Thirty-five years after Archbishop Oscar Romero’s death at the hands of an assassin, his spirit lives on.
The archbishop boldly preached a message of social justice during El Salvador’s civil war until a single shot fired down the long aisle of his church brought an end to his life on March 24, 1980.
Romero will be beatified as a martyr by the Catholic Church on Saturday, which means he will be given the title of "blessed" and will be publicly venerated, or honored, by the local dioceses that were linked to his ministry.
The priest’s story was immortalized in the 1989 biopic “Romero.” There’s a statue of him at the west entrance of the Westminster Abbey in London. Numerous social justice organizations have taken on his name, from the Romero Institute in California, to the Christian Initiative Romero in Germany. The international Catholic charity organization, Caritas, chose Romero as its patron saint during its 20th General Assembly in Rome.
To celebrate his beatification, you can listen to the Panamanian musician Ruben Blades’ song “El Padre Antonio y su Monaguillo Andres,” which was inspired by Romero's story.
But the best way to celebrate is to take his mission to heart -- to renew your commitment to serve the poor, outcast and marginalized in your own communities.
Here are six quotes from this inspiring Catholic archbishop.
Image: Jose Cabezas via Getty / Quote: Christian Today
Image: AFP via Getty / Quote: Education For Justice
Image: Marvin Recinos via Getty / Quote: Huffington Post Blogger John Dear
Image: Marvin Recinos via Getty / Quote: Crux
Image: Marvin Recinos via Getty / Quote: National Catholic Reporter
Image: Marvin Recinos via Getty / Image: National Catholic Reporter
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Before You Go
"He had been chosen as archbishop partly because he didn't seem very political," Garrard-Burnett told The Huffington Post. "But over time he became very concerned about the violence overtaking the country."
Romero's rise to prominence coincided with the growth of the liberation theology movement, which aimed to use the influence of the Catholic Church to improve the lives of the poor. The movement became associated with the left in a region where the church hierarchy was largely conservative.
"At the time liberation theology was really the order of the day in Latin America," Garrard-Burnett said. "The clergy who were out in the parishes initially were involved in things like cooperatives and fertilizer projects and things like that, that they thought would help people. They organized Bible readings, which they thought would help people apply biblical teachings to their lives. That may not sound very revolutionary, but it was."
Though Garrard-Burnett says Romero didn't openly embrace the movement, his defense of the poor and criticisms of the Salvadoran government dovetailed with liberation theology's aims.
As El Salvador lurched toward civil war in the late 1970s, Romero called upon the military to defy orders to kill innocent people, saying that the law of God was higher than the authority of the Salvadoran government.
During a radio broadcast on March 23, 1980, Romero said, "In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose laments rise to heavens, each day more tumultuous, I ask you, I beg you, I order you -- stop the repression!"
Arturo Viscarra, advocacy coordinator for the School of the Americas Watch, a human rights group organized to oppose the U.S. training of Latin American military forces used to attack civilians, was six months old when his family brought him to the United States. They fled violence in El Salvador the same year Romero was killed.
Viscarra told HuffPost he was happy to hear that the pope had declared Romero a martyr, but also said he hoped Romero's recognition by the Vatican would spur more discussion about how he died.
El Salvador never convicted anyone for Romero's killing, but a U.N.-sponsored truth commission found in 1993 that Roberto D'Aubuisson, one of the alleged architects of the country's right-wing death squads, masterminded the attack.
D'Aubuisson studied at the School of the Americas, a U.S. military institute reviled among Latin America's left for having trained leaders of the wave of right-wing dictatorships that took power in the region from the 1960s through the 1980s.
For Viscarra, that training serves as a reminder of Romero's condemnation of U.S. funding of the repressive Salvadoran government, which U.S. leaders justified as a means of containing communism during the Cold War.
"There needs to be further accountability for those that committed these human rights violations, including the killing of Romero -- and including the U.S., who bear responsibility for atrocities including this one," Viscarra said. "If you're going to talk about a martyr, there should be discussion of who's responsible for his murder."
Revered as a hero across the Americas, Romero's face can be seen on murals from El Salvador to California, where many Salvadorans settled during the war years.
Having grown up in communist Poland, Pope John Paul II's experience differed sharply from that of Latin America, Gerrard-Burnett said. Both he and his successor, Pope Benedict XVI, were "very contrary to the idea that Christians and revolutionaries could be on the same side," she added.
Pope Francis hasn't embraced liberation theology, but he has professed similar values and lived through a similarly violent, U.S.-backed, right-wing dictatorship.
When the news of the Vatican's decision was announced, Salvadoran digital news publication El Faro led its site with the story. Below it, they placed a story about a Salvadoran politician pushing to implement the death penalty in order to tame the country's out-of-control violence.