Oscar Romero: The Saint who was Slain at Mass

by Gunther Simmermacher · Published March 23, 2023 · Updated March 23, 2023

St Oscar Romero is pictured in a 1979 photo. (CNS photo/Octavio Duran)

The state murder of a priest turned Archbishop Óscar Romero into a human rights activist. For that, he was also assassinated. Günther Simmermacher looks at the life and death of the Salvadoran martyr.

St Oscar at a glance

Name: Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez
Born: August 15, 1917, in Ciudad Barrios, El Salvador
Died: March 24, 1980 (aged 62) in the chapel of Hospital de la Divina Providencia, San Salvador, El Salvador
Beatified: 2015
Canonised: 2018
Feast: March 24
Patronages: Christian communicators, persecuted Christians, Caritas International

On the holy feast of the Assumption in 1917, Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez was born in Ciudad Barrios, El Salvador. The life of the man the world has come to know as Archbishop Óscar Romero was ended cruelly by the bullets of a regime assassin on March 24, 1980 — while he was saying Mass in a hospital chapel.

Archbishop Romero is a hero to many for his courage in speaking out plainly against the right-wing regime’s brutal violence and injustice, and its ruthless oppression of the poor. His brutal martyrdom brought Romero to the world’s attention, more so than those of other Catholics who were murdered in those years, especially in Latin America, to silence their Christian witness. Archbishop Romero’s ecclesiastical title doubtless contributed to his posthumous prominence, as well as the circumstances of his murder — killing a priest during the celebration of the Mass is not just personal; it’s a calculated assault on Christ himself.

The day before his assassination, Archbishop Romero said in a homily: “Those who surrender to the service of the poor through love of Christ, will live like the grains of wheat that die. They only apparently die. If they were not to die, there would remain a solitary grain. The harvest comes because of the grain that dies. We know that every effort to improve society, above all when society is so full of injustice and sin, is an effort that God blesses; that God wants; that God demands of us.” This served as the testament of a man who had no plan to be a political activist, never mind being a hero of a struggle that spans continents.

Newly-ordained Fr Oscar Romero in Rome in 1942.

Skilled at carpentry

Born on August 15, 1917, to Santos Romero and Guadalupe de Jesús Galdámez, Óscar had five brothers and two sisters. The local school offered only Grades 1-3; after that he was tutored privately until the age of 13 while his father taught him the craft of carpentry, in which the youngster showed great talent. But he was also a pious boy, so at 13 he expressed his wish to become a priest, and entered a seminary school in San Miguel. After graduating, he entered the national seminary in San Salvador, completing his studies at the Gregorian College in Rome. He was ordained there on April 4, 1942.

Returning to El Salvador in 1943 — the journey home included a few months in Cuban internment camps — Fr Romero made his mark as a priest who got things done in the diocese of San Miguel. He went on to serve as the rector of the local seminary. As a young priest, as a Catholic newspaper editor, as a seminary rector, and after his appointment in 1970 as the auxiliary bishop of San Salvador, Romero was known to be overly scrupulous and firmly conservative. As the editor of El Salvador’s archdiocesan newspaper, Orientación, he gained a reputation as something of a reactionary. So his appointment in 1977 as archbishop of San Salvador was met with disappointment by social activist priests, who expected no support from him, and with satisfaction by the ruling classes, who expected no opposition from him. But Romero confounded these expectations.

Three weeks after becoming archbishop, his friend Fr Rutilio Grande SJ, an activist working with the rural poor, was murdered by the regime while on his way to a novena (Fr Grande was beatified in January this year). Archbishop Romero later recalled: “When I looked at Rutilio lying there dead, I thought, ‘If they have killed him for doing what he did, then I too have to walk the same path’.” That path put him increasingly in the crosshairs of the country’s murderous regimes. He spoke out against poverty, economic oppression, social injustice, assassinations and torture. He also condemned the support of the United States for the military junta.

As a former newspaper editor, Romero knew the power of social communications. Every Sunday he’d broadcast his enormously popular sermons on the Catholic radio station YSAX. He’d also include updates on disappearances, tortures, murders and so on. On Mondays, he’d give another hour-long speech. For most Salvadorans, this was the main source of news, with 73% of the rural and 47% of the urban population tuning in regularly. A month before his death, the station was bombed by the regime.

In 1979, Romero met with Pope John Paul II, hoping to obtain a Vatican condemnation of El Salvador’s regime, which had detained and tortured Catholic priests, killing six of them by 1980. The pope declined his request. But Romero’s activism was starting to attract international attention. In February 1980, the month before his assassination, Romero was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium.

(Left) The chapel where Archbishop Romero was murdered. (Right) Archbishop Romero’s bloodied shirt

Murdered at Mass

On March 23, 1980, Romero called on Salvadoran soldiers, as Christians, to obey God’s higher order and stop carrying out the government’s repression and violations of basic human rights. The following evening, he celebrated Mass in a small chapel at the Divine Providence Hospital in San Salvador. As Archbishop Romero finished his sermon, a red car stopped outside the chapel. A gunman got out, stepped to the door of the chapel, and shot Romero in the heart.

Romero’s funeral Mass on March 30 was attended by more than 250 000 mourners from all over the world. During the funeral, smoke bombs were fired into the packed streets around the cathedral and snipers fired rifle shots from buildings, killing several people. More were injured or killed in the resultant stampede. It is estimated that 30-50 people died that day. The funeral Mass was aborted, and Romero’s body buried quietly.

Later that year, on December 2, a hit squad of the regime raped and murdered three US religious Sisters and one lay worker.

The regime sought to silence Romero, but the voice of the voiceless did not fall silent. Even in Romero’s death, it spoke compellingly: truth to power, hope to the oppressed, encouragement to the faithful. The example of Archbishop Romero inspired countless Catholics, laity and clergy alike, around the world to join or persist with the struggle against injustice.

Among those who took inspiration from Romero was an Argentinian Jesuit, Fr Jorge Bergoglio. As Pope Francis, he beatified the martyr in 2015 and canonised him in 2018 — after the Vatican had, shamefully, stalled the saintly martyr’s cause for political reasons over many years.

Archbishop Romero’s life witnesses God’s call to us to always be open to personal conversion and transformation, to hear Jesus’ challenge to leave our comfort zones and follow the demands of the Gospel. St Óscar Romero teaches us that even for Christians who are not political and don’t want to be, there are times when our faith demands from us radical discipleship.

Published in the March 2022 issue of The Southern Cross magazine