I am away visiting family this week, so in my absence I offer these words spoken in 1980 by Oscar Romero, Roman Catholic Archbishop of El Salvador, to those in his country who were committing violence in support of an oppressive regime:
Easter is a shout of victory. No one can extinguish that life which Christ revived. Not even death and hatred against him and against his Church will be able to overcome it. Lent is a call to celebrate our redemption in that difficult complex of cross and victory…
I would like to make a special appeal to the men of the National Guard, the police, and the military. Brothers, you come from our own people. You are killing your own brother peasants. No one has to comply with an immoral law…In the name of God, and in the name of this long-suffering people, whose laments rise to heaven every day more tumultuous, I beseech you, I beg you, I command you in the name of God: Cease the repression!
The Church preaches…a liberation that holds, above all, respect for human dignity, the salvation of the common good of the people, and the transcendence that looks above all else to God, and from God alone derives its hope and its strength.
Let us now proclaim our faith in this truth.
Amen!
