acceptance of authority. He understands he’s responsible to and for his people. On Sunday he’s at the cathedral and with him, his clergy and more than one hundred thousand parishioners. The denunciation he makes in his sermon leads him to become the prophet the country needed.
Emily Will accompanies us on the journey Monseñor took for three and a half years through communities and cities, in the cathedral and on the radio, and by all other means at his disposal, defending the rights of all, particularly of the poor, denouncing oppression and injustice, and proclaiming peace. The oligarchy did not listen to him; neither did the government. On March 24, 1980, at nightfall, he is killed while celebrating the Eucharist. As Emily quotes Pope Francis, “Romero, who built peace with the power of love, bore witness to the faith in the extreme by offering his life.”
—José Inocencio “Chencho” Alas
Austin, Texas
December 2015
Acknowledgements
Over the years many generous souls contributed to this labor of love, sharing their devotion to Monseñor Romero by helping to mold and smooth out the rough edges of this endeavor that I began in 1998, had to set aside in 2000, and took up again in 2013.
In 1998, San Salvador-based Equipo Maíz staff members Elmer Romero and Miguel Cavada exceeded the call of duty in helping me sketch out an itinerary and coordinate interviews that would take best advantage of my time in the country. They loaded me down with valuable written resources and inveigled a family to host me in Ciudad Barrios. More recently, Marvin Hernández-López assisted with photo credits and permissions.
Many kind friends and relatives of Monseñor patiently talked with me about the young Oscar. His brothers—Mamerto and his hospitable wife, María Cristina, Arnoldo, and Gaspar—and sister Zaída warmly welcomed me into their homes. They dredged their memories to respond to the minutiae I quizzed them about, undoubtedly baffled as to why I had traveled a distance to ask them more about a long-forgotten cow than about their martyred brother’s theology. They remained gracious when asked to explain words—bahareque, for example—and lifestyles of bygone times unfamiliar to me. Retired parish priest Bernardo Amaya blessed this work with his incredibly detailed memories of the minor seminary and his companions there, Oscar included.
I had the pleasure of spending time with a variety of individuals whose lives intersected with Monseñor’s and who shared tidbits of his lighter side. Salvador Barraza, a lay friend who pulled Romero away from his duties for occasional fun and relaxation, including the circuses the archbishop loved, said the tightrope walkers were Romero’s favorite act. Elvira Chacón served Romero at her small restaurant and divulged his favorite foods: maracuyá (passion fruit) juice, refried beans, quesadilla (in El Salvador, a pound cake made with two or three types of cheese), hamburgers, and hot chocolate. Marimba player Alonso López of Ciudad Barrios, roughly the same age as Romero, treated me to a rendition of one of Monseñor’s favorite songs, “Dios nunca muera” (“God never dies”) on his marimba, its resonant bars fashioned of fine Guatemalan “hormiga negra” wood the color of dark chocolate.1 As a girl of thirteen or fourteen, Teodora Díaz helped care for some of the Romero babies, allowing Niña Jesús to work at her sewing machine without a child on her lap. She recalled the much-appreciated aprons Niña Jesus regularly fashioned for her from leftover fabric pieces.
Pauline Martin, friend and director of the master’s program in education policy and evaluation at the University of Central America, lent initial and ongoing help in making connections in El Salvador, sent helpful articles my way, and offered insightful comments on the manuscript. Without her gentle prodding, and especially her encouraging words at times when they were most needed, this work may not have come to fruition.
Over a three-year period, my online critique group uncomplainingly offered valuable suggestions for producing a readable manuscript. Throwing me lifelines while I floundered in the sea of my choppy, convoluted sentences were Kim Gore, Susan Lynn Rivera, Crystal Schubert, Chuck Robertson, Erin Fletcher, Claire Matta, and Sidney Sult-Poole.
I am immensely grateful to María López Vigil for her foresight and effort to collect remembrances after Romero’s death. Gathered into a book titled Piezas para un retrato, they’re a treasure trove of short personal accounts and anecdotes by those who knew and worked with the archbishop. Having drawn upon Piezas in its original Spanish for my first draft, attempting my own translations, I was delighted with Kathy Ogle’s English version of this work, published in 2000 as Monseñor Romero: Memories in Mosaic. Her careful work made my second draft infinitely easier to write.
In addition to conducting personal interviews, James R. Brockman, SJ, Romero’s first English biographer, mined mountains of paper files to extract, organize, and interpret the depth and breadth of Romero’s life, providing an indispensable foundation for students and biographers. Brockman encouraged and advised me in a 1998 e-mail exchange. A big thanks to Orbis Books for allowing me to quote generously from both Brockman and López Vigil.
The Mennonite Central Committee played a fundamental role in forging my awareness of the world’s “haves” and “have-nots” and helping me solidify and articulate my concerns for justice and human rights. While covering the organization’s Latin America programs as a writer, I first met Salvadorans, who deeply impressed me with their friendliness and their ability to creatively struggle for dignity.
Several individuals read and offered corrections on the manuscript, among them Julian Filochowski, chair of the London-based Archbishop Romero Trust; José Inocencio “Chencho” Alas, a former priest who worked alongside Romero and who narrowly escaped death after the National Guard abducted him in 1970; the ever-charitable Father Carlos L. Villacorta, one of Romero’s minor seminarians in San Miguel; and José Artiga, executive director of SHARE El Salvador, who encouraged me to use gender-inclusive language. I thank them for catching infelicities and errors before they had a chance to go public. I am solely responsible for any typos, misspellings, or mistakes that remain.
Carlos Colorado, who updates the world on all matters Romero on his “Super Martyrio” blog, carefully monitoring the sainthood process since 2006, recently guided me to an article about Romero’s notes jotted on cards in Rome, a resource that added substance to the chapter on Romero’s vital seminary years.
Last, but hardly least, my sister and her husband Annette and Bob Schiavone and my friend Tim Weber uphold me in too many ways to count; their loving concern buoys me during bouts of doubt and frustration.
1. Perhaps Platymiscium dimorphandrum or Dalbergia stevensonii. In 1942, Lopez traveled three days to Guatemala to purchase the instrument. It took him another three days to get it back to Cuidad Barrios, wrapped up on a cart pulled by two oxen.
Introduction
During the first five and a half decades of Oscar Arnulfo Romero’s life, little indicated he’d find a place in history books. Born in a poor hamlet with scant educational opportunities in El Salvador’s remote mountains, Romero rose to leadership among his country’s Roman Catholic clergy, a significant accomplishment. He was intelligent, a gifted speaker, and conscientious in fulfilling his duties.
Yet when the Vatican named the fifty-nine-year-old to fill the role of archbishop of El Salvador’s most prominent diocese in 1977, few people, if any, suspected the priest, steeped in traditionalism, would become a beloved and fearless shepherd, verbalizing, defending, and broadcasting his flock’s cries for justice during one of their darkest hours.
Indeed, many believed the opposite. Many thought Romero would
