Cardinal Gerhard Müller on how Oscar Romero became a shepherd, then a martyr
Revolutionary Saint: The Theological Legacy of Oscar Romero
by Michael Lee, Orbis Books, £19.99
Alongside Martin Luther King and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Oscar Romero is an icon of the 20th century’s great liberation movements against injustice and oppression. On Sunday, the Catholic Church will raise him to the honour of the altars and rank this very popular saint among the martyrs of Christ.
The archbishop of San Salvador was hit by the bullets of his opponents while celebrating the sacrifice of the Eucharist. He is now in the truest sense one of those of whom John spoke in the Book of Revelation: “When the Lamb opened the fifth seal, I saw beneath the altar the souls of all those who had been slaughtered because of the witness they had borne to the Word of God” (Revelation 6:9). Oscar Romero followed in word and deed the example of Christ, “who has come not to serve himself but to serve and give his life as ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).
The canonisation process for Archbishop Romero was delayed, if not prevented, for a long time because of a false argument around whether his violent death should be interpreted theologically or politically. Politics is about earthly power, but the Church is concerned with the truth of God. As Jesus said to Pilate, “I was born and came into the world to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice” (John 18:37). But the new saint did not die in a struggle for power, rather he sacrificed his life in a struggle for truth.
From Pilate’s point of view, Jesus was condemned to death for political reasons; from the Sanhedrin’s point of view there were religious reasons to hand him over to the Romans for execution. But the decisive point of view is that of Jesus, who did not seek death, but was ready to sacrifice his life for others, so as to usher in the Kingdom of God in a new world.
This also establishes Romero’s status as a Christian martyr, who laid down his life for the freedom and dignity of the sheep of the flock of Christ who had been entrusted to him. The author of this book convincingly highlights the theological reasons why Romero fits the classic criteria of a Christian martyr. But he develops this in a contemporary context of a Christianity distorted by colonialism and imperialism. Examining this characteristic, he presents Romero as a “witness of solidarity”.
The criterion for martyrdom of hatred for the faith (odium fidei) cannot only be concerned with the articles of the Creed, which a Christian believes in fidelity to Christ and against his persecutors. Engagement for the human dignity of enslaved and exploited fellow people, who are the beloved Children of God, also fulfils the concept of a Christian martyr, if the Christian risks his life in the imitation of the poor, suffering and crucified Christ. In this sense the author correctly calls Romero a “revolutionary saint”. It is not enough only to apply the traditional criteria to a fellow Christian of today; these principles, while retaining the same theological substance, have to be updated to fit the conditions of modern life.
Since there have already been major biographies and in-depth sociological and political analyses, Michael Lee correctly sees the need to examine the theological heritage of Oscar Romero. The archbishop of San Salvador received a thorough classical education in the neo-Scholastic school. But his vocation was pastoral care in the parish and then the diocese, and finally – from 1977 until his violent death on March 24, 1980 – as archbishop of the capital city and the highest ecclesiastical dignitary in his beloved homeland of El Salvador. So he was no academic theologian, but nor was he a mere pastoral pragmatist with political ambitions. He became a shepherd of the people of God, who thought through and theologically justified the principles and consequences of proclaiming the word of God in his leadership of the Church.
Michael Lee convincingly describes Romero’s inner spiritual path from the theology he had learned at school to a new type of theology as a “critical reflection on practice in the light of the word of God”, to use the formulation of Gustavo Gutiérrez, the father of liberation theology. Such a transformation of one’s thinking and perception of reality normally develops step by step. But the murder of his friend Fr Rutilio Grande and other priests, Religious and laity by the military dictatorship and its death squads led to a final breakthrough that can be understood as a “conversion” from abstract thought to concrete action. There was a shift from a defence of eternally valid principles to taking over concrete responsibility for his brothers and sisters who had been robbed of their fundamental human rights.
Although Christ told us to render unto God what is God’s and unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, we cannot conclude that there is a dualism dividing this life from the next, spiritual comfort from the social and political improvement of life’s material conditions. Jesus’s proclamation and practice of the Kingdom of God which arrives in the world with him embraces an integral salvation. A comprehensive orientation towards God in time and eternity is inseparable from concrete responsibility for one’s neighbours and the world in culture, politics and education, even though the two sides cannot be reduced to each other.
This “unity in relationship” begins with the Creation and fulfils itself with the Incarnation, ushering in temporal and eternal redemption and salvation of humanity through the triune God. The new saint will serve the Church well – not if ideologies of left and right call on him in opposition to each other, but rather if they reconcile in the roots of Christianity. Because only in this way can the Church appear as a sign and instrument for the closest communion of people with God and for the unity of mankind (cf Lumen Gentium 1). Capitalism or communism are not options or temptations for Christians, because they grow from the same materialistic soil and embody a false anthropology without God.
The author carefully introduces the reader to the figure of Romero and his spiritually rooted and intellectually responsible position. It receives its essential impulse from the “preferential option for the poor”. We have to bear in mind the multi-dimensional nature of this concept and the reality of the poor, which cannot merely be seen in spiritual or sociological terms. And certainly, the Gospel of Christ cannot be used to derive a political party programme or to forge an instrument for the conquest of power. But while recognising the division between theology and politics, we cannot allow the prophetic critique of Jesus’s message and the Church’s teaching to fall silent, because the Church (of all believers as well as the bishops) must give a voice to the poor and articulate their cry for justice and dignity.
This is the theological legacy of the new revolutionary saint of the Catholic Church and the whole of Christendom, as he calls us to remember the preferential option for the poor. This theological option comes from God’s revolution, which “casts down the mighty from their thrones and exalts the lowly” (Luke 1:52). With this quote from the Magnificat of Mary, the author closes his well-argued study, which seeks to open up Romero’s theological legacy to us.
The reader who is not familiar with the Latin American context should be aware of the somewhat fluid definitions of liberal or progressive, left or right, as well as a blurring of the distinctions between scholastic and dogmatic theology or the new theology following the Second Vatican Council. That’s because in other countries and contexts, or according to personal preference, these distinctions are not irrelevant.
But this does not change anything about the quality of the present study and the clear portrait it draws of the theological and pastoral profile of Archbishop Romero, who for many Christians today has become a sign of hope and an advocate for God, “who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all” (Romans 8:32).
Michael Lee is to be thanked for this book, which can prepare us for October 14, the day of the canonisation of the “Bishop of the Poor”.
Cardinal Gerhard Müller was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from 2012 until 2017. Translated from the German by Jon Anderson
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