Archbishop Oscar Romero
The Last Sermon (1980)
Let no one be offended because we use the divine words read
at our mass to shed light on the social, political and economic
situation of our people. Not to do so would be unchristian. Christ
desires to unite himself with humanity, so that the light he brings
from God might become life for nations and individuals.
I know many are shocked by this preaching and want to accuse
us of forsaking the gospel for politics. But I reject this accusation.
I am trying to bring to life the message of the Second Vatican
Council and the meetings at Medellin and Puebla. The documents
from these meetings should not just be studied theoretically.
They should be brought to life and translated into the real struggle
to preach the gospel as it should be for our people. Each week
I go about the country listening to the cries of the people, their
pain from so much crime, and the ignominy of so much violence.
Each week I ask the Lord to give me the right words to console,
to denounce, to call for repentance. And even though I may be
a voice crying in the desert, I know that the church is making
the effort to fulfill its mission....
Every country lives its own "exodus"; today El Salvador
is living its own exodus. Today we are passing to our liberation
through a desert strewn with bodies and where anguish and pain
are devastating us. Many suffer the temptation of those who walked
with Moses and wanted to turn back and did not work together.
It is the same old story. God, however, wants to save the people
by making a new history....
History will not fail; God sustains it. That is why I say
that insofar as historical projects attempt to reflect the eternal
plan of God, to that extent they reflect the kingdom of God. This
attempt is the work of the church. Because of this, the church,
the people of God in history, is not attached to any one social
system, to any political organization, to any party. The church
does not identify herself with any of those forces because she
is the eternal pilgrim of history and is indicating at every historical
moment what reflects the kingdom of God and what does not reflect
the kingdom of God. She is the servant of the Kingdom of God.
The great task of Christians must be to absorb the spirit
of God's kingdom and, with souls filled with the kingdom of God,
to work on the projects of history. It's fine to be organized
in popular groups; it's all right to form political parties; it's
all right to take part in the government. It's fine as long as
you are a christian who carries the reflection of the kingdom
of God and tries to establish it where you are working, and as
long as you are not being used to further worldly ambitions. This
is the great duty of the people of today. My dear Christians,
I have always told you, and I will repeat, that the true liberators
of our people must come from us Christians, from the people of
God. Any historical plan that's not based on what we spoke of
in the first point-the dignity of the human being, the love of
God, the kingdom of Christ among people-will be a fleeting project.
Your project, however, will grow in stability the more it reflects
the eternal design of God. It will be a solution of the common
good of the people every time, if it meets the needs of the people....
Now I invite you to look at things through the eyes of the church,
which is trying to be the kingdom of God on earth and so often
must illuminate the realities of our national situation.
We have lived through a tremendously tragic week. I could
not give you the facts before, but a week ago last Saturday, on
15 March, one of the largest and most distressing military operations
was carried out in the countryside. The villages affected were
La Laguna, Plan de Ocotes and El Rosario. The operation brought
tragedy: a lot of ranches were burned, there was looting, and-inevitably-people
were killed. In La Laguna, the attackers killed a married couple,
Ernesto Navas and Audelia Mejia de Navas, their little children,
Martin and Hilda, thirteen and seven years old, and eleven more
peasants.
Other deaths have been reported, but we do not know the names
of the dead. In Plan de Ocotes, two children and four peasants
were killed, including two women. In El Rosario, three more peasants
were killed. That was last Saturday.
Last Sunday, the following were assassinated in Arcatao by
four members of ORDEN: peasants Marcelino Serrano, Vincente Ayala,
twenty-four years old, and his son, Freddy. That same day, Fernando
Hernandez Navarro, a peasant, was assassinated in Galera de Jutiapa,
when he fled from the military.
Last Monday, 17 March, was a tremendously violent day. Bombs
exploded in the capital as well as in the interior of the country.
The damage was very substantial at the headquarters of the Ministry
of Agriculture. The campus of the national university was under
armed siege from dawn until 7 P.M. Throughout the day, constant
bursts of machine-gun fire were heard in the university area.
The archbishop's office intervened to protect people who found
themselves caught inside.
On the Hacienda Colima, eighteen persons died, at least fifteen
of whom were peasants. The administrator and the grocer of the
ranch also died. The armed forces confirmed that there was a confrontation.
A film of the events appeared on TV, and many analyzed interesting
aspects of the situation.
At least fifty people died in serious incidents that day:
in the capital, seven persons died in events at the Colonia Santa
Lucia; on the outskirts of Tecnillantas, five people died; and
in the area of the rubbish dump, after the evacuation of the site
by the military, were found the bodies of four workers who had
been captured in that action.
Sixteen peasants died in the village of Montepeque, thirty-eight
kilometers along the road to Suchitoto. That same day, two students
at the University of Central America were captured in Tecnillantas:
Mario Nelson and Miguel Alberto Rodriguez Velado, who were brothers.
The first one, after four days of illegal detention, was handed
over to the courts. Not so his brother, who was wounded and is
still held in illegal detention. Legal Aid is intervening on his
behalf.
Amnesty International issued a press release in which it described
the repression of the peasants, especially in the area of Chalatenango.
The week's events confirm this report in spite of the fact the
government denies it. As I entered the church, I was given a cable
that says, "Amnesty International confirmed today [that was
yesterday] that in El Salvador human rights are violated to extremes
that have not been seen in other countries." That is what
Patricio Fuentes (spokesman for the urgent action section for
Central America in Swedish Amnesty International) said at a press
conference in Managua, Nicaragua.
Fuentes confirmed that, during two weeks of investigations
he carried out in El Salvador, he was able to establish that there
had been eighty-three political assassinations between 10 and
14 March. He pointed out that Amnesty International recently condemned
the government of El Salvador, alleging that it was responsible
for six hundred political assassinations. The Salvadorean government
defended itself against the charges, arguing that Amnesty International
based its condemnation on unproved assumptions.
Fuentes said that Amnesty had established that in El Salvador
human rights are violated to a worse degree than the repression
in Chile after the coupe d'etat. The Salvadorean government also
said that the six hundred dead were the result of armed confrontations
between army troops and guerrillas. Fuentes said that during his
stay u l El Salvador, he could see that the victims had been tortured
before their deaths and mutilated afterward.
The spokesman of Amnesty International said that the victims'
bodies characteristically appeared with the thumbs tied behind
their backs. Corrosive liquids had been applied to the corpses
to prevent identification of the victims by their relatives and
to prevent international condemnation, the spokesman added. Nevertheless,
the bodies were exhumed and the dead have been identified. Fuentes
said that the repression carried out by the Salvadorean army was
aimed at breaking the popular organizations through the assassination
of their leaders in both town and country.
According to the spokesman of Amnesty International, at least
three thousand five hundred peasants have fled from their homes
to the capital to escape persecution. "We have complete lists
in London and Sweden of young children and women who have been
assassinated for being organized," Fuentes stated....
I would like to make a special appeal to the men of the army,
and specifically to the ranks of the National Guard, the police
and the military. Brothers, you come from our own people. You
are killing your own brother peasants when any human order to
kill must be subordinate to the law of God which says, "Thou
shalt not kill." No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary
to the law of God. No one has to obey an immoral law. It is high
time you recovered your consciences and obeyed your consciences
rather than a sinful order. The church, the defender of the rights
of God, of the law of God, of human dignity, of the person, cannot
remain silent before such an abomination. We want the government
to face the fact that reforms are valueless if they are to be
carried out at the cost of so much blood. In the name of God,
in the name of this suffering people whose cries rise to heaven
more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you in
the name of God: stop the repression.
The church preaches your liberation just as we have studied
it in just as we have studied it in the holy Bible today. It is
a liberation that has, above all else, respect for the dignity
of the person, hope for humanity's common good, and the transcendence
that looks before all to God and only from God derives its hope
and its strength.
From The Church and Human Liberation, March 14, 1980.
Human
Rights Documents