SUPER MARTYRIO

NEW ROMERO WRITINGS ONLINE

[Index]

How would you like to be a fly on the wall at a meeting on the Latin American Church’s prophetic ministry featuring such leading lights as Archbishop Óscar Romero; the Guatemalan human rights martyr Bishop Juan Gerardi; the legendary Salvadoran progressives, Archbishop Luis Chávez y González and Archbishop Arturo Rivera y Damas; Nicaragua’s individual rights advocate, Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo; and Argentina’s master of the social doctrine, Cardinal Eduardo Pironio?

Just such a meeting occurred in August 1972 in Antigua, Guatemala, and Archbishop Romero described the event, held long before the hours of trial for these clerics, as “the Cenacle of a Central American Pentecost.” (O.A. ROMERO, Noticias de Monseñor Romero [Msgr. Romero’s Report], DIARIO DE ORIENTE, Vol. 30822, Sept. 5, 1972, available here-Spanish.) The article was recently published by the San Salvador Archdiocese’ canonization office—one of over six hundred such articles recently published for the first time on the Internet on the canonization office web site.

The materials that have been published were among the writings submitted to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints as part of Archbishop Romero’s canonization file, and likely are being reviewed by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which currently retains the file. Super Martyrio is reviewing the materials and will provide continuing overview and analysis of their contents here.

The materials consist of articles and commentaries by Archbishop Romero published in Semanario Chaparrastique (Jan. 1945-Sept. 1967); Diario de Oriente (Jan. 1968-Oct. 1976); La Prensa Gráfica (Jun. 1969-Aug. 1972); Semanario El Apostol (Sept. 1975-Nov. 1976); and Semanario Orientación (May 1971-Dec. 1978). The materials have not yet been translated to English and the collection is not text searchable in its current format, but it nonetheless constitutes a treasure trove for students of Romero.

Other Romero materials already online include Romero’s sermons from his brief ministry as Archbishop of San Salvador in English and Spanish, Romero’s pastoral letters in English and Spanish, Romero’s diary from the San Salvador years in Spanish, and, most recently, Romero’s photographs, which shed significant light on his outlook and sensibilities. This most recent addition from the collection of articles throw open the gates into four decades of Romero’s priesthood and episcopal career.