We are celebrating the anniversary of our beloved Saint Oscar Romero, the Salvadoran archbishop, martyr, and saint, who is an example and role model for everyone, especially young people. Every human being, particularly young people, carries deep within their being the desire to be an agent of change and transformation in the world and history; to live with this commitment to love fraternally and in solidarity in the struggle for peace, for the universal common good, and for justice for the poor of the earth. And, in this way, to seek truth, beauty, and goodness; to transcend ourselves in this love for others and for the Other, for God himself who roots us and fills us with these longings for peace, justice, and a full and eternal spiritual life.

Archbishop Romero embraced the Gift of Grace from the God of life and gave himself to Him and to others. Guided by the Spirit, in following Jesus, he sought first the Kingdom of God and its justice, which brings us liberating salvation from all evil, sin, death, and injustice. Archbishop Romero lived the principle of mercy of the Samaritan Church, with an ethic of compassion that embraced in solidarity the suffering, evil, and injustice endured by individuals, communities, and the poor. He was thus a credible witness, living an honorable and moral life, embodying in history the values ​​and ethical principles of the civilization of love, freedom, equality, and the sacred and inviolable life and dignity of every person.

Monsignor Romero is a mystic, in his profound union with God in Jesus, in his love for the Word of God, for the Church, for the Popes, for prayer, and for the sacraments such as the Eucharist (cf. Catechesis of Monsignor Romero, July 23, 1978). He is also a prophet, proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom of God through his defense of peace, social justice, and human rights; with a prophetic and critical denunciation of the idols of wealth, power, and the structural violence that brings death. This was demonstrated, for example, in his renowned final homily (Homily, March 23, 1980), before his assassination.

As a true missionary following Jesus, in faithful communion with the Church and its popes (Hom. 22-10-1979), he brings this Gospel of the Kingdom and its liberating salvation to peoples and history, embracing all that is good, beautiful, and true in peoples, with their cultures and spirituality (Hom. 18-11-1979). Archbishop Romero promotes liberating and integral human development that responds to the needs, capacities, and talents of individuals, peoples, and the poor as protagonists of their integral liberation. And, in a pioneering way, he bears witness to that inherent and essential key to the evangelizing mission: the Social Doctrine of the Church, with its principles of the  universal destination of goods,  which takes precedence over private property. Dignified  work  , with its corresponding rights, such as a just wage, takes precedence over capital. An ethical economy, at the service of these needs and the integral development of peoples.

In this real mission, he finds God in his brothers and sisters, in the poor who are a sacrament (presence) of the poor, crucified Christ (Mt 25:31-46), and in social and historical reality. Archbishop Romero embodies that true prophecy which, in proclaiming the Kingdom and its justice, opposes the idolatries of greed, possession, and domination. This rejection and peaceful struggle is against the false gods of capital, the market, and the nation-state that sacrifice humanity on the altar of profit and power. For all these reasons, individuals, and especially young people, have a true wellspring of wisdom and a paradigm for life in the existence, legacy, and work of our saint, Archbishop Romero. He demonstrates that constitutive social and public dimension of faith, the theological virtue of  political charity,  which fosters civic and Catholic activism in the responsibility for the common good, with a commitment to justice that transforms the personal and structural causes of sin, evil, and injustice.

As Archbishop Romero states in what can be considered his testament, “the political dimension of faith is nothing other than the Church’s response to the demands of the real socio-political world in which the Church lives. What we have rediscovered is that this demand is primary to faith and that the Church cannot ignore it. It is not a matter of the Church considering itself a political institution that competes with other political bodies, nor of possessing its own political mechanisms; much less is it a matter of our Church desiring political leadership. It is something deeper and more evangelical; it is a matter of the true option for the poor, of being incarnate in their world, of proclaiming good news to them, of giving them hope, of encouraging them to a liberating praxis, of defending their cause and participating in their destiny. This option of the Church for the poor is what explains the political dimension of its faith in its most fundamental roots and characteristics. Because it has opted for the real poor, not the fictitious ones, because it has opted for the truly oppressed and Repressed, the Church lives in the world of politics and realizes itself as Church also through politics. It cannot be otherwise if, like Jesus, it addresses itself to the poor” (Speech upon receiving an honorary doctorate from the University of Louvain).

Monsignor Romero is a pioneer of this entire human, liberating, and sustainable development with an integral ecology that cares for human life, families, and our planet Earth in all its phases and dimensions. He stands in opposition to the culture of death, social destruction, and the destruction of nature (Homily, March 11, 1979). In this way, our saint promotes a global bioethics and socio-environmental justice that defends the life of every human being, from the beginning at conception (Homily, March 18, 1979), the life of the poor, the excluded, and our sister Earth; that fosters the faithful and fruitful love of man and woman in marriage, family, and children, in service to the mission, the common good, and justice (Homily, September 30, 1979; Homily, November 6, 1977; Homily, June 17, 1979).

For all these reasons, in the course of his relationship with another saint, Saint John Paul II, this Pope first proclaimed Archbishop Romero a “martyr.” In their second meeting in Rome (March 7, 1979), Saint John Paul II inspired Archbishop Romero and encouraged him to continue being a “faithful shepherd.” And during his visit to El Salvador (1983), disregarding all protocol and as a prophetic gesture of devotion, Saint John Paul II himself ordered the Popemobile to be diverted so he could pray at the tomb of our martyr. At the same time, in the words of Archbishop Romero, Saint John Paul II “fully knows our work and is very much in agreement with the defense of social justice that we try to carry out here and our preferential love for the poor. The biased information that is sometimes given about relations with the Holy Father has nothing more than the malice of wanting to discredit a pastoral work that the Pope knows much better than those media outlets that here try to distort things…” (April 15, 1979).

All this legacy of wisdom and life from our martyr/saint is a source of happiness, meaning, and fulfillment for humanity, for young people, and for the Church. And his holiness did not end with death, with his martyrdom. Archbishop Romero lives on in the Church Triumphant and the Communion of Saints, in the fullness of eternal life with God, who through the Spirit is mystically and in solidarity with us. The Church Militant, a pilgrim on the paths of the Kingdom of God with our Lord Jesus Christ.