National Catholic organizations commemorate Archbishop Romero with a call for peace

Social justice news
March 2005

National Catholic organizations commemorate Archbishop Romero with a call for peace
Washington, D.C. - On February 17, 1980, Archbishop Oscar Romero addressed a letter to President Jimmy Carter pleading with him to not send military aid to the Salvadoran government. One month later, Romero was brutally assassinated.

Twenty-five years later, a number of national organizations with strong Catholic constituencies honor Archbishop Romero by calling on churches to reclaim his example and call on President Bush to end the war in Iraq, to repudiate the use of torture, to stop attacks on immigrants, and to work more closely with the United Nations to achieve peace.

“Archbishop Romero knew very well that the gospel mandates the Church to exercise its influence in the public arena, offering pastoral judgments on issues of war and peace, national security and the economy, and bearing witness to its teaching by calling the faithful to clear ethical and moral actions,” said Scott Wright of the Religious Task Force on Central America and Mexico. “No doubt he would condemn, as did religious leaders around the world, a preemptive war on Iraq as unjust, immoral and a violation of international law.”

Dave Robinson, executive director of Pax Christi USA, pointed out that Archbishop Romero would not be silent today on the situation in Iraq.

“He would speak for U.S. soldiers at risk in Iraq; for their anxious and grieving families; for the Iraqi victims and survivors of torture; for the Iraqi civilians and their families killed in the war,” Robinson said. “He would proclaim the duty of every Christian and citizen to resist unjust wars. And he would remind every soldier–as he did in his famous last homily–of the duty of conscience to obey God’s law before obeying an unjust order to kill.”

To commemorate the 25th anniversary of the martyrdom of Romero, the statement issued by Pax Christi USA, Religious Task Force on Central America and Mexico, and the SHARE Foundation: Building a New El Salvador Today calls on Catholic clergy and laity alike to speak out, to use positions of influence, to offer another way.

“Lent is a season of repentance, a time for conversion. Let us be faithful to the spirit of this season, and worthy of Oscar Romero, by our actions for justice and the risks we take for peace, by our boldness in proclaiming the Gospel and the courage to bear the cost,” stated Wright.

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