SUPER MARTYRIO

POLYCLINIC PIETÀ

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The scene was Policlínica Salvadoreña on Monday, March 24, 1980.  While a “pieta” in Western art is a reverent scene of the soon-to-be-resurrected Christ, attended by the Virgin or by holy women and angels, in martyrdom of the 20th century, the reality is grittier.  Archbishop Romero is surrounded by mourners, journalists and on-lookers.


In this clip, the young doctor on duty at Policlínica matter-of-factly answers a journalist’s questions and sets forth the base facts of the raw reality that night.  (Super Martyrio Translation.)

DOCTOR:

And see, Mgr. Romero came in with a bullet wound—fatal, you know? Lodged in the left, fourth interspace of the thorax. It penetrated into his heart and that was the cause of death.

REPORTER:

Was he alive when he arrived at the hospital?

DOCTOR:

No. No. Um, we did everything that humanly could be done—medically—but Monsignor arrived, well, dead, almost, one might say, you see. But all that was done—medically, the correct things were done—but nevertheless he could not recover.

REPORTER:

Was that the only wound he had?

DOCTOR:

Yes, only wound, only wound.

REPORTER:

What time was Mgr. Romero admitted to the Polyclinic?

DOCTOR:

He entered the Polyclinic at six-thirty in the evening.

REPORTER:

Great.