Oscar Romero

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El Salvador during the 1970s and 1980s was a country filled with violence and oppression. One of the most vocal and influential people in El Salvador during that period was Archbishop Oscar Romero. Many have accused him of being communist, “left-winged”, or radical, but others have praised him by calling him a man who lived according to Christ’s example and one who died the death of a martyr (Berryman 176). Oscar Romero believed that each human being should have the rights to work, food, and freedom from oppression. Further, Romero believed that in order to truly follow the teachings of Christ, it was both the Catholic Church’s responsibility as a community of believers, and his own responsibility as a high-ranking church leader to preserve and defend the basic rights of all humans. During his life, and especially during his term as Archbishop, Romero believed that the poor people of El Salvador were being deprived of their fundamental rights, and he worked actively to end this injustice in his homeland through his words, actions, and ultimately through his assassination.
Oscar Romero was born in a remote mountain village in Ciudad Barrios on August 15, 1917, and was the second of seven children (Berryman 160). His father worked at the local telegraph office and his family grew some crops (Berryman 160). Romero attended the major seminary in San Miguel, studied with the Jesuits at the National Seminary in San Salvador, and spent six years studying at the Gregorian Seminary in Rome, where he was ordained as a priest and given a degree in theology in 1942 (Forché 58). Romero returned to his own country to serve as priest in January 1944 (Berryman 161). The community where Romero served was rural and very poor, like most of El Salvador. After a few months the Bishop of San Miguel asked Romero to serve as the secretary of the diocese and Romero left the poor village behind, but it may have been during the short time that he s...