Last week, I attended the launch day and dedication service of St Oscar Romero Catholic School, formerly named Chatsmore High School. Chatsmore, as it was named, has long been one of our community’s schools where faith shines through. It is good that our faith schools are open to children from families who do not claim church links. They instil in their community the principles championed by Romero: acceptance, service and selflessness as fundamental pursuits of our lives.
Du...ring the 1970s, El Salvador was engulfed in deep internal strife and violent conflict. The country was on the brick of civil war throughout Romero's three years as archbishop of the capital city. Romero, from the pulpit and on the radio, broadcasted the unvarnished truth to parishioners, to the country’s public and the international community watching on with horror.
Through his preaching, Romero sought to console the afflicted, to denounce the criminal, to support the just claims of the people and to give hope.
I was part of the Parliamentary Human Rights Group’s delegation who visited El Salvador, against the advice of the Foreign Office, to inform Romero that we had nominated him for the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize. We saw, first hand, the atrocities being committed by the Government forces. Innocent citizens were being physically and mentally tortured privately, in prisons, and publicly, on the street. Romero continued, steadfast, highlighting the worsening abuse of human rights in El Salvador. I remembered Romero’s reply when I asked how he viewed prospective martyrdom: “We can agree that worse things happened to better people than us?”
Less than a year later, I attended Romero’s funeral, representing the British Council of Churches, on a deeply memorable Palm Sunday in 1980.
Tragically, his assassination while celebrating Mass in a hospital chapel was followed by the deaths of 14 more people around us during the funeral.
In 2017, I joined the congregation at the Westminster Abbey service that marked the 100th anniversary of his birth. I was one of the few there to have considered him a friend.
