BEATIFICATION OF ARCHBISHOP ROMERO,
MAY 23, 2015
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Children examine Bl. Romero's pectoral cross; Evo Morales presents Francis hammer & sickle cross. |
Blessed Oscar
Romero and Fr. Luis Espinal Camps, SJ, were killed days apart in March 1980. But they may have been worlds apart in their attitudes about the sacred and the
profane. A minor tempest was unleashed when
Bolivian President Evo Morales gave Pope Francis a crucifix designed by Fr. Espinal. The sculpture took the corpus or body from a
traditional crucifix and affixed it to a decidedly untraditional form—the Communist
hammer and sickle.
The fusion of
the ultimate symbol of Christianity with the ultimate symbol of Communism might
suggest a blending of Catholic ideas with Marxism along the lines of the most
radical strands of Liberation Theology.
If so, that is a synthesis Romero rejected out of hand. First, Romero rejected any alliance between
the Church and Communism:
·
“The
Church cannot be Communist ... The Church has little interest in whether
people have more or less. The Church,
however, is interested in those who have and don’t have, she promotes them and
wants them to be truly man and truly woman—to be children of God.” (June
19, 1977 sermon.)
·
“The
Church can never be an accomplice of an ideology that attempts to create, on this earth, a kingdom where men and women
will be completely happy. In other words, the Church cannot be communist.”
(August 21, 1977 Sermon.)
·
“The Church cannot be communist nor the
liberator that brings about worldly liberation.” (April 9, 1978
Sermon.)
Secondly,
Romero rejected any figurative commingling of the symbols of the Church with political
ones. This was, in part, because he wanted
to maintain reverence toward the sacred symbols of the Church. Miguel Cavada was a Romero scholar who met
Romero, and he recalled when activists were chanting political slogans
during a funeral mass while the choir was singing Church songs:
·
“Romero then grabs the microphone and says,
visibly angered: at least wait until I conclude this Holy Mass; afterwards, out in the street, you can yell all the
chants you want, but not in here.” (Cavada interview.)
·
“One
cannot insist that the Church or its ecclesial symbols become instruments of
political activity … If
Christians have matured in their faith and their political vocation, then
concerns of faith cannot be simply identified with a specific political
concern. Still less can the Church and
the organization be identified as one and the same reality.” (August 6,
1978 Sermon.)
Third and
finally, if Fr. Espinal intended his crucifix to only symbolize a “dialogue”
between Christians and Marxists, as has been reported, Blessed Romero had some
choice advice. Romero, too, was
interested in dialogue with popular organizations, and he made it a high
profile component of his pastoral mission to reach out. In fact, he did so knowing full well that his actions would be distorted, that he would be falsely accused of favoring Communism and that he might well die for it. In his fourth and final pastoral letter,
however, he laid out some concerns about Christian-Marxist dialogue:
·
Marxism,
as “a materialistic, atheistic ideology
that is taken to explain the whole of human existence and gives a false
interpretation of religion … is completely untenable by a Christian.”
·
Even
when Marxism is only “understood as a
scientific analysis of the economic and social order,” the “magisterium of the church (in Octogesima
Adveniens, for example) … prudently warns of possible ideological risks.”
·
Finally,
Romero cautioned that “greater hidden
dangers” lie in using Marxism as a political strategy, because “Marxist political praxis can give rise to
conflicts of conscience about the use of means and of methods not always in
conformity with what the gospel lays down as ethical for Christians. Such
political praxis can lead to the absolutization of popular political
organizations. It can dry up the Christian inspiration of their members, and
even cut them off from the church.”
Accordingly, Blessed
Oscar Romero entirely foreclosed any fusion between Christianity and Communism
and had significant concerns about a “dialogue” between the Church and
Marxism (and thus he undertook it with caution).
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