Remembering Oscar Romero – 24 March 1980
Hat-tip to Santos Woodcarving Popsicles: Remembering Oscar Romero – 24 March 1980 for reminding us of the 30th anniversary of his martyrdom.
Oscar Romero was the Roman Catholic Archbishop of El Salvador, and several priests were also assassinated during his time as Archbishop.
Joseph A. Palermo: Archbishop Oscar Romero: Thirty Years and Little Learned quoptes from his last semon before his death:
I would like to make an appeal in a special way to the men of the army, to the police, to those in the barracks. Brothers, you are part of our own people. You kill your own campesino brothers and sisters. And before an order to kill that a man may give, the law of God must prevail that says: Thou shalt not kill! No soldier is obliged to obey an order against the law of God. No one has to fulfill an immoral law. It is time to recover your consciences and to obey your consciences rather than the orders of sin. The church, defender of the rights of God, of the law of God, of human dignity, the dignity of the person, cannot remain silent before such abomination. We want the government to take seriously that reforms are worth nothing when they come about stained with so much blood. In the name of God, and in the name of this suffering people whose laments rise to heaven each day more tumultuously, I beg you, I ask you, I order you in the name of God: Stop the repression!
Notes from underground 