Should the Church Cause Trouble?
On the 24th of last month, many Catholics, and perhaps some others, observed the 45th anniversary of the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador.
Many of you may never have heard of him and may think of El Salvador as an insignificant Central American country that is occasionally in the news because of its frequent earthquakes and its infamous mega prison, the Cecot, or by its formal name, the Center for Terrorism Confinement.
However, El Salvador has a special place in my heart because of frequent trips there to aid earthquake victims and help bring medical care to rural areas, and with parishioners of an Iowa church that provides scholarships to rural students.
Notorious for Horrible Conditions
The prison, according to CNN, is home to some of the country’s most hardened criminals, including mass murderers and gang members. But it’s also notorious for the horrible conditions in which the prisoners, many of whom were arrested and charged without the benefit of due process, are kept.
A CNN reporter who visited the prison described cells for 80 or so inmates where men are held for 23.5 hours a day. The furniture consists of tiered metal bunks, “with no sheets, pillows or mattresses … an open toilet, a cement basin and plastic bucket for washing and a large jug for drinking water.
“Some 10,000 to 20,000 prisoners are currently thought to be housed there, with the most recent arrivals being the 261 people the Trump administration deported from the U.S. – 238 of whom it accused of belonging to the Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua, and 23 alleged members of the MS-13 gang” – all of them also sent there without due process. The U.S. is paying El Salvador’s government $6 million dollars to house the Venezuelans.
The way the El Salvadoran government arrested and imprisoned the majority of the Salvadoran prisoners, many in El Salvador say, is precisely the kind of trampling on civil rights that Archbishop Romero opposed – an opposition that cost him his life.
Killed by an Assassin
As archbishop, says Wikipedia, “Romero spoke out against social injustice and violence amid the escalating conflict between the military government and left-wing insurgents that led to the Salvadoran Civil War.” In 1980, Romero was shot and killed by an assassin while celebrating Mass. Though no one was ever convicted of the crime, investigations by the UN-created Truth Commission for El Salvador concluded that Major Roberto D’Aubuisson, a death squad squad leader and founder of the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) political party, had ordered the killing.
Ironically, the Salvadoran government was pleased with the appointment of Romero as archbishop in 1977 because he was considered a social conservative. But he was deeply affected by the murder of his friend and fellow priest, Rutilio Grande, by Salvadoran security forces and thereafter began to speak out against the military government, which became more and more violent in its attempts to control the population.
In 2010, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed March 24 the “International Day for the Right to the Truth Concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims” in recognition of Romero’s role in defense of human rights. Pope Francis proclaimed him a saint on Oct. 14, 2018.
But Romero not only spoke out against the violation of civil rights but against the acceptance of poverty, social injustice, and the silence of many church leaders.
A Post on Facebook
Recently, my friend, Leslie Schuld, an American who for decades has run an organization in El Salvador that helps poor, rural Salvadorans, posted on Facebook this quote from Archbishop Romero that had previously been posted by author James Martin, S.J.
“A church that doesn’t provoke any crisis, a gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a word of God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin, a word of God that doesn’t touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed – what gospel is that?
“Very nice, pious considerations that don’t bother anyone, that’s the way many would like preaching to be. Those preachers who avoid every thorny matter so as not to be harassed, so as not to have conflicts and difficulties, do not light up the world they live in.”
