parish priest until 1970 when he became an auxiliary bishop in San Salvador. In 1974 the Vatican appointed him to the diocese of Santiago de María, a poor, rural region.  At this time, Romero was seen as a conservative–at odds with the church’s growing identification with the poor, and with the Second Vatican Council’s resolution regarding those in poverty and the abuse of human rights. When Pope Paul VI appointed him Archbishop of San Salvador, his selection did not initially sit well with some of the clergy, who had sided with the poor, in opposition to the wealthy land owners.

El Salvador and Human Rights

In a report dated November 17, 1978, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, (IACHR) under the auspices of the Organization of American States (OAS), issued its findings of an investigation it had conducted of alleged human rights abuses in El Salvador. The report was conducted in response to ‘communications’ it had received regarding such abuses.  It documented arrests, disappearances, beatings, near starvation while in detention, and killings. Despite the government’s denials the Commission issued its findings which were in stark contrast to the government’s response to the allegations. It provided explicit and detailed information on specific cases. In a chapter on ‘The Right to Physical Liberty’ for instance, the report issued eleven specific resolutions to the Salvadoran government, including the following:

‘To declare that the Commission has in its possession unequivocal proof that Sergio V. Arriaza, Juan José Yañez, Lil Milagro Ramírez, Ricardo Arrieta, Carlos Antonio Madriz and Luis Bonilla were detained and tortured by agents of the Government of El Salvador and there is fear for their personal security.

‘To point out to the government of El Salvador that such acts constitute very severe violations of the right to personal security (Art. I), the right to a fair trial (Art. XVIII), the right of protection against arbitrary arrest (Art. XXV) and the right to due process of law (Art. XXVI) of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man.

‘These unjustified and prolonged detentions, which have not been acknowledged by the Government of El Salvador, are not only a serious violation of the right to the physical liberty of individuals, of the right to a fair trial, of the right to protection against arbitrary arrest, and of the right to due process of the law, buy may also provoke other crimes, particularly torture and assaults. [7].

In Monsenor, The Last Journey of Oscar Romero, the producers interview persons who relate stories of atrocities suffered by their loved ones.  Terrorized by the possibility of being taken, people in the rural areas would not dare sleep in their homes at night, but would escape instead to the surrounding mountains.

Catholic Church

This abuse of human rights occurred at a time of dramatic change in the Catholic Church in Latin America.  In September of 1968 a Conference of Latin American Bishops was held in Medellin, Colombia.  The bishops met to ‘discuss local implementation of the recommendations of the Second Vatican Council [8].

The bishops resolved to implement the recommendations of Vatican II, in essence to side with the poor in their ‘struggle for social justice’, instead of the Church’s traditional support of the status quo [9] — (or, put more directly, the wealthy and the powerful).

By 1977 one priest who had embraced the bishops’ resolution was Romero’s close friend, Father Rutilio Grande.

Father Rutilio Grande

Rutilio Grande was the first Jesuit priest in El Salvador [10].  Father Grande had come to align himself firmly with the poor–playing football (or North American soccer) with his parishioners, and making the gospel relatable. “He told us that the kingdom of God was not in heaven, it was here on earth,” says a farmworker and union activist. He compared the lives of the Salvadoran poor to the plight of the Israelites when they were slaves in Egypt, a comparison that was meaningful to the people, a comparison with which they could relate. But that wasn’t all. He encouraged them to organize, to fight for better wages. To fight for their rights. God, the Bible, would be on their side, he said, just like He was on the side of the people of Israel.

On Saturday, March 12, 1977, Father Grande’s body, riddled with bullet holes, was found on the road to Aguilares, a rural area that he served as parish priest. The bodies of an older man and a young boy lay nearby.

Let us not forget we are a pilgrim church, subject to misunderstanding, to persecution, but a church that walks serene because it bears the force of love —Archbishop Oscar Romero, Monday, March 14, 1977 [11].

It was as if the brutal murder of his dear friend gave birth to a new Archbishop Romero.  In the aftermath of the murder, despite cries of protest from some of his fellow priests and after much soul searching, the Archbishop did three things. First, he refused to participate in government functions until Father Grande’s murder was investigated. Second, he closed the Catholic schools and broadcast over the radio stories of Father Grande. And lastly, after consulting with bishops and other religious leaders, he cancelled all masses throughout the archdiocese of El Salvador the Sunday after the murder, and held one mass—La Misa Unica—at the Metropolitan Cathedral [12]. Over a hundred thousand people attended, with many more listening on YSAX, the radio station that broadcasted the Archbishop’s sermons.

Afterwards, the Archbishop received death threats and some of the rich land owner aristocracy accused him of practicing ‘hate’ speech. This was just the beginning of a campaign by the wealthy and the military government to vilify and discredit him.

The Plight of the Poor

“’How do you live? Are you mistreated? How much do you earn for a day’s work?’ We earned just one colon, and we spent two days working for it,” the former farmworker and union activists says to the camera, recounting a conversation with Father Rutilio Grande. [13]. (To put Salvadoran wages into perspective, in 1977 the average daily wage in the urban manufacturing and service sectors was the equivalent of US$2.80. This is according to countrystudies.us–a website that contains the ‘on-line versions of books previously published in hard copy by the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress’)[14].

The farmworkers and peasants in rural areas began to organize, began to protest.  A national resistance began to grow. And the techniques taken by the government to tamp down on the protests became more severe.  “My son was mutilated. He was missing his right hand. They poured acid all over his body. He had marks and bruises from electric shocks,” says the mother of a young man taken by the authorities. Other stories abound of young people disappearing, tortured, murdered. In addition mutilated bodies would be left lying in the streets, and other public places, for all to see.

And the government employed peasants to report on their own people–people who were suspected of organizing. These informants were members of the organization, ORDEN—the National Democratic Organization. ORDEN was especially feared by the organizers and the rural poor since its members were their friends, family members, and neighbors.  ORDEN members were able to provide detailed information on organizing activity—like who called for a meeting, where they met, and how long the meetings lasted.  On this information the ‘perpetrators’ would be arrested.

Amid these abuses, the Catholic priests preached not just of spiritual things, but of social justice as well.  In response, the priests themselves began to receive death threats, and everyday citizens, practicing their faith, were intimidated. “It was a crime to be seen with the Bible, and it was a crime for us to meet and explore the word of God and Christian commitment,” says a church activities and former guerilla fighter [15].

Attacks on the Church

Wednesday, May 11, 1977

Father Alfonso Navarro Oviedo was thirty five years old and well known to the military for his ‘controversial’ views in support of the poor. Two months after Father Grande’s assassination, on May 11, 1977, Father Navarro, was summoned to the  presidential residence because of  information that reportedly been obtained about classes he had been teaching in the country’s capital. Afterwards he reported to the archbishop what had transpired and went home. Later that afternoon four men from one of the country’s ‘death squads’ arrived at his front door. As he attempted to flee Father Navarro was cut down by seven bullets, and died later that evening [16].

We, as priests, live with a hope. We cannot be communists because they have mutilated this hope in a life hereafter. We believe in God, we preach a hope in this same God, and we die convinced of this hope. This then is the second part of Alfonso Navarro’s message: Hope is an ideal that never dies…Do not walk on those roads of sin and violence…you are going to build a new world, so walk on the road of love —Archbishop Oscar Romero’s homily to Father Alfonso Navarro Oviedo [17].

Tuesday, November 28, 1978

Ernesto ‘Neto’ Barrera was a young priest active in the slums of El Salvador. By November of 1978 he was assigned to St. Sebastian’s church in Ciudad Delgado,  a ‘working class’ barrio in the capital. The authorities claimed that on November 28, 1978, he was involved in a ‘shootout’ with the country’s National Guard [18].

While the ultimate cause of his death may, to this day, be debated, there is little doubt that Father Barrera was killed by the authorities on that November day in 1978.

The church values everything that is in tune with its struggle to set up God’s reign. A church that tries only to keep itself pure and uncontaminated would not be a church of God’s service to people.

The authentic church is one that does not mind conversing with prostitutes and publicans and sinners, as Christ did –and with Marxists and those of various political movements – in order to bring them salvation’s true message —Archbishop Oscar Romero, Sunday, December 3, 1978 [19].

Saturday, January 20, 1979

Father Octavio Ortiz, assigned to the San Salvador parish of Mejicanos, attended a weekend retreat in another working-class suburb, San Antonio Abad. Uniformed members of the country’s National Guard crashed through the gates of the parish house. Father Ortiz was shot and his head crushed under the caterpillar tracks of the Guardsmen’s tank.  Four other young men were also killed and their bodies placed on the roof of the house with weapons strewn nearby, as ‘evidence’ of a gun battle [20].

The psychotic campaign against Christian communities—isn’t that persecution? Isn’t the trampling of the people’s human rights also persecution? The church considers this its ministry: to defend God’s image in human beings —Archbishop Oscar Romero, Sunday, January 21, 1979 [21].

Work on Behalf of the Church

A week after Father Ortiz’s assassination, the Archbishop met with other Latin American bishops in Puebla, Mexico, to chart a course for the church. This was a follow-up to the conference of bishops held in Medellin, Colombia in 1968 [22]. Forty bishops signed a letter of solidarity with the archbishop, praising his faithfulness to the gospel. [23].

Archbishop Romero and other members of the clergy partnered with a group of young Salvadoran lawyers and law students, to report the abuses to the authorities, and to obtain legal aid and advice in human rights cases. The victims and family of victims met clergy and the young lawyers in a cafe which served pastry and coffee. There they reported their stories. Before filing the case with the authorities the lawyers would validate the stories by not only collecting the information from the victims, but actually going to the scene of the events and gathering evidence first hand.

Every Sunday, the Archbishop related stories of the previous week.  Eight o’clock on Sunday mornings became an event on Radio YSAX, where the Monsenor gave his homilies.  One person interviewed in Monsenor, The last Journey of Oscar Romero, said that you could walk along the deserted streets of the city and hear the Archbishops sermon streaming from one house after the next.

Wednesday, June 20, 1979

Father Rafael Palacios, who had reportedly received threats and ‘feared for his safety’ was assigned to the parish of Mejicanos after Father Ortiz’s murder.  On June 20^th, 1979, Father Palacios was shot to death in the city of Santa Tecla [24].

Life is always sacred. The Lord’s commandment, ‘Thou shalt not kill’ makes all life sacred.

Blood poured out, even a sinner’s, always cries out to God —Archbishop Oscar Romero, Saturday, June 30, 1979 (Mass for Rafael Palacios) [25].

Saturday, August 4, 1979

In July, 1979, Father Alirio Macias published an article in the diocesan newspaper, La Orientacion, listing the “assassinations committed by the military in his pastoral district” [26].

On August 4th, one week after the article’s publication, his lifeless was body was found on the floor of his church, ‘about one meter from the altar’ [27].

The only violence that the gospel admits is violence to oneself. When Christ lets himself be killed, that is violence—letting oneself be killed. Violence to oneself is more effective than violence to others.

It is very easy to kill, especially when one has weapons, but how hard it is to let oneself be killed for love of the people —Archbishop Oscar Romero, Sunday, August 12, 1979 [28].

Armed Resistance

By 1979 an armed opposition to the government was growing.  A collection of guerilla groups trained in the mountains with any weapons they could obtain.  Some of these groups were rooted in a Marxist ideology. While the Archbishop clearly condemned the injustice of the authorities he often made it clear that his opposition was not based on a political ideology, but on his Christian faith.

It’s amusing. This week I received accusations from both extremes—form the extreme right that I’m a communist; form the extreme left, that I am joining the right. I am not with the right or with the left. I am trying to be faithful to the word that the Lord bids me preach, to the message that cannot change, which tells both sides the good they do and the injustices the commit —Archbishop Oscar Romero, Sunday, June 3rd, 1979 [29]. And a former guerilla admits, referring to the weekly homilies, “Either we had him against us all week, or we had him for us all week.”

International Recognition

The conflict in El Salvador gathered international attention, and the Archbishop himself was recognized abroad for his work.  In February, 1980, the Archbishop received an honorary degree from the University of Louvain, in Belgium. Back in El Salvador, in his homily on February 17^th, he said the following;

I told them in Louvain, our world in El Salvador is not an abstraction. It is not an example of what is meant by ‘the world’ in developed countries like yours. It is a world made up in the vast majority of poor and oppressed men and women. That world of the poor, we say, is the key to understand the Christian faith, the Church’s activity, and the political dimension of the faith and church’s activity. The poor are the ones who tell us what the world is and what service the church must offer to the world –Archbishop Oscar Romero, Sunday, February 17, 1980 [30].

Archbishop Romero was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1979 by a number of U.S. congressmen and British members of parliament [31]. The Prize that year was awarded to Mother Teresa.

Outside Influences and Romero’s Violence of Love

By July 1979 the Sandinista revolution in nearby Nicaragua put an end to the 40-year dictatorship of the Somoza family. The success of that revolution sparked fears in the hearts of the powerful in El Salvador. On October 15th a dissident group of young military officers led a coup d’état that overthrew the government of Carlos Humberto Romero. Initially Archbishop Romero welcomed the young officers, but a few days after the overthrow, the killings continued, and the Archbishop continued to speak out against the abuses.

In a letter dated, February 17^th, 1980, the Archbishop urged U.S. President Jimmy Carter to stop supporting the Salvadoran military with equipment and military advisors. He also requested the President refrain from providing a reported $5.7 million U.S. dollars in military aid to the junta. [32].

In part, the letter states:

[G]iven that as a Salvadoran and archbishop of the archdiocese of San Salvador, I have an obligation to see that faith and justice reign in my country, I ask you, if you truly want to defend human rights:

• to forbid that military aid be given to the Salvadoran government;
• to guarantee that your government will not intervene directly or indirectly, with military, economic, diplomatic, or other pressures, in determining the destiny of the Salvadoran people;

The human rights abuses continued. According to Time.com, “In February [1980], 72 sticks of dynamite were discovered in the cathedral moments before he was to celebrate Mass.” The following month, a right wing group blew up the radio transmitter of YSAX, the radio station that carried his weekly homilies [33].

After consultation with legal counsel, on Sunday, March 23^rd, the Archbishop delivered the weekly homily.  At the end he delivered his most urgent plea yet for peace. He implored the country’s armed forces, the young soldiers, to disobey their superiors’ orders and to refrain from killing innocent citizens.

“Brothers, you are all killing your fellow countrymen.  No solider has to obey an order to kill. It is time to regain your conscience.  In the name of God and in the name of the suffering people I implore you, I beg you, I order you, stop the repression.” [34.] (According to one of the Archbishops legal experts, to ask a military officer to directly disobey the orders of his superiors was a criminal offense) [35].

A day later, at six o’clock in the evening of Monday, March 24^th, Archbishop Romero was conducting mass at the chapel of the hospital where he lived.  He said:

“God’s reign is already present on earth in mystery. When the Lord comes, it will be brought to perfection.  That is the hope that inspires Christians. We know that every effort to better society, especially when injustice and sin are so ingrained, is an effort that God blesses, that God wants, that God demands of us” [36].

Minutes later, a single bullet was fired from the back of the chapel. It sped through the quiet chapel air, past the Carmelite nuns in attendance, and found its mark, exploding in the Archbishop’s chest.

Aftermath

The funeral for Archbishop Romero was held outside the Metropolitan Cathedral in the centre of San Salvador.  Pope John Paul II’s delegate, Mexican Cardinal Ernesto Corripio Ahumada, had just completed his eulogy where he praised Romero as a “beloved, peacemaking man of God”.  Suddenly, the service “was transformed into a tableau of horror: exploding hand bombs, wild gunfire, terrified crowds stampeding in panic. Before it was over, 35 people had been killed; 185 others had been hospitalized with serious injuries” [37].

This was but another salvo in an escalating civil war. Later that year four more priests and a seminarian were murdered, and in December, the horror of El Salvadoran received widespread media attention in the United Sates for the first time.  Four Americans, a female lay missionary and three nuns, were brutally raped and murdered. [38].

Days after his assassination, the U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations approved President Carter’s request for ‘non lethal’ military aid to El Salvador [39].

In 1981, the collection of guerilla groups coalesced into the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN). Also in 1981, Roberto D’Aubuisson, the force many believed to be behind the country’s ‘death squads’, founded the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), a right wing political party.  In 1983, Jose Napoleon Duarte, who had returned from exile in Venezuela, defeated D’Aubuisson in the general election. His efforts to end the civil war failed, and his administration was plagued with reports of corruption [40]. His party served one term and was replaced by ARENA, headed by D’Aubuisson’s successor, Alfredo Cristiani.

During the remainder of the 1980s, under the presidency of Ronald Reagan, the United States supplied the right wing governments of El Salvador with financial aid amounting to $4 billion; assumed responsibility for the organization and training of elite military units; supported the war effort through the provision of sophisticated weaponry, …and used its influence in a variety of ways to guide the political fortunes of the country [41].

By 1990, peace negotiations between the country’s two most prominent political groups, ARENA and FMLN, began, and a peace accord was signed in Mexico City in January, 1992. By then, more than 75,000 people, mostly “non-combatants” had been killed [42].

In 1992, at the end of the civil war, The Washington Post reported a “U.N.-sponsored commission concluded that former army Maj. Roberto D’Aubuisson…ordered Romero’s death. But many in El Salvador suspect more powerful elements in society actually plotted Romero’s assassination” [43].

In 2009, the FMLN, which had become a legal political party in 1992, won its first general election, defeating the conservative, ARENA, party [44].

Beatification

Thirty-five years after his assassination, on February 3rd, 2015, Pope Francis I signed a decree declaring Archbishop Romero a martyr, “a person killed ‘in hatred of the faith’” [45].  (A person killed in ‘hatred of the faith’ does not require the validation of a miracle, as is traditionally warranted for sainthood.) The decree cleared the way for the Archbishop’s beatification.  Less than four months later, on Saturday, May 23, Archbishop Romero was beatified at the square of the Divine Saviour of the World in San Salvador [46].

A message from Pope Francis I was read at the ceremony. In part, it said,   “[Archbishop Romero knew] how to guide, defend and protect his flock, remaining faithful to the Gospel and in communion with the whole Church…His ministry was distinguished by a particular attention to the poor and marginalised. And at the time of his death, while celebrating the holy sacrifice, love and reconciliation, he received the grace to be fully identified with the one who gave his life for his sheep” [47].

© Weldon Turner, 2016

Next month, Gandhi’s Experiments with Truth

Image

Archbishop Oscar Romero (1917 – 1980) at home in San Salvador, 20th November 1979
Photo by Alex Bowie/Getty Images
Collection: Hulton Archive
Editorial license secured

References

[1] Oscar Romero, The Violence of Love, Orbis Books, 20014, P 12.

[2] Monsenor, The Last Journey of Oscar Roermo , University of Notre Dame, 2011.

[3] http://www.britannica.com/place/El-Salvador/Civil-war

[4] http://www.britannica.com/place/El-Salvador/Military-dictatorships.

[5] http://www.britannica.com/place/El-Salvador/Military-dictatorships.

[6] http://www.un.org/en/events/righttotruthday/romero.shtml

[7] http://search.oas.org/en/default.aspx?k=el%20salvador&s=All+Sites

[8] http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/index.htm

[9] http://www.un.org/en/events/righttotruthday/romero.shtml

[10] Monsenor, The Last Journey of Oscar Romero, University of Notre Dame, 2011.

[11] Romero, The Violence of Love,   p 1

[12] Monsenor, The Last Journey of Oscar Romero.

[13] Monsenor, The Last Journey of Oscar Romero.

[14] http://countrystudies.us/el-salvador/34.htm).

[15] Monsenor, The Last Journey of Oscar Romero.

[16] Kevin Clark, Oscar Romero, Love Must Win Out, Liturgical Press, 2014, p 103 https://books.google.ca/books?id=fwBzBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA102&lpg=PA102&dq=father+alfonso+navarro&source=bl&ots=BGM5RxLYnW&sig=RJWRLUCe34hTJ0CdWkSzruS38yE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiwwdH6ra_KAhVGbj4KHdK4A9UQ6AEIWTAO#v=onepage&q=father%20alfonso%20navarro&f=false

[17] Kevin Clark, Oscar Romero, Love Must Win Out, Liturgical Press, 2014, p 103

[18] Robert Armstrong and Janet Shenk, El Salvador The Face of Revolution, South End Press 1982 page 105 https://books.google.ca/books?id=P0SYaIaDsNcC&pg=PA105&dq=ernesto+barrera&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiErLGywq_KAhXIMz4KHfbGCnkQ6AEIGzAA#v=onepage&q=ernesto%20barrera&f=false

[19] Romero, The Viole3nce of Love, pp101 – 102

[20]  Anna L. Peterson,  Martyrdom and the Politics of Religion, Progressive Catholicism in El Salvador’s Civil War, State University of New York Press, 1997 p 64 https://books.google.ca/books?id=ieyeKxd8BfoC&pg=PA103&dq=octavio+ortiz&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjDoPeHsa_KAhVMOz4KHQxCALsQ6AEIJDAC#v=onepage&q=octavio%20ortiz&f=false

[21] Romero, The Viole3nce of Love,  p121

[22] Romero, The Viole3nce of Love,  p211

[23] Robert Armstrong and Janet Shenk, El Salvador, the Face of Revolution, p 108.

[24] Anna L. Peterson, Martyrdom and the Politics of Religion Progressive Catholicism in El Salvador’s Civil War, page 64

[25] Romero, The Viole3nce of Love  p 140

[26] Reagan Martin, The Martyr of El Salvador, The Assassination of Oscar Romero, Absolute Crime Books, 2013.  https://books.google.ca/books?id=XTJIAQAAQBAJ&pg=PT23&dq=el+salvador+macias&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjv7_rUt6_KAhXD4D4KHSg4BwIQ6AEIKTAD#v=onepage&q=el%20salvador%20macias&f=false

[27] A Year of Reckoning, El Salvador, a Decade after the Assassination of Archbishop Romero, An Americas Watch Report, 1990. P248

https://books.google.ca/books?id=_c8umnadLwkC&pg=PA248&dq=alirio+macias&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjHn-jH5cDKAhVEvIMKHa4fCjcQ6AEIODAF#v=onepage&q=alirio%20macias&f=false

[28] Romero, The Viole3nce of Love   p152

[29] Romero, The Viole3nce of Love   p135.

[30] Romero, The Viole3nce of Love   p189.

[31] http://www.britannica.com/biography/Oscar-Arnulfo-Romero

[32] Time.com, Monday, April 7, 1980. Accessed, January, 29, 2016. http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,921981-2,00.html

[33] http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,921981-2,00.html

[34] http://www.csusmhistory.org/atkin008/plea-to-carter-response-from-reagan/

[35] Monsenor, The Last Journey of Oscar Romero.

[36] Romero, The Viole3nce of Love  p 206

[37] Time Magazine, Monday, April 14, 1980.  http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,923959,00.html Accessed, January 29, 2016.

[38] Anna L. Peterson, Martyrdom and the Politics of Religion, p65

[39] http://www.esnavillages.org/documents/Romero%20letter%20to%20Pres%20Carter.pdf

[40] http://www.britannica.com/place/El-Salvador/Civil-war.

[41] http://www.britannica.com/place/El-Salvador/Civil-war.

[42] http://www.britannica.com/place/El-Salvador/Civil-war

[43] WashingtonPost.com, accessed January 29, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/02/05/why-its-such-a-big-deal-that-oscar-romero-was-declared-a-martyr-by-pope-francis/

[44] http://www.britannica.com/topic/Farabundo-Marti-National-Liberation-Front

[45] Catholic Herald http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2015/05/24/blessed-oscar-romero-hailed-as-brilliant-star-of-church-of-the-americas/

[46] Catholic Herald, http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2015/05/25/francis-beatification-of-oscar-romero-is-a-cause-for-great-joy/

[47] Catholic Herald, http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2015/05/24/blessed-oscar-romero-hailed-as-brilliant-star-of-church-of-the-americas/

Bibliography

Oscar Romero, The Violence of Love, Orbis Books, 20014

Monsenor, The Last Journey of Oscar Roermo , University of Notre Dame, 2011. (Feature-length documentary).

Kevin Clark, Oscar Romero, Love Must Win Out, Liturgical Press, 2014

Robert Armstrong and Janet Shenk, El Salvador The Face of Revolution, South End Press 1982

Anna L. Peterson,  Martyrdom and the Politics of Religion, Progressive Catholicism in El Salvador’s Civil War, State University of New York Press, 1997

Reagan Martin, The Martyr of El Salvador, The Assassination of Oscar Romero, Absolute Crime Books, 2013.

A Year of Reckoning, El Salvador, a Decade after the Assassination of Archbishop Romero, An Americas Watch Report, 1990

Links

http://www.britannica.com/place/El-Salvador/Civil-war

http://www.un.org/en/events/righttotruthday/romero.shtml

http://search.oas.org/en/default.aspx?k=el%20salvador&s=All+Sites

http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/index.htm

http://countrystudies.us/el-salvador/34.htm).

Oscar Romero, Love Must Win Out, Liturgical Press, 2014 https://books.google.ca/books?id=fwBzBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA102&lpg=PA102&dq=father+alfonso+navarro&source=bl&ots=BGM5RxLYnW&sig=RJWRLUCe34hTJ0CdWkSzruS38yE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiwwdH6ra_KAhVGbj4KHdK4A9UQ6AEIWTAO#v=onepage&q=father%20alfonso%20navarro&f=false

Salvador The Face of Revolution, South End Press 1982 https://books.google.ca/books?id=P0SYaIaDsNcC&pg=PA105&dq=ernesto+barrera&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiErLGywq_KAhXIMz4KHfbGCnkQ6AEIGzAA#v=onepage&q=ernesto%20barrera&f=false

The Martyr of El Salvador, The Assassination of Oscar Romero, Absolute Crime Books, 2013.  https://books.google.ca/books?id=XTJIAQAAQBAJ&pg=PT23&dq=el+salvador+macias&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjv7_rUt6_KAhXD4D4KHSg4BwIQ6AEIKTAD#v=onepage&q=el%20salvador%20macias&f=false

A Year of Reckoning, El Salvador, a Decade after the Assassination of Archbishop Romero, An Americas Watch Report, 1990. https://books.google.ca/books?id=_c8umnadLwkC&pg=PA248&dq=alirio+macias&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjHn-jH5cDKAhVEvIMKHa4fCjcQ6AEIODAF#v=onepage&q=alirio%20macias&f=false

Time.com, http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,921981-2,00.html

http://www.csusmhistory.org/atkin008/plea-to-carter-response-from-reagan/

ESNA Village Network http://www.esnavillages.org/documents/Romero%20letter%20to%20Pres%20Carter.pdf

WashingtonPost.com  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/02/05/why-its-such-a-big-deal-that-oscar-romero-was-declared-a-martyr-by-pope-francis/