Oscar Romero Quotes

There are many things that can only be seen through eyes that have cried

I don’t want to be an anti, against anybody. I simply want to be the builder of a great affirmation: the affirmation of God,who loves us and who wants to save us.

We have never preached violence, except the violence of love, which left Christ nailed to a cross, the violence that we must each do to ourselves to overcome our selfishness and such cruel inequalities among us. The violence we preach is not the violence of the sword, the violence of hatred. It is the violence of love, of brotherhood,the violence that wills to beat weapons into sickles for work.

Let us not forget: we are a pilgrim church, subject to misunderstanding, to persecution, but a church that walks serene, because it bears the force of love.

Peace is not the product of terror or fear. Peace is not the silence of cemeteries. Peace is not the silent result of violent repression. Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of all to the good of all. Peace is dynamism. Peace is generosity. It is right and it is duty.

Beautiful is the moment in which we understand that we are no more than an instrument of God; we live only as long as God wants us to live; we can only do as much as God makes us able to do; we are only as intelligent as God would have us be.

When we struggle for human rights, for freedom, for dignity, when we feel that it is a ministry of the church to concern itself for those who are hungry, for those who have no schools, for those who are deprived, we are not departing from God’s promise. He comes to free us from sin, and the church knows that sin’s consequences are all such injustices and abuses. The church knows it is saving the world when it undertakes to speak also of such things.

The church must suffer for speaking the truth, for pointing out sin, for uprooting sin. No one wants to have a sore spot touched, and therefore a society with so many sores twitches when someone has the courage to touch it and say: “You have to treat that. You have to get rid of that. Believe in Christ. Be converted.

A church that does not provoke any crisis, preach a gospel that does not unsettle, proclaim a word of God that does not get under anyone's skin or a word of God that does not touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed: what kind of gospel is that?

We must overturn so many idols, the idol of self first of all, so that we can be humble, and only from our humility can learn to be redeemers, can learn to work together in the way the world really needs. Liberation that raises a cry against others is no true liberation. Liberation that means revolutions of hate and violence and takes away lives of others or abases the dignity of others cannot be true liberty. True liberty does violence to self and, like Christ, who disregarded that he was sovereign becomes a slave to serve others.

Let us be today’s Christians. Let us not take fright at the boldness of today’s church. With Christ’s light let us illuminate even the most hideous caverns of the human person: torture, jail, plunder, want, chronic illness. The oppressed must be saved, not with a revolutionary salvation, in mere human fashion, but with the holy revolution of the Son of Man, who dies on the cross to cleanse God’s image, which is soiled in today’s humanity, a humanity so enslaved, so selfish, so sinful.

For the church, the many abuses of human life, liberty, and dignity are a heartfelt suffering. The church, entrusted with the earth’s glory, believes that in each person is the Creator’s image and that everyone who tramples it offends God. As holy defender of God’s rights and of his images, the church must cry out. It takes as spittle in its face, as lashes on its back, as the cross in its passion, all that human beings suffer, even though they be unbelievers. They suffer as God’s images. There is no dichotomy between man and God’s image. Whoever tortures a human being, whoever abuses a human being, whoever outrages a human being abuses God’s image, and the church takes as its own that cross, that martyrdom.

PEACE is generosity. It is right and it is duty.

Oscar Romero wrote: “A church that doesn’t provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a word of God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin, a word that doesn’t touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed—what gospel is that?

We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for God's grace to enter and do the rest.

Those who, in the biblical phrase, would save their lives—that is, those who want to get along, who don’t want commitments, who don’t want to get into problems, who want to stay outside of a situation that demands the involvement of all of us—they will lose their lives. What a terrible thing to have lived quite comfortably, with no suffering, not getting involved in problems, quite tranquil, quite settled, with good connections politically, economically, socially—lacking nothing, having everything. To what good? They will lose their lives.

God wants to save us in a people. He does not want to save us in isolation. And so today's church more than ever is accentuating the idea of being a people. The church therefore experiences conflicts, because it does not want a mass; it wants a people. A mass is a heap of persons, the drowsier the better, the more compliant the better. The church rejects communism's slander that it is the opium of the people. It has no intention of being the people's opium. Those that create drowsy masses are others. The church wants to rouse men and women to the true meaning of being a people. What is a people? A people is a community of persons where all cooperate for the common good.

The violence we preach is not the violence of the sword, the violence of hatred. It is the violence of love, of brotherhood, the violence that wills to beat weapons into sickles for work

I am glad, brothers and sisters, that our church is persecuted precisely for its preferential option for the poor and for trying to become incarnate on behalf of he poor. And I want to say to all the people, to rulers, to the rich and powerful: If you do not become poor, if you do not concern yourselves for the poverty of our people, as though they were your own family, you will not be able to save society.” —July 15, 1979

Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero said this shortly before his assassination: “I am going to speak to you simply as a pastor, as one who, together with his people, has been learning the beautiful but harsh truth that the Christian faith does not cut us off from the world but immerses us in it; the church is not a fortress set apart from the city. The church follows Jesus, who lived, worked, struggled and died in the midst of a city, in the polis.

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.

Poverty for the poor of El Salvador, and the poor of Latin America, Africa, and Asia, means death, and those who do not die slowly from hunger and disease, die quickly from violence and repression. That has been the fate of the poor in El Salvador for a very long time.

Romero was like St. Vincent de Paul—a mass of poor people always followed him around. Of course, with his way of thinking, he always got the rich people to pay alms so that he could give them to the poor. That way the poor could have some relief for their problems and the rich could relieve their consciences.48

Civilians, not insurgents, were the principal victims of this war; the poor who lived in rural areas were especially hard hit. Little attempt was made by the government to address the structural injustice that was the cause of the conflict. What reforms they attempted were secondary to the massive repression of the people.

He never wrote down his homilies. Never. It seemed like he did, but he didn’t. The most he ever took to the cathedral was an outline, a letter-sized sheet of paper with two or three ideas written down. It makes me laugh when someone who never knew Monseñor Romero says that other people used to write his sermons. If anyone wrote them, it was the Holy Spirit!226

Unfortunately, brothers and sisters, we are the product of a spiritualized, individualistic education. We are taught: try to save your soul and don't worry about the rest.  We told those who suffered: be patient heaven will follow, hang on. No, that's not right, that's not salvation! The great leader of our liberation is the Anointed One, the Lord who comes to announce the good news to the poor, to give liberty to the captives, to bear news of the disappeared to bring joy to so many homes that are in morning, so that a new society may appear as in the sabbatical year of Israel...Christ has come precisely to announce the new society, the good news, the new times.

It is very easy to be servants of the word without disturbing the world: a very spiritualistic word, a word without any commitment to history, a word that can sound in any part of the world because il belongs to no part of the world. A word like that creates no problems, starts no conflicts. What starts conflicts and persecutions, what marks the genuine church, is when the word, burning like the word of the prophets, proclaims to the people and accuses: proclaims God's wonders to be believed and venerated, and accuses of sin those who oppose God's reign, so that they may tear that sin out of their hearts, out of their societies, out of their laws- out of the structures that oppress, that imprison, that violate the tights of God and of humanity. That is the hard service of the word. But God's Spirit goes with the prophet, with the preacher, for he is Christ, who keeps on proclaiming his reign to the people of all times.

We live in a time of saints and martyrs. The twentieth century created more victims of war and terror, but it also gave birth to more saints and martyrs than any other century.

Romero is a prophet, saint, and martyr for our time. His death, like that of Jesus of Nazareth, was the dramatic conclusion of a life lived in fidelity to God that brought him into conflict with the political authorities of his nation.

Romero’s assassination in 1980 drew attention to another phenomenon of the conflict: the persecution of the church. Nine months after Romero’s assassination, the Salvadoran National Guard killed three North American nuns and one laywoman. Between 1977 and 1989, a dozen and a half priests were killed, including six Jesuits assassinated along with their housekeeper and her daughter on November 16, 1989.

A preaching that does not point out sin is not the preaching of the gospel. A preaching that makes sinners feel good so that they become entrenched in their sinful state betrays the gospel’s call…A preaching that awakens, a preaching that enlightens—as when a light turned on awakens and of course annoys a sleeper—that is the preaching of Christ, calling Wake up! Be converted!” —January 22, 1978

I repeat what I told you once before when we feared we might be left without a radio station: God’s best microphone is Christ, and Christ’s best microphone is the church, and the church is all of you.” —January 27, 1980

With the younger girls it was worse. After having them like that, tied up like iguanas, they did vulgar things to them. They stood in line for their turn, as though they were possessed by the devil, and they violated them, you know, in their private parts. One man after another raped them.

Faith and politics ought to be united in a Christian who has a political vocation, but they are not to be identified [as one]…Faith ought to inspire political action, not be mistaken for it

In the words of Jon Sobrino, Romero has become “the most universal Christian at the end of the twentieth century.

Peasants without land and without steady employment, without running water or electricity in their homes, without medical assistance when mothers give birth, and without schools for their children…Factory workers who have no labor rights, and who get fired from their jobs if they demand such rights, human beings who are at the mercy of cold economic calculations…Mothers and the wives of those who have disappeared, or who are political prisoners…Shantytown dwellers, whose wretchedness defies imagination, suffering the permanent mockery of the mansion nearby.216

is made of the “conversion” of Oscar Romero to the poor upon the death of his friend, Father Rutilio Grande, who was assassinated on March 12, 1977. The word “conversion” is used to mean “a turning point” in Romero’s life. Jon Sobrino makes this point: “I think that, as Archbishop Romero stood gazing at the mortal remains of Rutilio Grande, the scales fell from his eyes.”91 Ignacio Martin-Baro, one of the six Jesuit martyrs, makes a similar point: “For Romero, the assassination of Father Grande…was the crucial moment in his conversion: the road to Aguilares was to be his road to Damascus.”92

Bishop Arturo Rivera y Damas, who succeeded Romero as Archbishop of San Salvador, also believes the death of Rutilio Grande was the key moment in Romero’s transformation: One martyr gave life to another martyr. Before the cadaver of Father Rutilio Grande, Monseñor Romero, in his twentieth day as archbishop, felt that call of Christ to overcome his natural human timidity and to be filled with the fortitude of the apostle. From that moment, Monseñor Romero left behind the pagan lands of Tyre and Sidon and marched with freedom toward Jerusalem.93

But the days when the people could demonstrate peacefully were over. El Salvador was on the eve of civil war, and Romero did everything he could to prevent it.

The motivation of love motivates us to give our lives for others. In sum, Rutilio Grande embodied all three of these, and “died loving others,” pardoning his enemies. “Who knows if the murderers that have now fallen into excommunication are listening to a radio in their hideout, listening, in their conscience to this word. We want to tell you, murderous brothers, that we love you and that we ask of God repentance for your hearts, because the church is not able to hate.

What has happened to the people of El Salvador since the end of the war? Many who were poor before the war are even poorer today. The poor live on the edge of life in a daily struggle to survive. Those who did not die during the war wage a daily battle against poverty, hunger, and disease. The violence of the war and death squad assassinations has given way to a more subtle, but pervasive, criminal violence and gang activity.24

Oscar was the second of eight children in a family of six boys and two girls. His sister Zaida recalled the order: “There was Gustavo, then Oscar, Zaida, Aminta, who died when she was little, Romulo, who died when he was older, Mamerto, Arnoldo, and Gaspar.

Throughout his life, he continued to rely on the Jesuits for spiritual direction and confession. When he became a bishop, he took a phrase from the spiritual exercises, Sentir con la Iglesia—“to be of one mind and heart with the Church”—as his episcopal motto.44

His father, however, did not want Romero to continue his studies but to learn a trade. He was apprenticed by his father to one of the local carpenters, where he learned to make doors and tables,

Your word is pardon and gentleness for the penitent, Your word is holy instruction, eternal teaching; It is light to brighten, advice to hearten; It is voice of help, fire that burns, Way, truth, sublime splendor, Life—eternity.” —Poem written in the minor seminary

Blessed are the poor, for they know that their riches are in the One who being rich made himself poor in order to enrich us with his poverty, teaching us the Christian’s true wisdom.” —January 29, 1978

O mesmo João Paulo II que patrocinou na Polônia a Igreja mais engajada politicamente dos tempos modernos, a ponto de enviar grandes quantias de dinheiro do Vaticano para o Solidariedade, condenou, silenciou e disciplinou padres e freiras da Nicarágua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Brasil, Haiti e México, por causa de sua assim chamada atividade política. O papa que quer tornar Pio XII santo é reticente a respeito de Oscar Romero. o bispo de El salvador que foi assassinado no altar. O papa que pôs sob cerco os ditadores impiedosos do comunismo foi o primeiro e o único chefe de estado do mundo a reconhecer a legitimidade da junta militar que derrubou o presidente democraticamente eleito do Haiti ( e ex-padre) Jean Bertrande Aristide. Digo "assim chamada atividade política" porque os padres e freiras da Libertação insistiam em que suas ações tinham mais a ver com sua leitura do Evangelho do que com qualquer texto político. Observadores da diferença entre reações da hierarquia católica, digamos, na Polônia, onde a Igreja deu apoio ao Solidariedade, e na Nicarágua, onde a Igreja foi um canal putativo para dinheiro da CIA durante a guerra dos Contra de Reagan, ficaram com a sensação de que não era ao totalitarismo como tal que a Igreja se opunha, apenas ao totalitarismo que não era amigável em relação à Igreja.

Justice is like a snake: it only bites the barefooted. —MONSIGNOR OSCAR ARNULFO ROMERO, ARCHBISHOP OF SAN SALVADOR, ASSASSINATED IN 1980

It is very easy to be servants of the word without disturbing the world: a very spiritualistic word, a word without any commitment to history, a word that can sound in any part of the world because it belongs to no part of the world. A word like that creates no problems, starts no conflicts. What starts conflicts and persecutions, what marks the genuine church, is when the word, burning like the word of the prophets, proclaims to the people and accuses: proclaims God's wonders to be believed and venerated, and accuses of sin those who oppose God's reign, so that they may tear that sin out of their hearts, out of their societies, out of their laws- out of the structures that oppress, that imprison, that violate the tights of God and of humanity. That is the hard service of the word. But God's Spirit goes with the prophet, with the preacher, for he is Christ, who keeps on proclaiming his reign to the people of all times.

Everyone who struggles for justice, everyone who makes just claims in unjust surroundings is working for God's reign, even though not a Christian. The church does not comprise all of God's reign; God's reign goes beyond the church's boundaries. The church values everything that is in tune with its struggle to set up God's reign. A church that tries only to keep itself pure and uncontaminated would not be a church of God's service to people. The authentic church is one that does not mind conversing with prostitutes and publicans and sinners, as Christ did- and with Marxists and those of various political movements - in order to bring them salvation's true message.

U.S. missionaries became some of the most impassioned witnesses offering counter testimony to U.S. policies in Central America. Living among the poorest of the region, they saw the truth of what drove people to rebellion: generations of misery institutionalized by the greed and selfishness of the wealthy (as Archbishop Oscar Romero himself pointed out), the repression of all hope by means of the bluntest of instruments—torture, disappearance, and murder.

God has loved each of you singularly, as an unrepeatable phenomenon. God has not made human beings in a mold....It was not my parents who gave me being; they were simply instruments or means that God used to give me life....Even prior to the months of my gestation, I existed in the mind of God as a project which, if brought to fulfillment, would make of me a saint because a saint is nothing else than the full realization of a life according to the design of God.