Ten years ago this week I did a column on what was then the sixteenth anniversary of the martyrdom of Oscar Arnulfo Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador. This week's column is a much-modified reprise of that earlier essay.
And he'll have you know you can't plagiarize yourself, so there!
Even some of his fellow bishops had denounced him, and he was, of course, hated by the military. But he was also distrusted by the Vatican, thanks in part to the negative assessment of him by a powerful Latin American cardinal working there.
No names, no specifics. Someone once suggested I get the background by seeing the movie Romero. I lieu of that, I read James R. Brockman's book. On November 7, 1978 Romero wrote to the new Pope, John Paul II, to respond to criticism.
Romero then told the pope about his fears, arising from the "systematic and imcomprehensible opposition" of the nuncio and most of the other bishops. The nuncio "has shown himself influenced more by government, diplomatic and capitalist sectors than by the sufferings of the people." (p. 145)The cause of their [his suffragen bishops'] aversion was partly the "pettiness that has almost always existed in suffragens toward the metropolitan," but each also had his particular reasons." (p. 146)
After hearing both sides, the Pope had Romero in for an audience on May 7, 1979.
There was serious consideration to naming an apostolic administrator sede plena. That is, Romero would remain archbishop in name, but another would govern. (p. 167)
As far as I can tell from the book, that idea had neither advanced nor been abandoned when Romero was murdered the following March 24th.
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