“Unless the grain of wheat falls to earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.” John 12: 23-26

Moments before he was killed, Archbishop Oscar Romero reflected on this passage the Gospel of John that he had just read.

You have just heard in Christ’s Gospel, he said, that one must not love oneself so much as to avoid getting involved in the risks of life that history demands of us, and that those who fend off danger will lose their lives. But whoever, out of love for Christ gives themselves to the service of others will live, like the grain of wheat that dies, but only apparently. If it did not die, it would remain alone … only in dying does it produce the harvest. (Archbishop Romero, March 24, 1980)

The last words of Romero were about the price of redemption, about death and resurrection, but also about life – about “getting involved in the risks of life that history demands of us.”

For Christians, Romero’s story is the story, our story – one so important that we retell it each year, accompanied by a solemn 40 day fast so that we will be open to lessons of repentance and renewal. Life, death, resurrection, but especially life – getting involved in the risks of life that history demands of us – practicing Gospel Nonviolence.

Romero’s story is that of a simple man whose profound faith stands as a challenge to and a model for us. His witness/his way of life helps us distill the essential lessons of Jesus’ life and make sense of them in the context of our own era. But Romero never stands alone. He always, always stands in the midst of the people he loved. In that way too he models the life of Jesus, whose embrace of people, especially marginalized people, in his own time was immediate and very real.

Archbishop Romero was a very traditional prelate – quite conservative, kind, a good preacher and apolitical. He tended to understand the Gospel as one of peace and reconciliation and thought that the pursuit of social justice and liberation would inevitably lead to division and violent conflict.

But Romero encountered the Gospel in living color as he accompanied individuals and communities who were impoverished and brutally violated by the powerful of El Salvador and he was evangelized by those experiences. Romero took on the evil as Christ did – to overcome it and to utterly defend God’s cause, the cause of justice, the cause of just peace.

He chose sides in an extremely complex, violent socio-political reality. But his commitment to nonviolence was impeccable. He positioned himself in a very narrow space where he could speak truth publicly and privately based on the stories he heard and the reality he witnessed day after day – where he could plead for an end to all the violence, for a peace that was (in his own words) not the silence of cemeteries, but shalom.

Between 1975 and 1992, 70,000 Salvadorans were killed in a brutal civil war. Many of those killed were church workers – catechists, religious women, priests and a bishop. Thousands upon thousands of others died for their faith. Most were Salvadoran peasants; some who gave their lives were from other countries. The war in which they were killed was not a war about religion – at least not on the surface, but a war about land and political power, wealth and ideology. It was a war fueled by geopolitical interests as defined in the Cold War, with the United States playing a major role.

To talk about Christ crucified in the 20th century in El Salvador is not an exaggeration. But the role of Archbishop Romero, the depth and character of his spirituality, the finesse of his public positioning and powerful witness in an extremely complex political context, make him an exceptional model for would-be disciples of Christ and perhaps especially for those of us whose commitment to nonviolence is constantly challenged by egregious attacks on vulnerable people and our planet.

Romero walked a fine line between the violence of repression and systemic injustice on the one hand — and that of war, of violent revolution on the other. He was critical of both, always maintaining a distance that gave him clear vision… though he had clearly chosen the side of justice and liberation because he accompanied the poor; he saw the reality of their lives and he supported their struggle to end the oppression that constantly threatened their survival.

Romero repeatedly challenged the culture of death, that in which he was immediately immersed, but also its roots and expressions beyond El Salvador. His holding of life sacred was not rhetorical, but a daily creative task. What Romero resisted was death, the death of children ill from curable diseases, the death of hope in young people, the death of those who stood up to the gods of death, – death from war, torture, poverty, cynicism, despair.

Romero was a prophet in the most classical sense. He agonized over the hardness of heart that prevailed among the powerful of El Salvador. He cried out for an end to U.S. support for the forces of repression. He pleaded with the military to stop the violent repression. He guided the Church on a fine line between disengagement and partisan activity.

Romero had the audacious power to defy death. He absolutely believed in Resurrection and he constantly gave witness to that belief in the way he lived and the words he spoke. If they kill me, he said, I will rise again in the people of El Salvador. To remember Romero is to embrace the fullness of life.

Marie Dennis
Co-Director, Catholic Institute for Nonviolence

Cover picture via Jesuits in Ireland ©