BEATIFICATION OF ARCHBISHOP ROMERO,
MAY 23, 2015
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| Distributing Communion at the altar rail; the Apopa Sermon. |
To say “Rutilio Grande” and “conversion” is to evoke the impact that the murder of Father Grande had on Blessed Oscar Romero—what Pope Francis calls the great miracle of Father Grande. But we may not think of the conversion that had to come first—the conversion of Rutilio Grande himself. Again, Pope Francis shows us evidence of that conversion: “He left the ‘center’ to go to the peripheries.”
[See also: El Salvador’s forgotten martyr]
The Holy Father
speaks with wisdom. Father Grande himself admits that his conversion process
was completed with his pastoral insertion in his “peripheral” parish: Grande
professed to have undergone “two conversions”: one after Vatican II, and the
second when he left the seminary where he was rector and took up as pastor in
his hometown of Aguilares. “He left the ‘center’
to go to the peripheries.” Or as Father Salvador Carranza explains, “we can simply say that going in a team to
Aguilares marks the crossing of the Red Sea of the exodus or ‘return to Galilee’
of the followers of Jesus.”
In making this
reflection as we celebrate the 39th anniversary of the assassination of Father
Grande on March 12, we might be wondering whether his death is close to being recognized for
the martyrdom it was, and whether we can expect an announcement to that effect
in the context of this anniversary. Sources close to the process have confirmed
to «Super Martyrio» that the cause is proceeding slowly,
not for any substantive reasons, just the ordinary bureaucracy that
characterizes these processes. Elsewhere, «Super
Martyrio» has learned that the documentation for the three miracles attributed to Blessed Romero announced by the
Salvadoran Church in early October of last year was just forwarded to the Vatican in January. Two women and a man
recovered from incurable cancer, and a coma. The progress of the two cases—Grande
and Romero—is being coordinated to try to finish the two causes together. Grande
and Romero; always together!
The conversion
of Father Grande has great parallels with the conversion of Archbishop Romero.
For example, the decisive break in Romero’s conversion is his decision to sever
relations with the government. Clearly, after March 1977, Archbishop Romero
showed a complete lack of confidence in the good faith and credibility of the
Salvadoran state. The same is evident in the mind of Grande, and the difference
is evident if we compare two of his important sermons.
The first is
the Homily on the Feast of the Transfiguration, which Grande gave in the
Cathedral of San Salvador in August 1970. Invited to deliver this important
speech in national life, in front of the diocesan clergy and the great statesmen,
Fr. Grande appears to trust the good faith of the national leaders, exhorting
them fraternally to conversion:
The
Hon. President of our Republic here present and every constituted government, can
be fully assured, that in this clearly evangelical line, this line of the Pope
and all the bishops of the universal Church, they will always have the cooperation
of the Church in our country, with a view to achieving together, jointly, the total,
complete and true transfiguration of each and all of the inhabitants of this sacred
land to which we were born, which we love, and for whose good we all have to aspire
...
The
Church within its sphere and the Government within its own, with mutual respect
within their legitimate areas must collaborate effectively, boldly and urgently
in order to promote “fair, honest and appropriate laws”, as required by the “sovereignty”
of the people in Article 1 of our constitution.
Seven years
later, in his famous “Apopa Sermon,”
Father Grande lets us glimpse that he has left behind all naive belief that
government can be a partner of the Church in the pursuit of social peace:
We
have said that there is in this country, a nominalist, false
democracy. There is much talk, mouths are full of “democracy”. The power of the
people is in the hands of a minority, not the people! Let us not fool
ourselves! ...
No
privileged minority in our country has, a Christian purpose for being in and of
itself, but according to the vast majority who make up the Salvadoran people.
Neither
do we religious minorities have such purpose, nor the conscious elites of our
Christianity, including their lay leaders and ordained ministers or minorities
who hold political, economic or social power. They have no reason to be unless
they are for the people!
Prophetically, “Father
Tilo” questions the legitimacy of the Church when it becomes a “religious minority”, an “elite of Christianity” and accuses the
hierarchy of wanting to become a partner of oligarchic power in these
circumstances. Where before, Father Grande had spoken of a collaboration
between the religious elite and government elite, now he warns that such
collaboration must never impose its own vision on the people, but must act “according to the vast majority who make up
the Salvadoran people.”
In fact, before
he gravitated toward the periphery, Father Grande had a guaranteed place in the
center. His studies and formation had been privileged: first, Venezuela, Quito
and Panama, then Spain and Belgium. His rise in the San José de la Montaña Seminary
pointed upwards: he served as a teacher, pastoral animator and prefect of
discipline. He could have become a great thinker, a molder of opinion within
the ruling class, shaping the political discourse and thinking of the rulers.
But Father Tilo decides to leave it all behind to draw near to the poor and
marginalized. He would return to his hometown.
“Man’s greatness is not going to the big
city, is not having titles, riches, money,” Blessed Romero preached when he
marked the first anniversary of Father Grande in El Paisnal. “True greatness ... is not to have gone from
here to be richer in another town but to return to his people, loving his own, being
more human. This is true greatness. True development consists not in having
more but in being more.” (March 5, 1978 Homily.)
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