The last time
Archbishop Óscar A. Romero met with the newly Blessed Paul VI, the weary Pontiff’s words were a
balm to the suffering Salvadoran martyr:
I
understand your difficult work. It is a work that can be misunderstood … I
already know that not everyone thinks like you do … Nevertheless, proceed with
courage, with patience, with strength, with hope ...
It was June
21, 1978 and Pope Paul would be dead within two months: on August 6, 1978, the
Feast of the Transfiguration, the Salvadoran patronal celebration, as Romero
was happy to remember. “The Pope stretched out his hands with the
warmth and the strength of one who supports all the Pastors and the whole
Universal Church,” Romero told his flock. Paul’s consolation,
Romero wrote in his Diary, “gave
me the satisfaction of a confirmation of my faith, of my service, of my joy in
working and suffering with Christ, for the Church and for our people.”
 |
| Montini's photo on top of Romero's bedside dresser. |
Two years
later, Romero would be dead also, but could things have been different? Msgr. Orlando Cabrera, the Bishop of Santiago
de Maria in El Salvador, where Romero had been bishop, posits that if Paul had
lived, he would have raised Romero to the College of Cardinals, perhaps forcing
a different outcome ...
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