In previous posts, we have looked at the way the
story of Socrates in Ancient Greece and “The
Matrix” in Hollywood’s imaginary future both provide parallels that shed
light on the argument that Archbishop Óscar
A. Romero was killed in hatred of the Christian faith. Today, we use William Shakespeare’s “Romeo
and Juliet” (1597) to explain another aspect of Romero’s martyrdom cause, which
is easier to grasp than the first two, but still is enriched by the literary
comparison.
The Salvadoran Church has posited that Romero demonstrated a
Gospel-inspired love for the poor, but his pure and saintly love was
misconstrued by Salvadoran society and violently rejected. The argument is straightforward enough, but
it is dramatically illustrated in Shakespeare’s masterpiece. In “Romeo and Juliet,” two young people fall
in love. Their love is innocent and pure
but, because they come from two rival families, it receives a very hostile
reception. The rudimentary elements were
present in El Salvador during Romero’s time, a country polarized between
leftist radical insurgents and a rightwing military defending the status
quo. Archbishop Romero made a
Gospel-based “preferential option for the poor,” but his act of love was
interpreted as a political election by both camps.
“Two households,”
in the “fair Verona” of Shakespeare’s play, “From ancient grudge break to new mutiny/Where civil blood makes civil
hands unclean.” (Prologue 1-4.) The
“ancient grudge” in El Salvador was
social unrest that dated at least as far back as the 1920s, when major
discontentment against the broad social inequality between the landowners and
the peasants led to an uprising and a subsequent massacre in 1932, in which 10,000
to 40,000 peasants were killed by the army.
“We are polarized,” Archbishop
Romero admonished
his countrymen in 1980. “We have placed ourselves at one extreme of a
pole, are intransigent in our thinking, incapable of reconciliation, hating one
another unto death.” Such an
environment is toxic for untainted love.
The wholesome and blameless nature of Romeo and Juliet’s love
is attested to by the religious terms with which Shakespeare has the young
lovers describe their courting (words such as “shrine”, “pilgrim” and “saint” recur in Act I, Sc. 5). Archbishop Romero described what motivated
his pastoral action when he spoke about Father Rutilio Grande, the first priest
assassinated in El Salvador during Romero’s time as archbishop. Calling Fr. Grande’s motivation “true
love,” Archbishop Romero said of Fr. Grande
words that we may apply to Romero as well: “A
priest with his campesinos, walking to meet his people, to identify himself
with them, to live with them—this is an
inspiration of love and not revolution.” Romero noted that “it was at the time when Father Grande walked among the people,
proclaiming the message of salvation and the Mass, that he was shot down.” He insisted that the Church’s option was
based on the “one faith that leads us
along paths that are quite distinct from other ideologies that are not of the
Church—paths that offer an alternative to these ideologies: the cause of love.”
One of the reasons this “love” was rejected in the highly
polarized society of El Salvador is that it was seen as a betrayal by the
powerful classes who had assumed Romero was on their side. In “Romeo and Juliet,” the Capulets reject
their own daughter because she refuses to conform to their expectations about
who she should marry (Act III, Sc. 5).
In El Salvador, Archbishop Romero did not act in conformity with the
expectations of many who had supported his nomination for archbishop, that he
would side with the ruling class and not criticize the government, and this was
seen as treason. But Romero made his
option for the poor because he recognized
that it was the path to Christ: “As we
draw near to the poor, we find we are gradually uncovering the genuine face of
the Suffering Servant of Yahweh.”
Shakespeare’s play, like Romero’s assassination, shows how
love provokes hatred from a society steeped in hate. In the final comparison, just as Romeo and
Juliet’s deaths reconciled the feuding families in the Shakespeare tragedy,
Archbishop Romero’s martyrdom and canonization may greatly contribute to the
reconciliation of the Salvadoran family.
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