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In his speech to a group from the Pontifical Commission for Latin America on March 4, 2019, Pope Francis proposed Saint Oscar Romero as a reference for Catholic leaders of the continent and quoted a long excerpt from one of his homilies. [Text of the speech here.] It was the second time so far this year that the Holy Father quoted St. Romero extensively, after doing so before Central American bishops in Panama at the end of January.
In his words to the Academy of Catholic Leaders, a group of 26 participants in a 9-day seminar held in Rome, Francis urged a new approach to politics in Latin America, incorporating the principles of the social doctrine, including a concept of Christian identity that places evangelical principles over ideological commitments. In this context, the Pope quoted St. Romero.
“In Latin America we have a saint who knew these things well,” said the Pontiff to introduce the Romero quotation. “He knew how to live the faith as friendship and commitment to his people to the extent of giving his life for them,” said the Pope, framing the Romero context of the quote.
The Pope then recited over 200 words from an August 6, 1978 homily by the Salvadoran martyr, offered during the celebration of the patronal feast of El Salvador, in which Romero summarized the message of his Third Pastoral Letter, “The Church and Popular Political Organizations.”
These are St. Romero’s words cited by Pope Francis:
The Church cannot be identified with any organization, not even with those that call themselves Christian. The Church is not the organization and the organization is not the Church. If Christians have matured in their faith and their political vocation, then concerns of faith cannot be simply identified with a specific political concern. Still less can the Church and the organization be identified as one and the same reality. No one can say that within a certain organization all the Christian demands of the faith will be developed. Not every Christian has a political vocation, and political activism is not the only activity that implies a concern for justice. There are also other ways to translate one’s faith into work for justice and the common good. One cannot insist that the Church or its ecclesial symbols become instruments of political activity. To be a good political activist one need not be a Christian, but Christians involved in political activity have an obligation to profess their faith in Christ and to use methods that are congruent with their faith. If a conflict arises in this area between loyalty to the faith and loyalty to the organization, genuine Christians must choose faith and demonstrate that their struggle for justice is for the justice of God’s kingdom and no other.
The Holy Father explained that St. Romero made this statement “so that the lay faithful could be free and not slaves, so they could rediscover the reasons why it is worth entering politics but with the Gospel as a starting point, overcoming ideologies.”
The Pope explained that the holy bishop “saw many lay people who wanted to change things but who were often led astray by false ideological responses. With his mind and heart set on Jesus, and guided by the Social Doctrine of the Church, Saint Oscar Arnulfo Romero” made the statement he had just cited, the Pope explained.
According to Romero’s biographer, James R. Brockman, SJ, “The concrete question for Romero’s people” addressed in his Third Letter “was the Church’s relationship to the peasant organizations and other grass-roots political organizations that were growing in El Salvador.”[i]
The Salvadoran-Basque theologian Jon Sobrino, SJ explains that Romero’s letter
deals with the relationship of the Church and Popular
Organizations. From the outset, it recognizes that it is a new problem so you
have to study that relationship well. It is necessary to clarify the proper
nature of the Church, which is at the service of the people and must be incorporated
into the work of liberation. And then it addresses the concrete problems that
arise from this new situation: the relationship between faith and politics,
unification but not identification, Christian politicians’ loyalty to their
faith, authenticity, non-instrumentalization, freedom: that you cannot push
everyone into the organization, the specific roles of priests and laity in
hierarchical collaboration.[ii]
The subject is an important in Romero’s thinking, so much so that he dedicated a speech delivered at the University of Louvain in February 1980 to the “political dimension of faith from the option for the poor.” It is obvious that Pope Francis, in presenting Romero and extracting these lines from his thought, understands perfectly its importance.
The Pope has been lifting messages from Romero’s teachings since the beginning of the year. After having quoted him before the Central American bishops during World Youth Day in Panama, when he proposed Romero as a pastoral example, Francis also expressed his own Romero devotion in words published after the conclusion of the trip.
On January 26, 2019, Francis met with 30 Jesuits from the Central American Province, to whom he said “At the entrance to my room there is a frame containing a piece of cloth with Romero’s blood and notes from a catechesis by Rutilio [Grande].”[iii]
[i] “Pastoral
Teaching of Archbishop Oscar Romero,” Spirituality
Today, Summer 1988, Vol.40 No. 2.
Available online at: https://opcentral.org/resources/2015/01/19/james-r-brockman-pastoral-teaching-of-archbishop-oscar-romero/.
[ii] “Tres Cartas Pastorales de Monseñor Romero en la fiesta del Divino
Salvador” ("Three Pastoral Letters of Archbishop Romero for the Feast
of the Divine Savior"), Carta a las
Iglesias, July 20, 2012. Available
online at: http://www.uca.edu.sv/publica/cartas/media/archivo/e2434e_pag18cartaspastoralesderomero.pdf.
[iii] "
‘Put your lives at stake’: Pope Francis in dialogue with the Jesuits of Central
America," Civiltà Cattolica,
February 14, 2019. Available online at:
https://laciviltacattolica.com/put-your-lives-at-stake/.
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