The Roman Catholic Archbishop of San Salvador, Oscar Romero, was appointed to his position on February 23, 1977, in part, because he was a timid conservative. More progressive priests within the Church, especially those who were openly Marxist, strongly opposed the decision.

Less than three weeks after Romero was appointed archbishop, Rutilio Grande, a progressive Jesuit friend of the archbishop, was assassinated in a hail of machine gun fire for creating self-reliance groups among the poor. The next day, Romero announced he would not attend any state occasions, nor meet with the president until Grande’s death was investigated. The right-wing government ignored Romero’s calls and the press was silent. It was then that the archbishop had a change of political views and began to speak out against the poverty, social injustice, assassinations, and torture taking place in El Salvador.

In 1979, Romero was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. In the same year, the Revolutionary Government Junta came into power, and like most oppressive dictatorships in recent history, the junta was backed by the CIA. Things went from bad to worse as a wave of even more human rights violations came in with the new government. Within the first week of the take over, Amnesty International reported 100 deaths from political violence. Death squads formed by members of the Salvadoran military were murdering priests, peasants, labor organizers, raping nuns, and mutilating bodies all with US funding and training. Archbishop Romero’s high profile in a mostly Catholic country made him one of the most dangerous critics of the new government and the rich controlling El Salvador.

While the Catholic Church was the voice for social justice for many living under the oppression of the Soviet Union, its followers in Latin America felt abandoned. The liberation theology of Latin American priests tended to mix Marxist activism with Christian theology, and the Church was skeptical of this combination. Fearing such a philosophy excluded certain social classes and would turn people against all hierarchy, including the Church itself, the pope rejected those who adopted it. Pope John Paul II feared all things communist, and went on the offensive against liberation theology, which he linked to the suffering he had witnessed as a youth in Poland. Thus, when Monsenor Romeros came to Europe in 1980 to receive an honorary doctorate by the Catholic University of Leuven, his plea for support against capitalist oppression was turned down by the Holy See.

Monsenor Romero also spoke out against the US military aid which was enabling his government to continue its reign of terror. In February 1980, he wrote a letter to President Jimmy Carter, explaining that continued US support would “undoubtedly sharpen the injustice and the repression inflicted on the organized people, whose struggle has often been for their most basic human rights”. The US had sent $1.5 million to El Salvador every day for 12 years. In his letter, Romero stated, “You say that you are Christian. If you are really Christian, please stop sending military aid to the military here, because they use it only to kill my people.” Once again, his plea was ignored. Two months later he would be assassinated by men trained in the US.

Without the support of two of the world’s most respected humanitarians, Romero still continued his non-violent struggle. On March 23, 1980, the archbishop gave a homily broadcast throughout the country calling for soldiers to disobey the government’s orders and to obey God’s higher calling. He said, “Brothers, you are from the same people; you kill your fellow peasant. No soldier is obliged to obey an order that is contrary to the will of God. In the name of God then, in the name of this suffering people I ask you, I beg you, I command you in the name of God: stop the repression.” Romero’s invitation for the army to mutiny was met with thunderous applause.

During this week in capitalism on March 24, 1980, one day after his plea for soldiers to disobey the government, Romero was shot to death during mass. The assassination was carried out after Romero had given his homily, and some report that his blood was spilled into the communion wine. At least two of Romero’s right-wing assassins were trained by the US at the School of the Americas at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia. The school has trained over 6,000 guerillas to support far-right regimes and form death squads in Latin America. Due to negative press, the school now operates under the name Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, and now trains roughly 1,000 students per year.

Archbishop Romero’s funeral was attended by more than 250,000 mourners. Given the circumstances, some viewed the funeral as a protest in itself, making it the largest demonstration in the history of Latin America. However, the ceremony was interrupted by government security forces that exploded a bomb and fired shots into the crowd. Between 20 and 50 people died during the mass panic which ensued. The assassination of Romero by the rich and far-right government pushed the political violence in El Salvador into a full-fledged civil war. Despite military aid and advisors sent from the US to support the capitalists, the Revolutionary Government Junta ended in 1982.

Ten years after Monsenor Romero was assassinated, the sitting archbishop of San Salvador prepared documentation for the beatification and canonization of Romero into sainthood. The documents were accepted by the pope, and Romero was given the fitting title “Servant of God.” The beatification and canonization process continue to this day. In 1996, Pope John Paul II seemed to have changed his opinion of liberation theory as he prayed at Romero’s tomb. He told Salvadoran church officials he believed Romero was a “martyr.” Today, with globalization, extensive privatization, and deteriorating economic conditions in Latin America as a whole, Archbishop Romero has enjoyed an increase in popularity more than 25 years after his death.

Days before Romero’s murder he told a reporter, “You can tell the people that if they succeed in killing me, that I forgive and bless those who do it. Hopefully, they will realize they are wasting their time. A bishop will die, but the church of God, which is the people, will never perish.”

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