March 24, 1980: The news hit like a bomb. An archbishop had been shot dead at Mass: Oscar Romero of San Salvador in Central America. I was thunderstruck.
By 1980, this no longer happened even in Communist countries. They just imprisoned you.
I was a new pastor in a small parish, ordained 15 years, with time to read and think, especially about the direction of our Vatican II Church.
It had become evident that some of the boldest steps of putting faith into action in society were being taken in Latin America: base communities, liberation theology, the united struggle for a just society, versus oligarchy and dictatorship.
Romero’s name had appeared several times as a voice for the poor in his tiny country, El Salvador, which had begun to sink into violence. Because many people, especially catechists but also priests, were being killed by anonymous “death squads,” or overt government forces, Romero had begun to denounce the perpetrators explicitly, nationwide, on diocesan radio.
‘I am a Christian’
When threatened with death as a “subversive,” he said, “I am a Christian. I don’t believe in death without resurrection.”
Romero was not affirmed by most of his fellow bishops at this time. He wept over the havoc to his people and the lack of understanding he encountered from above. Political and religious authorities considered him naive, a dupe or misled. But, he was the one who saw clearly.
At Mass, minutes before he was slain, he said, “We must not love ourselves more than Him. We must not refrain from plunging into the risks history demands of us. Those who surrender to the service of people through the love of Christ will live like the grain of wheat that dies.”
Years after his death, in 1994, I went to El Salvador on pilgrimage. I saw his vestments, yellowed with dried blood. I knelt a long time near the altar where he was slain; I visited the graves of the Jesuits and the Maryknoll Sisters executed by the military.
I also spent a day and a night in a remote hamlet of young families trying to live as a united cooperative, as a base community.
On returning to Wilmington, I felt a little hollow and at loose ends. “What does Wilmington have to do with El Salvador?” The answer came quickly.
The vast movement of Latin-American people had begun. Within a month of returning, I was told by parishioners that Mexican immigrants were moving into the Prices Corner area.
Within six months, we had begun a Spanish Mass at St. Catherine’s. Soon, Bishop Saltarelli asked me to form a committee to develop a new pastoral plan for Hispanic Ministry in the diocese.
Today, Sunday Mass is celebrated in Spanish at 20 locations, and Hispanic Catholics may well account for a quarter of our diocese.
Solidarity partnership
Six years later as 5,000 Guatemalans poured into Sussex County and the Eastern Shore parishes, Bishop Saltarelli and their Bishop Alvaro Ramazzini of San Marcos agreed to form a Solidarity Partnership between our dioceses. For 12 years now we have pursued it.
Thirty-five years have passed since Oscar Romero’s death. He is declared a martyr; he will be beatified May 23, the day of my 50th anniversary.
Model of life
These past 20 years of priesthood have been immeasurably blessed for me by the immigrant Hispanic people.
When I concelebrate our 50th anniversary Mass on May 24 with Father Ralph Martin, who welcomed the Hispanic people to St. Catherine, and with Father Tom Hanley, who pioneered Hispanic Ministry in our diocese, it will be Archbishop Romero whom I credit for his intercession and model of life that led me — and us — so far.
Father John Hynes is pastor of St. Catherine of Siena Church in Wilmington.
