Fundación Romero in San Salvador has announced the theme for the 34th
Anniversary of the Martyrdom of Archbishop Óscar A. Romero, which will be observed on March
24, 2014. The cover of the Liturgical Calendar published by Fundación for 2014 reveals the slogan,
taken from Archbishop Romero’s homily on October 30, 1977: “The
pastor must be where there is suffering.” The calendar features a photo
of the martyred archbishop, walking on railroad tracks in a San Salvador slum,
the “La Chacra” Community, accompanied
by residents of that neighborhood and two Sisters of the Assumption from the place, Sr. Ignacia and Sr. Carmen. The photo was taken on Monday, September 3, 1979.
It is probably no coincidence that the theme chosen fits
well with the message of Pope Francis, who in his speech to the first group of new bishops appointed during his pontificate, exhorted: “Do not close yourselves in! Go down among your faithful, even into the
margins of your dioceses and into all
those peripheries of existence where there is suffering, loneliness and
human degradation.” The new pope has been extolling as priorities the
approaches to the small, to the suffering, constructing “a poor church for the poor,” with “pastors with the odor of the sheep,”
etc. Undoubtedly, Archbishop Romero fits the criteria established by Pope
Bergoglio, and the theme chosen by the Romero Foundation for the 34th
anniversary memorializes the happy coincidence.
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