"Unjust social structures are the roots of all violence and disturbances.… Those who benefit from obsolete structures react selfishly to any kind of change."
-- Most Rev. Oscar A. Romero
Thirty-one years ago today, on March 24, 1980, the Most Rev. Oscar A. Romero was assassinated in San Salvador while saying Mass. An additional 30 to 50 Salvadorans were murdered when paramilitaries attacked Romero's funeral.
Why was Romero assassinated? Because he stood with the poor. Because he opposed the government. He urged U.S. President Jimmy Carter to cut aid to the Salvadoran government.* He urged Pope John Paul II to condemn the Salvadoran government also. Most proximately, on the day before his assassination, Romero urged Salvadoran soldiers to refuse to follow unjust orders, to lay down their weapons, and to submit to the higher authority of God.
In 1993, a United Nations report identified Roberto D'Aubuisson as the man who ordered Romero's assassination. In 2004, a U.S. court agreed. Like many Salvadoran militants, D'Aubuisson had been trained by the U.S. government at the infamous "School of the Americas" (since renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation).
A year ago today, on the 30th anniversary of Romero's murder, El Salvador offered an official state apology, acknowledging the government's role in protecting those who assassinated Archbishop Romero.
Two days ago, while in El Salvador, President Obama visited Archbishop Romero's gravesite. That hardly makes up for decades of American malfeasance, in El Salvador and elsewhere in Latin America, but it is a welcome step toward repentance.
No similar repentance is forthcoming from the Catholic Church. They have declined even to name Romero as a martyr. This is something that makes the blood of liberal Catholics (like my parents) boil. Of course, the Catholic Church has enjoyed nice perquisites from its close relationships with right-wing governments in Latin America. Human nature being what it is, it's no surprise the Catholic Church takes pains to distance itself from "liberation theologians" and other troublemakers, no matter what that itinerant preacher from Nazareth had to say about poverty and oppression.
Roger Williams, who founded the American colony of Rhode Island, is widely considered the father of Separation of Church and State. A devout Christian, Williams was concerned that involvement in affairs of state inevitably compromised the integrity of the church (in contrast to the modern view that the separation is intended to protect the state). The shameful way the Catholic Church has dishonored the memory of Archbishop Romero reminds us of the continuing wisdom of Roger Williams's perspective.
*-Ultimately, Carter's fear of Communism trumped his desire to do what was right. Carter has since written that he considered Romero and other Latino Christian leaders heroes. To be fair, Carter was less sympathetic to America's right-wing allies in Latin America than any of his predecessors, or either of his two successors. When Carter had power, however, he knuckled under for fear that El Salvador would become another Nicaragua. If only things had turned out so well for the Salvadorans.
