Monseñor Romero: "The challenge of going on living"

On 14^th October 2018, Monsignor Oscar Arnulfo Romero was canonized. Romero, for his commitment to the poor, was murdered on 24^th March 24 1980, while saying mass in San Salvador.

Our brother Alfredo Mires was in El Salvador in the mid-90s and, on his return, he published "The challenge of going on living: Review of walks in Guatemala and El Salvador".

The book opens with two texts of Monsignor Romero located as epigraphs:

"A restructuring of our economic and social system is necessary, because you cannot be absolutizing that idolatry of private property."

"It's still time to take off the rings so that they will not take the hands off."

We share here a small excerpt related to "San Romero de América":

"Lord,

if you save El Salvador

do not save those who, as they killed,

enjoyed it.

To the cruel assassin,

the raider of the poor,

the rapist, the pig,

condemn them,

Lord.

I do not want to forget the tomb of Monsignor Romero, nor the corner where the killers killed him, who walk free if they kill and who jail if they are looked at.

In the room from where they dragged the six Jesuits of the Catholic University, to shoot them point-blank, a picture of Monsignor has the glass broken by the flame of the flamethrower with which they tried to kill his memory and only managed to fan his memory.

And in another painting he has another bullet in his chest, because those who killed him must dream at night and maybe they still are not convinced that he is dead. Maybe they believed that by killing a man they could annihilate his dreams.

I do not want to forget the dark corner of the sacristy where Romero lived, that kind of saint with the smell of a town, nor his clothes torn, nor his blood spilled. El Salvador has so much pain that I do not know where it fits."