At the ecumenical Commemoration of the Martyrs and Witnesses of the Faith of the 21st century held at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls on September 14, 2025, Pope Leo XIV began the ceremony quoting Oscar Romero:
Let us also give account of the hope that has been poured into our hearts with the same confidence as Saint Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, who preached that our God “is a God who wants to be with men, a God who feels the pain of those who are tortured and killed, a God who restores faith in the Church. He is a living God, who feels, acts, works, and guides this history, and in him we hope, in him we trust.”
The reference is a mini lesson on the New Martyrs, of which Romero, the Salvadoran archbishop assassinated in 1980 because of his forceful defense of the poor, is himself an emblem.
Pope Leo’s selection of the phrase to set the tone for the commemoration is telling, especially on the same day in which Crux published an interview in which Leo told journalist Elise Ann Allen that the “appreciation that I have for the life of the Church from Latin America” informs his hope for “a true prophetic vision for the Church today and tomorrow.”
Romero is central to the prophetic vision of the Latin American Church, so we need to unpack some of the background and context to understand the significance of the words from Romero that Pope Leo chose to quote during this commemoration.
First, the definition of martyrdom was slowly expanded through the late twentieth century – the time when Romero lived (and died). As early as the late 18th century, during the French Revolution, it was difficult to assess whether Catholics were persecuted due to anti-religious animus or for political reasons.
The problem intensified during the Spanish Civil War in the early twentieth century, and later during the Second World War. When the Church canonized St. Maximillian Kolbe, who killed by the Nazis when he volunteered to take the place of another man who was going to be killed, interpreting the motive was so tricky that the Church nearly abandoned the idea of treating Kolbe like a martyr in favor of considering him a “regular” saint (called a “confessor” in canonization parlance). Romero would become the ultimate mixed motive case because his denunciations of human rights abuses in El Salvador coincided with the views of leftwing insurgents fighting the government.
The second consideration is the prophetic ministry of the Latin American Church since the time of the Second Vatican Council. As recounted by Pope Benedict XVI, who was a young theological consultor to the Council, “it was not only the Americans who intervened forcefully in the unfolding of the Council, but also Latin America, well aware of the extreme poverty of its people, on a Catholic continent, and the responsibility of the faith for the situation of these people.”
As a result of the Latin American bishops’ intervention, the Council issued documents like the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes on the Church and the modern world. The opening lines of this document (“The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ”) are paraphrased in Romero’s words quoted by Leo, which remind us that God hears the cries of those who suffer, and that is why we, too, must hear.
Third, the Latin American bishops doubled down on these pronouncements, issuing their own documents in the years and decades that followed, such as the document produced by their conference in Medellin, Colombia of 1968. The opening lines of the Medellin document denounced “the misery that besets large masses of human beings in all of our countries,” declaring, “That misery, as a collective fact, expresses itself as injustice which cries to the heavens.”
Beginning reluctantly, Romero took up this call and ultimately became a leading light and voice across the continent. He issued four pastoral letters interpreting the Council, much like the body of the Latin American bishops had at Medellin, but written in the context of the Salvadoran reality.
Romero explained that his preaching came after asking God in prayer,
“How do you want me to speak at this time in history?” And Jesus tells me, “You must speak differently from the way they spoke four centuries ago or in the Middle Ages or in the first years of Christianity. I am Christ who walks with you. I need your mouth to preach to men and women of 1977 in the language that they need.”
The fourth consideration is that Romero’s interpretation proved a bitter pill for much of the Church to swallow. Many Salvadoran Catholics rejected it — although, to be fair, many rejected (or disregarded) the social pronouncements of the Council as well. The Salvadoran government lodged an objection with the Vatican Secretary of State to try to block Romero’s canonization.
Pope Francis attested to the opposition to Romero within the Church: “I was a young priest and I witnessed this — he was defamed, slandered, soiled, that is, his martyrdom continued even by his brothers in the priesthood and in the episcopate.”
Romero’s canonization cause was controversial and openly opposed by some. This begs the question: why is Pope Leo pointing to Romero as an exemplar of martyrdom?
Fifth and finally, that’s exactly the point: Romero exemplifies the martyr as the proverbial calm in the eye of the storm.
During the Sunday Mass on March 9, 1980, Romero had to decide whether to have the bodies of a young Olympian, academic, and activist and his Danish wife — who had been killed by a death squad — present at the Mass he presided. Romero cautioned the young man’s mother that might be chaotic to be injected into the national spotlight with Romero present. The mother was untroubled and Romero was moved by her serenity in that maelstrom.
Romero told the crowd that the mother was a “truly pious soul” who was able to accept that the Church had to touch on the political reality because politics is subject to “the dominion of God.” It was in that context that Romero pointed out that the Christian God is not an absentee father but is present and active in history (the quote Pope Leo cited). Romero’s martyrdom arises from his complete faith in that fact.
Martyrs today give witness to the fact that God has not abandoned us, even in the most modern of realities. The controversies that roiled Romero’s time did not trouble the saint because he set his gaze on God, and the polarizations of our day should not trouble us if we trust in God fully. That seems to be Pope Leo’s message in citing Romero — while also hoping that we will entrust the reform and continuity of Church processes with the same faith — as his model of martyrdom.
Images: (1) Romero. By J. Puig Reixach / http://www.puigreixach.net/ – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25028076. (2) Pope Leo (Vatican Media)
Carlos X. Colorado is an attorney and blogger from Southern California. He tracked the canonization of St. Oscar Romero in his «Super Martyrio» blog from 2006-2018. He is a member of the board of the St. Thomas More Society of Orange County, a Catholic lawyer group.
Popular Posts