Saint Romero’s «Quadragesimo Anno»

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This year marks the fortieth (40th) anniversary of the martyrial death of Saint Oscar Romero. That is why the Salvadoran Church has declared a Jubilee Year that includes other milestones in the Salvadoran martyrology, which is expected to have four new blessed this year: Fr. Rutilio Grande and his two companion martyrs, as well as Fr. Cosme Spessotto, an Italian priest killed in 1980, for whom this year will also mark four decades since his martyrdom. Finally, this year will also be the 40th anniversary of the deaths of four American women killed by the Salvadoran army in December 1980, and the 50th anniversary of the oldest Salvadoran martyr, the almost forgotten (but recently recovered) Fr. Nicolás Rodríguez, killed in 1970. These dates are all featured in the Romero 40th Jubilee Year.

The message of the Salvadoran bishops announcing the Jubilee Year places it in the context of several outstanding issues challenging Salvadoran society, including the need for “an authentic National Reconciliation Law” in the Central American country, which experienced a bloody internal conflict between 1980 and 1992. The specter of this conflict is haunts this anniversary, which in its biblical connotation, implies a generational change and comes as El Salvador has elected a president who is not from the political parties associated with the war, but from a newly formed one, with the evocative name “New Ideas”. (However, events in progress in which the president took the Legislative Assembly accompanied by an army detachment have raised serious doubts in some sectors about the validity of reforms.)

In the Church, the 40th anniversary of Romero’s martyrdom appears to be reinterpreted in the light of generational changes in the social doctrine of the Church, which under the teaching of Pope Francis (on the fifth anniversary of «Laudato Si» and the wake of the publication of the post-synodal exhortation «Querida Amazonía») focuses on environmental considerations. Not surprisingly, in the framework of the Jubilee Year, the Rutilio Grande Vicariate of the San Salvador Archdiocese presented a seminar entitled “The Environment in the Light of Thought of Monsignor Romero.” In Canada, the Dominican Pastoral Institute has entitled its 40th anniversary commemoration “Nonviolent Action and Ecological Crisis: Oscar Romero, an inspiring figure for today.” And the national needs highlighted by the Salvadoran bishops included the need for a law to protect the water.

In London, the Romero Trust has scheduled speeches in various cities by the theologian Edgardo Colón-Emeric, entitled “Romero 40 years on.” Colón-Emeric is the author of a book on Romero's theological vision, which focuses on the mystery of the transfiguration. Colon-Emeric hopes that his work will inspire academics to think in solidarity with the poor inspired by Romero's vision, which is summed up in his saying: “Gloria Dei, vivens pauper”: “The glory of God is that the poor should live.” The dissemination of Romero's thought could also pave the way for his eventual recognition as a “Doctor of the Church.”

This blog predicts that there will be news for the Romero anniversary in March regarding the beatification causes of Frs. Grande, Spessotto and their fellow martyrs — possibly as soon as next week — which will make Romero, the only canonized saint of El Salvador, for the moment, the patriarch of the Salvadoran martyrs during his Jubilee Year.