Saint Oscar Romero, Archbishop and Martyr (March 24, 1980)

Today is the 43rd anniversary of the martyrdom of Saint Oscar Romero, the archbishop of San Salvador in the small but greatly afflicted Central American nation of El Salvador. The world has changed in so many ways since that day, yet his witness and the hope he inspired are more relevant than ever, not only for “the Americas”—North, Central, and South—but for the whole world. St Oscar Romero, pray for us.

From a homily of Archbishop Romero in 1979: “The voice of the Church continues to be known and wants to be the voice that preaches the eternal message of the Lord. Despite the distortions and ill-will and slanders and defamation the voice of the Church wants to be that voice that from the heights of heaven draws all things unto herself so that we can speak about the meaning of death and life, the meaning of government and the struggle for just demands, the meaning of well-being and misery and living on the margins of society and the meaning of sin. The Church wants to speak about all these realities so that, illuminated with the vision of eternity, we make this earth what it was meant to be, a foretaste of heaven and not a war zone or a place where passions run wild. Indeed, as sisters and brothers, as children of God, we are all on a journey toward heaven, toward [Christ] the head of the body.”