Scottish priest lectures on legacy of Archbishop Oscar Romero

Rev. Thomas Greenan, a priest from Scotland, gave a talk on the legacy of Archbishop Oscar Romero at St. Martins in the Fields in London on June 24. Currently serving in the Peten jungle region of Guatemala, Rev. Greenan spent years as a missionary priest in El Salvador. Archbishop Romero was assassinated while celebrating Mass in March 1980 and is widely admired in Latin America. The cause of Romero for the recognition of his sainthood is ongoing. Rev. Greenan has writeen a master's thesis and doctoral dissertation on the life and work of Romero.

Rev. Greenan, who had also spoken in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Liverpool, described Romero as “a prophet possessed by the Spirit of God” whose homilies rallied a population suffering persecution and murder by death squads. A recording of a section of the homily Romero gave the day before his killing was played in St. Martin’s and Fr Thomas translated:

“Brothers, they are our own people! You are killing your own brothers and sisters, peasant folk, rural workers….And faced with an order to kill, that a human being gives, there ought to prevail the Law of God which states ‘Thou shalt not kill’” The words were interspersed by the clapping of a congregation who found him to be an inspirational leader, who took the Gospels and Catholic social teaching seriously and who put his own life at risk to defend them. Rev. Greenan noted, sadly, that assassination was the second principal cause of death in El Salvador; the first was diarrhea.

In February of 1979 in Puebla, Mexico, Archbishop Romero met the Brazilian theologian Fr. Leonardo Boff. Greenan reported that Boff remembered that encounter. Romero had asked him for some theological ideas on the theme of life. Boff is one of the principal proponents of what has come to be known as 'liberation theology."

Boff later recalled, “I remember very well how he spoke in a soft, gentle voice saying – ‘In my country they kill with cruelty. The poor are murdered; simple rural folk are tortured from day to day with the most extreme violence. We need to protect the minimum, which is God’s greatest gift - Life. Father Boff, help us to develop a theology of life.” Boff remembered that, after a pause, Romero said that, “we need to give our lives in order to protect the lives of others: this was the path of the Crucified One”.

Rev. Greenan described the lives of ordinary Salvadoreans who found comfort in Romero’s championing of their rights, through the life of a man he knew called Rodolfo. This man was a peasant, forced into exile by the persecution unleashed throughout the decades of the 70s and 80s. Rodolfo hid in the hills before crossing into neighbouring Honduras and took refuge in a refugee camp. In 1989, under the protection of the United Nations and other humanitarian organisations, he was among hundreds of these refugees who returned to El Salvador, and his village was a place which Rev. Greenan visited and served. Rodolfo told the priest he was very proud that he had shaken hands with Romero on two occasions. Unfortunately, soon after his return, Rodolfo was killed by a booby trap which exploded as he attempted to repair tiles on his roof.

Julian Filochowski, chair of the Archbishop Romero Trust, urged the congregation to visit its website regularly and become supporters of the Trust.

Info: http://www.romerotrust.org.uk